The Food Stories Of Our Komvandaan* *Komvandaan Means ‘Where We Come From'.

During a time when big media houses closed esteemed magazine titles, one small, black female-owned company – Mikateko Media – launched a brand-new quarterly magazine called Koe’sister.

- Leanne Feris

As with any good story, let’s start at the beginning. Remember when everyone was cooking and baking like crazy during COVID-19 lockdown levels 5 and 4? Social media exploded with images of freshly baked goods and food that brought all the nostalgic feelings to the fore. Well, Ingrid Jones, Co-founder and Executive Director of Mikateko Media, can spot a trend coming. So, when her friend Ruby Marks, South Africa’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, shared a Facebook post about her attempt at making bobotie far away from home, Ingrid knew something bigger was brewing.

Ruby’s post was written in a way that made you miss your mom. She was inspired to create the bobotie when she saw Ingrid’s own bobotie recipe in a past issue of Woolworths TASTE magazine. She narrated her cooking process vividly, invoking her late mother: “En net in time hoor ek my oorle’ ma se stem, ‘waassie liefde?’ En ek gooi gou sout en pieper oo’ die mixture en mix maa’ wee’. Daai vrou rescue my time and again.”

With her bobotie successfully made, Ruby concluded that her dish could easily feature in Woolworths Taste magazine, a publication that usually made her feel like an outsider. “Ma’ ek voel nogal dit kan feature langsaan Ingrid sń in Woolies se Taste magazine wat my altyd lat voel asof ń Cape Flats girl ma’ net kan kyk... totdat sy sien dat ha’ girl oek daa’ feature.”