Spicy Chickpea & Pecan Nut Patties

At the risk of making you feel uncomfortable, and potentially invoking the need to have an awkward conversation with yourself (quelle horreur), I have to ask if you’ve read ‘Eating Animals‘ by Jonathan Safran Foer? He’s an acclaimed author turned self-appointed ‘food source investigator’ who was so shocked to discover the gruesomeness of animal farming in the US that he veered off his usual path of beautiful and insightful literary fiction and published a documentary-style book on the bottomless pit of horrors he unearthed. It’s a shocking read. The New York Times sums up the whole debacle pretty smartly right HERE. Read it, it’s riveting.

Lip-Smacking Smoked Snoek Pate

Being from a landlocked country, our friends from the sea feature far less often at our dinner table than they should, given that we are now living in Cape Town. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that I have a general ennui towards home-prepared seafood dishes, which is birthed largely out of ignorance. So I was a more than willing accomplice recently when MIL was visiting… (aka Mother in Law, and before you shudder, don’t bother – I lucked out rather significantly in this department. Babs is Fab.) Anyway, Babs arrived home one evening after trawling through a nearby organic market, and proudly proffered a rather princely fillet of smoked snoek. Her idea was to turn it into Snoek Pate…