South Africa Diary II: Rachel heads to Joburg and Kruger National Park

The Australian chef Curtis Stone was cooking some very Australian/California cuisine. He’s known for his show Surfing the Menu and he lives in LA now. He cooked prawns with chilli, lemon, garlic and ginger on the barbeque, which was absolutely delicious.

David Thompson was also there cooking Thai food. He’s writing a book on Thai street food at the moment. I craved all the food he was making. It was so fresh, spicy and just gorgeous. David made an amazing mixed vegetable and fruit salad with basil, dill, coriander and sesame seeds. I had that every day - it really brought me back to Thailand. David is a purist and he doesn’t like anything prepared in advance, which meant his demonstrations went way over time!

There were also some great British chefs there—Brian Turner, Patrick Williams, Chris and James Tanner and Andrew Nutter. Andrew’s name is fitting, as he is a nutter by name and a nutter by nature! He kept us laughing the whole weekend. He whoops with delight a lot. He’s just hysterical, but also very serious about food.

For my demo, I cooked a green leaf and pea soup, an Arabian spiced rack of lamb with mint couscous and a chocolate amaretto cake. The organisers had asked for something fresh for summer and a meal that could be made in half an hour. I prefer to do the cooking in real-time during the demos so the menu worked well.

Shows like this are always good fun. It’s a great opportunity to see all the other foodie people working there. I also get to meet a lot of people who have been watching my programmes on TV. In Joburg, I also did some hands-on cooking classes for people who had copies of my books. People ask questions, and it’s always interesting. I get new ideas for things to do in the future. And I come away feeling that I’ve really reached an audience.

After the show, Isaac, the boys and I took two small planes to get to the Ngala Private Game Reserve in Kruger National Park. It was an amazing journey as the planes stopped at every safari lodge on the way, and ours was the last. Some of the landing strips were just dust tracks and we often flew quite low. I was thinking, oh my goodness, I’m nearly seven months pregnant, what am I doing?!

We are unbelievably in the middle of nowhere. When we were flying in, I was thinking, I’m going there? In Africa, there is so much land that is undeveloped. The Kruger National Park is fantastic because this whole area is a reserve. At Ngala, everything is very ecological; there’s a lot of respect paid to the environment. They also make a pledge to give back to the local community.

We arrived at Ngala just before lunchtime and there was an incredible buffet with loads of salads. I have to admit, the food we ate at restaurants in Johannesburg was overall a bit disappointing—lots of meat and very heavy—so I welcomed the change! The restaurant here has a thatched roof and is just open, no walls. It’s near a natural water pool, and a whole family of elephants came down to the water while we were eating.

So far we’ve seen elephants, giraffes, buffalos, leopards, lions, warthogs, a family of baboons, impala and some hyenas, which were quite ugly and scary. The lions were just terrifying! They were just waking up, and one of them started walking toward the jeep. Lucca, my six-year-old, and I were just terrified! You can’t move or speak. But all the animals are familiar with the shape of the safari truck. They know what it is. When the lion yawned, I saw his teeth and once again, I was thinking, I’m pregnant and watching lions! Am I irresponsible?

This morning we were up at 5 a.m. and went back on safari. When you’re out on the drive, there are two guides. They both grew up quite nearby and they know this place and the animals so well. We were out for four hours and didn’t realize the time was passing. One guy was sitting on the front of the jeep looking for footprints. We saw leopard footprints and he took off to find them. We drove through the bush and then, sure enough, we found the leopards.

Half-way through the drive they stopped and took out a picnic table and gingham table cloth and we had an amazing picnic! They had great hot chocolate for the boys. I was drinking a shandy and eating delicious dried mango and pineapple and dried nuts, all made at Ngala. Isaac was sitting there in a safari jacket sipping a gin and tonic. It was all really very Indiana Jones!

It’s just gorgeous here and all you can do is relax. Our mobiles don’t work and the internet is down. Really, I could do with another few days but tomorrow we fly all day to get back to Zurich. Isaac and the boys will go home, and then I’m off to Paris to celebrate my mum’s birthday. . .