“And to Max, who with his soft ears and Labrador love, fills an aching part of my heart in a way that neither words nor food ever could,” is how I once thanked the dog I love most in the world in my book Confessions of a Hungry Woman. And now my son rubs those same soft ears and whispers words of comfort to this most loyal friend of ours, telling him not to be afraid of dying, “because Grandpa Ron will be waiting for you and he will be so glad to see you and he will say to you ‘Hallo my baby’.” Max has lymphoma. And the world is in crisis. It is the COVID-19 pandemic and we are in lockdown.
People all over the world are dying and in South Africa many are starving and losing everything. My friends are working the COVID wards and my husband is preparing to do the same. And I weep for them. But my dog is dying. And I weep for him, too. I weep and seek solace in food. I long for curried mince, or rather kerriemince, the most unpretentious of all curries. The one without intricate flavours, also known as basaarkerrie because it is usually served at church bazaars with rice in a styrofoam bakkie. The one made with Rajah curry powder and small cubes of potatoes and frozen peas. It’s not fancy food. It’s food for hunkering down as a family. It isn’t served with sambals and other accompaniments. It just is. It is enough.
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