my views

Chocolate Chiffon Cake recipe and step-by-step video demo I often say in jest that I married my husband for this recipe, which I was told was a family secret prior to our nuptials. Little did I know that it was a popular recipe baked and enjoyed by many in Cape Town :) Be that as it may, this is a deliciously light and fluffy chocolate cake and is virtually flop-proof. I’ve dabbled with my first-ever video demo for step-by-step instructions on how to execute this recipe and I’m delighted to share it with you. I’ll also be posting a lot more demos in future. For the full recipe click here . Thanks for reading and watching! Happy Baking, Imtithaal  

This little dessert is known by many names, profiterole (French), cream puff (US) or choux à la crème, but here in Cape Town it’s renowned as a chocolate éclair. According to Wikipedia , it is a choux pastry filled with some sort of cream and topped with a chocolate or caramel sauce. Click here for the recipe.

I was privileged to attend a presentation by Ian Thomas , author of The power of the pride and was captivated by the lessons we can learn from lions and how we can apply these to business. Ian spent a number of years as a game ranger at an exclusive game farm in Africa. He was often privy to the conversations of many business people and saw various correlations between business and how lions interacted. Ian’s presentation contains footage and sound clips of the animals he is talking about and it is quite powerful to hear the roar of the lions. The highlights from Ian’s presentation are: 1. Powerful teams are made up of powerful individuals Ian repeated this a few times before the audience fully absorbed the power of this statement. But essentially it is exactly what it says ‘powerful teams are made up of powerful individuals’. Individuals who are aware of their strengths and continuously nurture it will contribute better to the teams’ performance. According to Ian, lion...

Photo courtesy of Katherine Davis, Channel24.com The SA production of the Tony Award-winning Broadway and West End hit is a must-see and will probably have a greater appeal with a more mature audience. Jersey Boys , the worldwide musical phenomenon written by Academy Award-winner Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice with music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe, opens on 19 June 2013 at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town, after a stint in Singapore and a sell-out leg in Johannesburg. It tells the candid, true-life story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. To be honest, the only Four Seasons I knew of before the show was the luxurious hotel featured in many movies, testament to my lack of musical knowledge from the 1960s. But once these four guys started singing, I recognised the original tunes that have been redone and popularised even further, songs like Big Girls Don't Cry , December 63 (Oh What a Night) and Can't Take My Eyes Off You. The Four Sea...

One of the very first conversations I had with my now husband was after my return from a US trip that  included a stint in New York - where I experienced temperatures to the south of zero and every type of precipitation.  This was followed by a skiing holiday at Lake Tahoe in Nevada.  He on the other hand spent two weeks in Thailand and after hearing his stories, an island holiday instantly appealed to me.  So a year later when we were discussing honeymoon destinations, the decision was easy. We would do a few days in the south on the proverbial tropical island, followed by a trip north to the jungle and then stop in Bangkok.  We departed on 11 May 2009 and returned three weeks later.  This was by far my most memorable travelling experience. Koh Samui   From Cape Town, it’s about an 18-hour flight to Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. Koh Samui is another 50 minute flight from Bangkok. We arrived in the evening and I was struck by the unconvent...