Personally, I don't have a sweet tooth. I am not keen on puddings of any description. Nevertheless, here is a cheesecake which is extraordinarily simple to make and will wow the crowds. It's not an 'recession' cheesecake. Nor is it a diet cheesecake. But it really is a fabulous one! Keep it for really special occasions. I seem to remember that the original recipe came from Beanbag Bohemia, in Durban.
Praline cheesecake
2 packets Tennis biscuits
100g melted butter
6 large egg yolks
2 tins condensed milk
1t vanilla essence
900g Cream cheese
1 cup pecan nuts roughly chopped
In a food processor crumble the tennis biscuits and add the melted butter. Press the mixture into the base of a 22cm cake tin – (springform).
Beat the egg yolks and then add all the remaining ingredients and beat until smooth. Pour this onto the base and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes. Cool and release from the tin.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Riversdal: The Beauty and the Beast
Riversdal was named for the Civil Commissioner of Swellendam, Sir Harry Rivers, in 1838. It is a tiny little town, with a population of some 7000, on the N2 between Albertina and Mossel Bay. There seems to be some confusion amongst the locals about whether it is Riversdale (which would be the English version) or Riversdal, which would be the Afrikaans. I suppose it is either. But it is not "Riviersdal" - which would refer, not to a man going by the name of 'Rivers', but rather to the Afrikaans word for 'rivers'.
The houses in the centre of the town are really beautiful. The pictures I took are from just one of the streets I and a colleague walked down. "Couldn't you imagine bringing up you kids here?" she asked. I thought for a minute.
On the one hand, yes, of course I could. The houses all have low walls, if they have any walls at all. The gardens are huge. The town is picturesque and framed with mountains on either side. The fields lush and green. It is tranquil and idyllic.
But then I remembered that this is the town where one of the first Gay couples to legally marry in South Africa lives - (their names are Vernon Gibbs and Tony Halls), and I also remembered reading some time ago just how much stigmatization and ostracising they had to go through, living here. I hear that they have become more accepted over the years, but it must have been hard. Would I want my black adopted children with two male fathers to grow up here? No, I would not. Cape Town is tough enough.
The allure of popularist socialism
In an interesting, albeit entirely dismissive, article on “The Financial crisis and the rise of pseudo-socialists” published on Thought Leader, Sentletse Diakanyo starts by mapping the fall of World Communism, and continues with the situation at present, wherein a few countries – Cuba, North Korea and China - hold onto what he calls “the remnants of Communism”, while some Latin American countries have gravitated towards the left because of their Leader’s “desperate attempts to keep their filthy hands in the cookie jar”. In these countries, he argues, there is a growing realisation that “even misplaced nationalism can never make communism a logical and viable proposition.”
He then makes another point, which is probably correct : “The grand posturings of the pseudo-socialists in government impedes its capacity to resist the temptation to be caught up in the vicious cycle of populist rhetoric at a time when the economic circumstances demand a decisive response. There needs to be a concerted effort towards greater political alignment and economic integration [with the rest of the world] if Africa is to emerge from the rubbles of this economic meltdown prosperous.”
He continues: “Economic populism threatens the sustainable, long-term prosperity of the continent, in particular here in South Africa. Populists have already begun pitting the poor against the economic elites who are portrayed as the architects of the poor’s misery. History teaches us that we cannot afford to have laissez-faire capitalism reign supreme nor a paternalistic state that is out of touch with the economic realities of our country.”
Now, while this is all probably true, there is one element which the author does not deal with, but which to my mind, is the nub of the matter. It remains an outstanding element in the general arena of contestation for language and symbol. This is, after all, the arena on which the political game is played. It lies in the actual power which socialist language, concepts and symbols still retain within the South African context. And they do so for very good reason.
The words and concepts of the "left" still retain considerable power, because of the patently evident lack of actual content (and indeed delivery of basics) to the poor, by any previous government - capitalist (including racial capitalist) and smiling capitalist (which Diakanyo would term pseudo-socialist). That is not, as he would have it, a cynical pitting of the poor against the economic elites. It is just a fact of life, which one doesn’t have to play up or decorate in any way to make the issues representative of the experience of most people.
In the mind of the majority of poor people, there has got to be something in it for them, somewhere. That is the reason why the unashamed trumpeting rhetoric of the left , proves to be so enduringly popular. And it is not to say that these ideas are necessarily bad in themselves - they are usually obvious - it is rather the cynical use of them, while at the same time maintaining and promoting something so diametrically opposed to them, which is the worrying and disturbing element in our political framework at present.
Capitalism is really the only game in town, at the moment. But it would be very silly indeed to imagine that, therefore, Capitalism provides us with the answer to the problem. The problem was indeed caused by Capitalism, in its explicitly racial incarnation. The problem which it caused, in this neck of the woods, is still not fixed and there is no guarantee that it ever will be fixed, for once and for all, to the benefit of those who have suffered most under it. I have no doubt that we will plod on and that gradually, we will build more houses and put in more taps – but that is very unlikely to provide a quick enough fix to deal with the seemingly unstoppable problem of increasing poverty.
The poor are bound to notice 16,17,18 years from freedom, that either things are getting worse for them, or they are staying much the same. It is only the rich who may fail to make the connection. And that is essentially the problem, because an automatic binary relationship gets set up – essentially the insiders and the outsiders – and it is that context that the language and vocabulary of socialism (pseudo or otherwise) becomes a very suitable option for those who have nothing, and a very obvious means of whipping up support, by those who are, in fact, providing very little. Other than for themselves, of course.
He then makes another point, which is probably correct : “The grand posturings of the pseudo-socialists in government impedes its capacity to resist the temptation to be caught up in the vicious cycle of populist rhetoric at a time when the economic circumstances demand a decisive response. There needs to be a concerted effort towards greater political alignment and economic integration [with the rest of the world] if Africa is to emerge from the rubbles of this economic meltdown prosperous.”
He continues: “Economic populism threatens the sustainable, long-term prosperity of the continent, in particular here in South Africa. Populists have already begun pitting the poor against the economic elites who are portrayed as the architects of the poor’s misery. History teaches us that we cannot afford to have laissez-faire capitalism reign supreme nor a paternalistic state that is out of touch with the economic realities of our country.”
Now, while this is all probably true, there is one element which the author does not deal with, but which to my mind, is the nub of the matter. It remains an outstanding element in the general arena of contestation for language and symbol. This is, after all, the arena on which the political game is played. It lies in the actual power which socialist language, concepts and symbols still retain within the South African context. And they do so for very good reason.
The words and concepts of the "left" still retain considerable power, because of the patently evident lack of actual content (and indeed delivery of basics) to the poor, by any previous government - capitalist (including racial capitalist) and smiling capitalist (which Diakanyo would term pseudo-socialist). That is not, as he would have it, a cynical pitting of the poor against the economic elites. It is just a fact of life, which one doesn’t have to play up or decorate in any way to make the issues representative of the experience of most people.
In the mind of the majority of poor people, there has got to be something in it for them, somewhere. That is the reason why the unashamed trumpeting rhetoric of the left , proves to be so enduringly popular. And it is not to say that these ideas are necessarily bad in themselves - they are usually obvious - it is rather the cynical use of them, while at the same time maintaining and promoting something so diametrically opposed to them, which is the worrying and disturbing element in our political framework at present.
Capitalism is really the only game in town, at the moment. But it would be very silly indeed to imagine that, therefore, Capitalism provides us with the answer to the problem. The problem was indeed caused by Capitalism, in its explicitly racial incarnation. The problem which it caused, in this neck of the woods, is still not fixed and there is no guarantee that it ever will be fixed, for once and for all, to the benefit of those who have suffered most under it. I have no doubt that we will plod on and that gradually, we will build more houses and put in more taps – but that is very unlikely to provide a quick enough fix to deal with the seemingly unstoppable problem of increasing poverty.
The poor are bound to notice 16,17,18 years from freedom, that either things are getting worse for them, or they are staying much the same. It is only the rich who may fail to make the connection. And that is essentially the problem, because an automatic binary relationship gets set up – essentially the insiders and the outsiders – and it is that context that the language and vocabulary of socialism (pseudo or otherwise) becomes a very suitable option for those who have nothing, and a very obvious means of whipping up support, by those who are, in fact, providing very little. Other than for themselves, of course.
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