About

 

Hi, my name is Fritz Brand.  I grew up in a small town called Heidelberg in the Garden Route and I now live, work and play around Durbanville in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa.

My passion for food started at an early age.  I always enjoyed helping my Mom in the kitchen as a young boy.  Looking back I think I only really helped out when there was baking to be done, as it usually resulted in me receiving a huge pot of something delicious to scrape (and sometimes literally stick my face into and lick) clean.

As soon as I was old enough my Braai training started. As many other South African boys, I basically enrolled as my Dad’s apprentice.  This process  took +- 20 years (some would argue that it never ends) and consisted primarily of fetching the wood, building and lighting the fire, making sure the grids are clean, assisting with the packing of the meat onto the grids etc.

I later got promoted to actually braaing the meat while Dad kept a watchful eye.  I did fairly well on my own, but every now and then when I lost focus and made some sort of bugger up, I got and ear full and received instruction on the steps required to sort things out. The fact that I only really lost focus in the first place when asked to run into the house to fetch Dad a beer always got overlooked somehow.

I must admit that at the time I would have probably enjoyed playing TV games much more, but looking back I was busy soaking in a wealth of knowledge that money can’t buy, so Dad, thanks for making me your braai slave being such a great Dad.

Fast forward a few years and I ended up in Durbanville studying to be an IT guy.  During this time,  drinking and trying to impress girls /  buying and learning to play guitar, in order to impress girls social gatherings and the like represented a large chunk of my budget.

Junk food was high end food for me and my friends, but at times one had to weigh up your options.  Spend your last dime on expensive food, or make something to eat at the flat and go out, get hammered and make a fool of yourself while believing you are busy impressing girls spend your cash in a more productive manner.

I started fiddling about in the kitchen, making meals for my college friends.  It was soon discovered that I seemed to have a knack for this cooking thing and a new passion was born.

Fast forward a few more years and I got my hands on a copy of Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential.  I loved every single page of it and it inspired me to tackle a few more advanced recipes.  That Christmas I got a Victorinox Chef’s Knife under the tree and I’ve never looked back.

This site was started as a medium for me to document and share my findings in an accessible format, to help others on their way to becoming competent cooks. I am not a trained chef, nor do I claim to be a great cook (Ok I do, just a little).

The aim of this site is to share techniques, kitchen gear, skills and recipes using step by step instructions,  simple language and lots of photos to illustrate that cooking can be easy, enjoyable and fun!

Please feel free to comment on my posts and ask questions if something isn’t clear, I love hearing from you guys and will try my best to answer all your questions.

Cheers!