Celeb chef, self-taught cooking hubby spill the beans on new cookbooks

SIMPLY SEVEN COLOURS

ZOLA NENE

Much-loved celebrity chef, TV personality and brand ambassador 

This is my third cookbook. You know the saying, 'you make time for the things that are important?' Well, my cookbooks are always important and meaningful projects. I love being able to share my recipes with people in book format because it’s a forever thing. Long after I’m gone, my cookbooks will remain and my recipes will form part of other people’s food memories and stories. I love that, so making time to conceptualise, write and style my cookbooks is always worth making time for.

Seven colours or several colours or Sunday lunch or "Sondag kos" is, in essence, the colours that describe the way we love to eat as South Africans. A meal served family-style consists of a number of vibrant dishes. It’s the type of food I grew up eating at weddings, funerals and other celebrations and holidays. People often get fixated with the actual number and start counting the colours on the plate, but it’s not a hard and fast rule that it needs to be exactly seven colours. It could be more and sometimes it’s less; the real point of seven colours is the colourful nature of the food.

I always celebrate Heritage Day with my family. We dress up in traditional Zulu attire and enjoy lots of food. The soundtrack is usually gospel music (my mom always seems to sneak in her playlist). This year, we’ll be having a braai and on the menu from my cookbook will be:

•  Spiced lamb ribs: we love lamb we never have a braai without it.
•  Rainbow coleslaw: it’s never a complete seven-colour meal for me without coleslaw. I love it. It’s one of my favourite salads.
•  Grilled corn and cheese pap: what’s a braai without pap? This is my delicious twist on pap that has corn and cheese and is grilled for a crispy edge. Yum!

My sister and I share dance routines on social media and we love doing our little TikTok dances. It's  so much fun and the bonus is that it makes everyone else happy to see us dancing. Maybe we’ll get the whole family to join us for a dance on Heritage Day. 

Putting a cookbook together is a long process - it takes about two years from conception to the published book. Two years isn’t very long when one has all sorts of other projects on the go, but we made it work. I’m so proud of this cookbook.

Even with a plethora of recipes available on the internet and social media, I don’t think cookbooks will ever go out of fashion. Cookbooks are like collectors’ items that become family heirlooms passed down from generation to generation. Nothing can replace the feeling of cracking open a book and paging through it while running your hands over the pages and drooling over the delicious pictures. People still buy cookbooks and I hope they continue to do so.

Apart from releasing my new cookbook, it's been a busy year. A highlight, apart from the book, was being a judge on the latest season of MasterChef SA. What an amazing production.

There’s so much inspiration out there to see, read, enjoy and follow. A trio of my favourite foodies and chefs are:

Khanya Mzongwana; Landi Govender and Tortik Annushka.

If I was packed off to a desert island I would sneak these three ingredients into my bag: my Zola Feasts spices, of course; maize meal, as my love for pap knows no bounds, and cheese of some sort.

And if I could take three kitchen gadgets, it would be a microplane grater, a palette knife and coffee machine. Please may I fit that into my bag?

• 'Simply Seven Colours' is published by Penguin Random House and retails for R360

SIFO: THE COOKING HUSBAND

SINOYOLO SIFO

Based in the Eastern Cape, Sifo is a pharmacist and a passionate home cook

I’m a pharmacist and a self-taught home cook, recipe developer and food content creator. I’ve always been curious and explorative when it comes to food, though it never occurred to me to pursue cooking as a career. Cooking is a hobby which has turned into a side hustle. It has always been my dream to have a cookbook. It was the happiness that my cooking brought my beautiful wife, Nondumiso, and my followers that gave me the motivation to write my own.

Putting my first cookbook together was a lot of hard work. It took close to 12 months yet  it was fun, especially seeing my idea come to life. I will forever be grateful for this opportunity to put Sifo: The Cooking Husband together.

I come from a small village, Kwanonkobe in Mthatha, but my family is a big one - and we all love good food. Watching my mother cook and helping my father in his butcheries in Lusikisiki and on a farm near East London during school holidays sparked my love for cooking. Also my wife, and her stamp of approval on the food I prepare, motivated me to take cooking seriously.

I’d say there are some similarities between a pharmacist and a cook. As pharmacists, we are responsible for manufacturing medicine so there is some ‘cooking’ that goes on and there’s a similarity in the chemistry part as cooking, and particularly baking, has a science element to it.

My wife came up with the name Sifo, the cooking husband. Nondumiso has been my biggest motivator throughout my cooking journey and in early 2020 she encouraged me to take it seriously and follow my food dreams. I love cooking and it is my dream to open a restaurant.

My goal has been to break the gender stereotypes that surround male figures in the kitchen and encourage more men to cook. In our home, cooking is a shared effort where we help each other. I grew up sharing chores with my siblings, and I guess this made me not conform to that stereotype that only women must do the cooking.

Three great influences are Jamie Oliver, Bobby Flay and Siba Mntongana. When it comes to the TV food shows, I enjoy the local and Australian versions of MasterChef. I enjoy Guy’s Grocery Games, Come Dine With Me, and any show that features Jamie, because he's my number one favourite.

If I found myself stranded on a desert island the three things I would miss are potatoes, red meat, salt and pepper. And if I could sneak something into my backpack, if there is such a thing, it would be a portable air fryer because I can’t live without it!

If I could choose my last meal it would be spicy chicken livers for starters, then my braaied mustard sirloin steak with creamy mash on the side, and for dessert a chocolate brownie with my chocolate chip no-churn ice cream. Delicious.

What’s next for Sifo? I have many big plans. I’m hoping to curate master classes specially for men, do more collaborations with different brands, book signings and hopefully my own TV cooking show. And before I forget, my plan to open a restaurant.

• 'Sifo: The Cooking Husband' is published by Penguin Random House and retails for R300