Search results for ""Author Bertus Basson""

People always ask me when I'm bringing out a cookbook. It's kind of what you do when you're a chef: Work crazy hours, build a reputation, bring out a cookbook, buy an island and retire. So here it is. My first cookbook. It might not be the cookbook you're expecting, but it tells snatches of the story of my culinary journey. There are some classic Overture recipes in these pages. It also has some recipes that have travelled everywhere with me, from kitchen to kitchen, in my career. Here and there are dishes that made me want to be a chef. Mostly, though, this book is about memories. Cooking for me is as much about memory as it is about the plate of food. For me, recipes are a sort of map of where I come from, what I've been doing or experiencing. My fine dining recipes and the stuff I cook at home draw on the personal and cultural memories of an Afrikaans kid who didn't eat his vegetables. It's also about how I continue to make food memories all the time, immersing myself in the cultural diversity of South African cuisine. Homegrown is about how my Ma's melk tert recipe inspired one of the most popular desserts at Overture.It makes the connection between fishing with my dad when I was a kid, and how I respect and work with seafood today. It looks at how the new trend of live fire cooking is old hat in the shisanyamas of working-class South Africans and what they can teach the world about flavour. Those flavours, smells and memories of growing up in South Africa make me the cook I am. They make me Homegrown.

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So just who is Bertus Basson? A dreamer, successful entrepreneur, braaimaster, genius, fanatic or chef extraordinaire? He is, of course, all of those things. This extraordinary cookbook, beautifully photographed by the legendary Claire Gunn, follows the success of Bertus’s first cookbook Homegrown, now almost out of print. But this one is different. In it you will feel the drive and energy of this whirlwind of a man. The book offers inspiration to those of us who sit, mouths agape, wondering just how Bertus and his remarkable wife have so successfully built multiple restaurants. It presents an inside look into these restaurants from the story of the beginnings and growth of signature restaurant Overture, to Spice Route, wildly popular with the tourist crowds, and Spek & Bone, the small-plate wine bar in Stellenbosch, through to his love affair with burgers and just how De Vrije Burger was conceptualised and brought to life. Being Bertus Basson, or BBB as this book has fondly become known, is a combination of all that makes up Bertus. There’s a bit of entrepreneurial spice; a dollop of the practical advice that makes him such a successful restaurateur. For all those who’ve eaten or who’ve dreamed of eating at one of the restaurants so beautifully photographed in the book, here’s how to do it. The recipes will surprise you with their simplicity and quirkiness, show you just how to step beyond the usual and how to look at food, South African food in particular, in a whole new light. Once you’ve read Being Bertus Basson, there’s no going back to banal food experiences.

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