Grandad Johnny's Chilli Relish - Epic Taste

Grandad Johnny's Chilli Relish range has a rich story behind it. Here is one anecdotes of what the coolest and grumpiest old man used to get up to as a youngster.

Grandad Johnny was the eldest of five brothers and as such was expected to keep the order around the house when his mammoth-sized father was not around. Needless to say, Johnny was not the most well behaved lad, and got himself into many sticky situations, which were followed by many beatings. On one occasion the brothers decided to steal some dynamite from their old man's locked shed out back. Off they went into the old Transvaal wilderness to find something to obliterate something.

After a while they happened upon a small hillock, far enough away from civilization to go unnoticed and just the right size for blasting. So, the brothers embarked on some assisted excavations - in other words they blew the thing to hell and back. They had a total blast and then returned home. The days went by and life continued.

A week or so later, unbeknownst to Grandad Johnny, a story appeared in the local newspaper telling of the desecration of a historically significant hill; it had been a landmark in the Boer War. This senseless act could only have been undertaken by ruthless liberals bent on overthrowing the government.

Not long after, Mammoth great grandad Spencer was checking through the items in his shed, and noticed some dynamite was missing. Putting two and five together, the chain of events and proximity in walking distance to the infamously destroyed hill, he realized the significance of his missing dynamite.

Grandad Johnny was of course blamed for the entire 'Hill Incident'. He used to love telling me the story. The fiery old man passed down his fun-loving feisty character, which is what the relish is based on. 

Get some of Grandad Johnny's Chilli Relish if you're looking for some taste bud explosion. If dynamite is not your thing you can try the milder range of products. The taste is still epic, just like the old man.

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Day 2: of no smoking

I wonder if I can sneak a couple of drags here and there, but if I buy a cigarette, the disappointment will be palpable within me. I don't want to smoke, but I do! I do! Yes, I take thee Peter Stuyvesant to be my lawful affair! We'll run away together and I'll smoke any where, any time and on any day.

Oh bollox! And it's only day 2.

Fear of flying (Part 1)

God never intended for us to fly. It's just not natural. So, I'm freaking out about the unnatural transport I'm due to take, in four days, to Durban. I don't want to go! I do, but I don't! If you get my meaning. I hate flying. I freak out, unnaturally. I'll scratch the covering off the seats, I'll play with one button on my top, for the full flight. I'll even rock back and forth, because that's what you do when you're crazazy with anxiety and blocked ears.

My ears don't play ball due to anxiety. They're blocking now and I'm still on solid ground. They don't handle well on flights, at all. The pressure builds, they start to ache, and then I turn into a frenzied whop. My head feels like it's about to blow off my shoulders. I want to claw the doors open. I need fresh air. I need the cabin to decompress. I need them to land the plane NOW! I don't care that we're at thirty eight thousand feet, just let me out so my ears will equalize; and, I'll walk from here, thanks!

Wooooosaaa, woooosaaa. Oh, screw it! Where's the Xanax, Xanor, Valium, baseball bat to the head?

On the outside, I'm fidgeting a lot, and smiling like a psychotic. I'm pretending everything is normal. Ripping a book cover apart into small itty bitty shitty pieces, is a perfectly normal exercise for me when flying. I'm a total booklover on any other given day, but when flying I really couldn't give a flying shiz. The more normal my habits (like shredding perfectly fabulous books), the more natural blocked ears, and being strapped into tons of free-flying metal feels. My husband has no idea how much of a potential flight hazard I am. We've never flown together before. He'll pick it up when he sees our much-treasured copy of Lord Of The Rings shredded and covering the floor of the 200-seater plane. Pre-empting: Paola's ability to vividly imagine a devastating outcome when using something that many view as completely harmless, such as a cheese-grater. 

Clearly my fear is far too overwhelming. All signs of sanity become redundant as the plane doors close. I won't have enough stability left to try and reign in my frenzied anxiety. I need help or I'll attack the drinks cabinet like a rabid dog. I called the doctor yesterday and asked for more drugs than any one person is reasonably allowed to carry on their person without being labeled a "dealer". The ear issue is one thing, but the actual flight is a whole other ballgame altogether.

When I get on the plane, as a rule which I have no control over, I'm immediately steeped in anxiety. It climbs faster than any plane / jet, and envelopes me in a duvet of fear. Serotonin be damned. I go crazy while I'm waiting for other passengers, who are not even remotely phased about flying, to stow their luggage, make small-talk and pretend that this is completely normal! They laugh, "ha, ha, ha, yes, I'm going to see my grand-daughter, she's going to be one. It's the first time I'm meeting her. Ha, ha, ha, oh yes, isn't she lovely." Really?! Are you aware that you may still not meet her? Why aren't you running down the runway, screaming your head off about the fact that you may have just dammed yourself by deciding to fly? Don't you just wish a plane would land on you now and put you out of your misery? I do, because you're annoying me, not really actually, your calm behaviour is rather comforting, and yet you're annoying me. What else can I shred?

The cabin crew begin their safety talk thingymajig. I try to maintain emotional well-being while attempting to memorize the entire safety sheet, and praying that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN! I swear to give to the poor (all exits to your left, I think), not blaspheme anymore (no parachutes? But we're flying over land. What the HELL am I going to do with a bloody life-jacket while plummeting a gazillion feet a second?!), be nicer to my psycho neighbour (um, la la la laaaa!), and smile at everyone, while walking to church everyday henceforth. Clearly I think God has no idea what's really going on in my head, it's a war zone.

The plane bounces slightly as it's pushed back. There's still time for me to get off. If I scream and cry and start taking my clothes off, they'll definitely throw me off the plane. OKAY! Wait, but, my babies don't need to see their mother ripping her clothes off in front of 200 complete strangers. I'm going to have to maintain a facade of parental control, over myself, and show them how much "fun" this is. "Oh yay, look the plane is moving" (no, no, no). "Wow, we're moving towards the runway now. The runway is the looooong road which the plane roars down." (sob, sob, get me outta here!). "Mommy, what's that sound?" "Oh, that's nothing darling, that's just the plane getting ready for take-off." (WTF? F***K. What the bloody hell was that? Breathe, just breathe. Don't throw-up, keep it down!) "Mommy, you're hurting my hand." "Sorry honey, I'm just soooo excited to be flying with you for the first time." (If we go down, please let me totally accepting of being smashed to smithereens).

I'm singing Mozart's "Twinkle twinkle little star." It's not a mantra, but it's innocent enough to make me feel relatively calm. I move on to, "Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar, my daddy drives a rusty car. Start the starter, pull the choke, off we go in a cloud of smoke." Um, no, that's not doing me ANY good. No clouds of anything. No clouds! Breathe deeply. "This little piggy went to market..."

The plane starts taxiing, and I'm in for life! Sobbing my heart out, I know exactly what I'm going to feel, the moment it takes off. (There's not enough lift, we're going down. I can't deal with it, I need to scratch the skin off my hands. I need to get out of my body. I need to be anywhere else but here. I need to fly the plane, I have to be in control of it). Somehow I don't see them handing over control of an Airbus to an inexperienced psychotic passenger. It just wouldn't make good business sense.

My ears are starting to block. The pressure is mounting. Irrationally, I'm thinking about food. "Give me your sandwich." Husband: "Why?" Me: "Because if you don't, I'm going to rip my clothes off and then you'll be sorry." Husband (stupid grin): "Okay, you can't have my sandwich." Me: "Fine." I rip my kid's chocolate bar out of his hand. He's about to contest this clearly unfair decision, when I dare him, with the 'mom' look, to try and get it back. Chocolates, chips, candy sticks, Jack Daniels; all your "healthy" food groups. My daughter's bottle briefly considered, then not. Feeling ill from eating crap. Now, I'm willing to polish all passengers shoes, and clean the inside of the plane, if it means I don't have to sit in my seat for two hours and think about the fact that there's nothing between me and solid ground, but thirty eight thousand feet of cold, polluted, and in certain areas, stinking air. Yeah, because that's going to be my concern on the way down.

The plane levels out and the Captain does the 'ping' thing with the intercom system and I FREAK OUT! He's going to tell us something's wrong with the plane, and he'd like to wish us all the best on the way down, and for when we get to the Pearly Gates.

"This is your Captain speaking, the weather is great all the way to Durban. We'd like you to sit back, relax and enjoy the flight." Oh, no messages from St. Peter? Thank Heavens.

"Mommy, may I have another chocolate?" Me: "Yes babe! Have ten, twenty...in fact, you may have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, for the rest of your life." Clearly I'm not in the running for Mom-of-the-year.

Two hours have passed, my nerves are shot to shiz, my son wants to live on an aeroplane, my husband believes he's married a lost cause who'll strip for food, and my daughter is sleeping; because Stopaine is the Shiz!

'Ping' thingy on intercom system, again. Oh funion, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts! "We'll be landing at Shaka blah blah airport in ten minutes. Please ensure your trays are in the upright position, seat-belts fastened, and we'd like to thank you for flying blah blah Airways."

Oh the air-pressure again! Breathe, breathe, let me out of here, clothes off (in head), smash window (in head), punch anyone who tries to stop me (in head), steal chocolate from every kid on plane.

Four more sleeps until our flight. If I start walking now...

The rewarding side to parenting

When they move out!  At 2am it's not rewarding, it's a dam pain in my ass.

The crappy truth about pregnancy.

No it's not all spiritual feelings of bliss and thoughts of elevated consciousness when the baby moves within your blessed womb.  It's as exciting as staying home every night and watching your toe nails grow.

Do I care much for pregnancy right now?  No I do not.  Do I care that I have given up my freedom to sleep on my stomach, eat sushi loaded with wasabi and see my feet?  Yes I do.  Do I want everyone to be as miserable and uncomfortable as I am?  Yes I do and I don't feel bad for saying so either.

Do I feel badly for women who want to bitch because I am blessed to carry children?  I did up until week 30, now they can all kiss my fat floppy ass.  Don't tell me, "I'd do anything to vomit all day" because I'll show you just how "glamourous" nausea can be!  It's not a pretty sight honey!

How about that feeling of bonding with my baby because she's an extension of me?  Right now, there is NO bonding!  How does one bond with Xena Warrior Princess when she's trying to maim your insides?  What's the bet she attempts her getaway through my bellybutton before D-day.  

I'm often asked how the baby is doing?  How-is-the-baby-doing?!  Really?!  She is just FABULOUS!  She takes her beauty sleep princess-like naps during the day and does flamenco and kickboxing classes at about 3:00am. She's not a huge fan of dinner at 18:30 and prefers to take her coffee and cornflakes at 00:15.  She reacts to her father and her brothers voices by painfully jamming her head into the birth canal, a possibly escape attempt. She's a huge fan of using fluffy lungs as thigh masters and then settling between them for the three hours that she does sleep at night. Her life is busy, she's driven and it's her ambition to fracture one of my ribs before her dramatic entrance into this world.  Thanks for asking!

In the spirit of controversial honesty I feel I need to say something nice about pregnancy before I'm viewed as satan worse half.  Pregnancy will continue to be a bloody nightmare, and that includes the extended period of six weeks after the birth where you walk around with a surfboard between your legs.   Like it or not, you will average three hours sleep a night, look like a pissed bag lady and you'll definitely put the boiling kettle in the fridge more often than you care to think about.  But, I feel it's only fair to tell you it's well worth it when you do actually deliver.  I know it because this is my second pregnancy and I'm a sucker for the blissful "punishment" of parenthood where reflux, drooling, funny noises, toothy smiles and sausage toes replace fractured ribs, oxygen deprivation, and the desire to see everyone miserable around you.  But right now, you don't care if everyone is miserable, all you care about is sleep, making sense in your mother tongue, and re-building your now defunct,IQ. 

Baking a mess

I feel it only fair to tell you that I am Portuguese. I was raised in a very traditional Portuguese home where we sat down to dinner and ate dishes with lots of fish, cabbage and chick peas while my father rattled off in Portuguese while gesticulating A LOT. I also need to inform you that my mother was the only woman (on the face of the entire planet) in a Portuguese home, to ban her daughter from the kitchen. (I don’t want to talk about it). So here I am 34 years of age and tragically I possess no cooking or baking skills.
So as a mom who would firmly stand-OUT as a complete write-off at the annual bake-off, I decide that I will tentatively throw myself head first into baking. I run to Woolworths and buy the trusted, already put together, no mess, no fuss, a blind person could do this with their eyes shut, biscuit mix.
I have no doubt that plenty of scorn will be heaped upon my already over-spilling plate of shame because I don’t know how to bake.
To top it all off, mothers within a 500 000 km radius of Educare can tell a ready-mix from a “oh I just whipped this up in five minutes on my way back from the toilet” cake, but I am willing to take the scorn with an extra scoop of disgust if it means I won’t put anyone in hospital.
I run home and call for my little helper. “Gabe” I shout, “do you want to bake?” “Bakey bakey bakey cakey” says my very excited nuclear bomb as he arrives in the kitchen amid a flourish of Orca whales and sharks toys.
Eyes sparkling and cheeks all flushed from excitement, and his hot bath, Gabe starts demanding to see what I will be putting on top of the small, perfectly rounded (thanks to small shot glasses) mortar bricks (biscuits) I plan on building in the oven.
I take out little pink, purple and blue flowers with purple, yellow and pink butterflies and I am advised that “no girls can have my bikits mom”. First of all I don’t know how the cute flowers and butterflies found their way into our kitchen cupboard and secondly, I don’t know if I want the “bikits” leaving our house so I assure my little “girls are yuch” advisor that no girls will be having his biscuits. In fact, I am almost certain they will not be fit for human consumption.
We measure out the butter and cream it. That is a ton of fun, but when I rub butter on the baking tin Gabe rubs butter all over the counter.
I add the biscuit mix and start using that thing that you plug into the wall and it does all the whipping for you…the blender, the mixer, the hand blender/mixer? Gabe holds that for me, some mix ends up on the wall so he licks it off, I reprimand him and he promptly advises me to “stop making noise mommy”…Crikey, who is this kid?
I crack open an egg that ends up on the floor so I take a crack at another, add it to my mixture on the wall and after much whipping and praying, it starts turning into dough! Terrified I check the box and apparently this is what is actually supposed to happen with biscuit mixture!
“Clay clay, wanna build a car” screams mommy’s little helper, but I manage to divert his attention with a shot glass and convince him that making little round Frisbees is so much more fun than building a super cool sports car with front and rear suspension, drive shafts and a booster on the bonnet. Gabe ignorantly agrees.
The box says leave in for 8-10 minutes, I leave them in for 8, then 10..they still feel slightly soft in the middle so I leave them in for 12 minutes, then 15…okay so they’re still slightly soft but I take them out.
Suddenly, “surfs up mom!” shouts my wall licker while trying to get his fingers into the ‘Island Style’ salute. In doing so, he slips on a bit of egg I missed on the floor. I drop everything to check that he hasn't broken any bones and while I stress he shouts “wipeout!” with a huge grin on his face.
I frantically wipe up the egg and hope the biscuits have not turned to stone. No, but they are a golden, stoney brown and I VERY proudly put them out on display for dad to see when he gets home.
18:00: Dad arrives home and, to my utter disgust, is clearly shocked and surprised at my baking skills, so much so, that I have to ask him to close his mouth on more than one occasion.
Sadly by the time dad arrived home the biscuits had hardened into miniature rounds of cement. Gabe, in his very tactful toddler manner, wanted very little to do with them but was happy to scrape the flowers and butterflies off the cement tops with his teeth and discard the rest down the toilet, where I happened to find them floating with several Orca’s and sharks also trying to climb out the bowl at some stage I’m sure.
So, I stood by proudly and watched father and son play Frisbee with my R20 box of ready to mix, fail proof, biscuit mixture.

Eggs - the pain in my ass

I rolled over on Friday morning relishing the fact that I did not have to get up for school, then reality hit. In came my very own, self-made, tornado, all of three-years-old, with enough nuclear energy to keep Eskom in the black for a while. "Eggs, eggs!", screams the tornado.

As I dragged my protesting body from the bed and hauled it all-the-way to the kitchen in our huge (cubbyhole) house, nuclear bomb keeps going, "Eggs, eggs!" C'mon, how about some rice crispies with cold milk on this already freezing cold winter morning instead?" Nope, "eggs!" I made the eggs and they were...promptly discarded. You will need to read "Baking a mess" to understand any of this.

In fact I'm too exhausted now to talk about it.