From Blooming June to Joyous July

WIN Tickets to National Geographic Food Festival + Delicious Updates

Jul 02, 2023

Welcome to COOK WITH LERATO! My letters to you with ravishing recipes, stories & a good dose of African magic. Thanks to our subscribers & members we travel across the world one recipe at a time. If you haven’t joined our community, click below to travel with us!

Welcome new and old friends to our new monthly roundup of what I have been up to, what our community have been enjoying and what’s to come, including events you won’t want to miss, special invitations and there’s also a treat for you. As always see links to recipes and member I’ll share work & life news, and if what I did all month was binge-watch a show or two on Netflix, (like White Lotus Season 1 & 2) then that will be our epic news du jour! Are you ready?

June in pictures — Joyous June with live cooking & book signing in Bath City, Brighton Book Festival, Cooking Classes & Some of your cooking from Africana. *Spaghetti & Juicy Berbere Meatballs by Nadine from the Netherlands & Kachumbari by Lina from Brussels*

What is it about birthdays that makes us think about death? Here, I speak for myself. In spite of the unusual tone in which this letter is introduced, I am filled with joy. June 30th was my birthday. For the past few years after a traumatic and life-changing experience where a friend’s sister died in my arms, my special day has inspired deep contemplation about life and death. Perhaps for the simple reason that everything has a beginning and an end. I find myself pondering the journey, my place in this world, my purpose and impact and how it will all end. As exhausting as all that contemplation can be, I choose to live intentionally, working hard and smart to bring my dreams to life while also enjoying every moment.

And this year, on my birthday, contrary to what many of my friends assumed as they called saying, “Lerato, where are you?" Are you not travelling? How come?” I should have been in the Seychelles. Yes, my friends know me too well. After a busy few weeks, months, and year so far, I couldn't even make it to my birthday dinner, too exhausted to make any concrete plans. All I really wanted was to eat, sleep and repeat it all over again and that is what I did. Happily and contentedly. I posted “It’s my birthday!” on Instagram, and we ordered from a local Italian pizzeria, a spicy hot one with nduja, pepperoni, and green and red chillies. Just wonderful!

While I admired the gorgeous birthday peonies as they slowly bloomed, and as I tried hard to distract myself from my chocolate and raspberry birthday cake, reflecting on my years on earth, my past, present and future, fills me with hope. Hope and a burning desire to live better and strive to be better each day. And while the only guarantee in life is death, like Matilda says, “the most common thing in life is life. And yet every single life, every new life is a miracle!”

And my mummy does say I am a miracle. Therefore, I live like one!

Share COOK WITH LERATO

My mummy says I'm a miracle
That I'm as tiny and as shiny as a mirrorball
You can be all cynical, but it's a truth empirical
There's never been a miracle, as factually, spectacularly
Actually miraculously
Fabulous, a miracle as me

Competition

EXCLUSIVE MEMBER TREAT: WIN TICKETS

To win two tickets to join me at the National Geographic Traveller Food Festival in London on Saturday 15 July 2023, make sure you are a subscriber or member of this newsletter and then, write to Cook with Lerato if you will like to attend, and you will be entered into our competition exclusively for our newsletter friends. A winner will be picked in a week’s time, with paid members getting the first pick. So click below to make sure you are subscribed or upgrade to become a member.

NEWS

Summer is in full bloom here in the UK. Here are a few joyous bits from June and so far in July. I find it a healthy exercise to look back before forging ahead.

Sarah Cuttle for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine

MY PLANTING TIPS IN BBC GARDENERS’ WORLD MAGAZINE

A very proud moment was being on the cover of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. In the June edition, I wrote about my knack for killing plants, but also for growing plants, such as herbs, chillies and vegetables with limited space, on your windowsill for example. Gardening has always been this aspirational lifestyle seemingly reserved for those with verdant land to plant rows of flowers and food. But what about those without outdoor space? Are they never to enjoy the fruit of their own hands? I am thrilled that the magazine invited me to share my perspective on growing food. I will also share some of what I have learned from working with volunteers at the community farm/allotment here in Sussex. In future newsletters, I hope to expand on these tips. You can still buy copies online and some shops may still have them. International stockists often get them later than in the UK.

LIVE COOKING IN BATH

Since visiting the city of Bath last October to cook in the prestigious Toppings & Co bookstore, I have been in love with what I like to call Bridgerton Town. I travelled over 180 miles from Sussex to Somerset to cook live at Pub in the Park. My second performance at this popular summer event was just wonderful. Most heartwarming is when people walk up to me to say how much they enjoyed watching my live demo. I do my best at these events and thoroughly enjoy cooking live. However, the icing on the cake is meeting you all in person and getting your feedback. It is so important and a treasured experience. After spending a weekend in Bath, dining in some of the most wonderful spots (which I will share with you) I travelled from Bath to Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire to join some spectacular figures in the food world. We recorded an episode for the new series of The Kitchen Cabinet for BBC Radio 4. And what a show it was. I can’t wait for it to go live this month.

BRIGHTON BOOK FESTIVAL

Brighton Book Festival was a success. A wonderful celebration of books, and I love their motto, “Making marginalised books mainstream”. They hosted an Africana Supperclub with recipes from my book for about 40 guests. The menu included Moin Moin ~ black-eyed bean tart with roasted tomatoes & peppers, Poulet Yassa & Aubergine Yassa, African Grain Salad, Kachumbari with Hibiscus Pickled Onion & the marvellous Malva Pudding, all washed down with Amandlha Wines. Joined by Masterchef Judge and food critic, Jimi Famurewa, and author Frances Mensah Williams we discussed the intermingling of our lives and work with our various identities from African to British, British African, African British…

FEATURES

Read this feature in Sweet July where we discuss my ambition for preserving the legacy of African cooking with a recipe to mark Juneteenth ~ a celebration of the emancipation of slaves in the US.

And most recently in the Financial Times How to Spend It Magazine, the brilliant Ajesh Patalay interviewed some of your favourite chefs and writers about ‘The Foods We Hate’. This was such fun to be a part of especially because it allows me to make light of a childhood trauma which I will like to discuss in greater detail…soon.

I am curious to find out, what foods do you hate?