This piece comes with a sensitivity warning as there are themes around terminal illness, but ultimately it’s a call to celebrate life.

Sometime in the noughties, a popular conversation starter in the company of aspirant foodies was the question: what is your last supper? It was based on the premise that you knew it was your last meal, and you could choose anything your heart desired. There was also a book asking high-profile chefs the same question published at around the same time. I remember asking it with a flippancy that came easy to a starry-eyed 20-something food stylist far removed from mortality. Now I feel the full weight of this question.

What goes without mention is that for the last supper you may not even cook. Or that it might be lunch and last the length of a working day (even if the chairs are less than comfortable) but no one dares move from the table because with that comes a certain finality. Or when it does come to an end and the beloved cousins who have travelled far to say goodbye drive away, a rainbow will appear briefly overhead – as if it were all staged.

On the day before Christmas eve, my family and I found ourselves in the haematologist’s office, sitting in silence. My eyes settled on a pot of LEGO Hibiscus flowers gracing the doctor’s desk, its hard plastic edges softly lit by a design lamp. One minute we were waiting for my dad to be admitted to hospital. The next, thanks to a last-shot prednisone prescription, lunch was on. It was nothing short of a miracle. I went home to start preparing the first in what has become a series of last suppers.

Listening to Carol of the Bells and swiping a peeled cucumber across the mandolin for a salad my father loves, there wasn’t sadness; we’d been blessed with a meal we didn’t think we’d have. Rather, a sobriety settled over gestures once filled with an almost rambunctious enthusiasm for sharing sensory pleasure through cooking. As if a certain innocence was slipping quietly away through the crack underneath our stable-style kitchen door.

We feel it around the table in that it makes us gentler with each other, connected by a common pulse of awareness of another’s comfort: the meeting of eyes when the offer of second helpings is accepted, an unspoken acknowledgement that while Death may be standing in the room with us, as a German friend put it, Life is still seated at the table with us too. Right now, so much is concerned with the basic function of eating: is there capacity for digestion, swallowing, chewing? Of all the variables, taste is the most reliable.

And sometimes taste is enough, as Bernd, a Berlin friend, shared. Bernd, a natural cook and bon vivant who at the age of 80 still sucks the marrow from life, dedicated himself to making Boeuf à la Bourguignonne for his brother, who lay in hospital unable to accept sustenance in solid form. On his next visit, Bernd took that beef braise with him and dabbed some of the sauce on his brother’s lips, so his brother could, at the very least, experience one final taste of his favourite dish.

Sometimes it’s not even about favourite dishes, but a need to revisit meals from life’s various chapters. The second-hand cookbook my dad picked up at his local library – a gift from him to me for us – was an indirect request for the prawn curry on page 108, reminiscent of his ‘Maritzburg days’. This evening, for my dad’s birthday, there will be flat-roast chicken with a juicy stuffing of thinly-sliced button mushrooms, sauteed shallot, lemon, and thyme, that’s pushed under the skin – a memory of family meals past.

The recipe comes from Cook with Ina Paarman and, on opening it, I recognised my mom’s curling cursive in fine pencil lead under the recipe headline: Delicious! She’d marked up the brand-new pages with all her notes before handing it over as a gift from the family. At the time my head was deep in French cookbooks dreaming of a life that emulated Eugénie’s (Juliette Binoche) in The Taste of Things. To Ina’s credit, the spine on her book is falling apart from use, the French titles not so much.

Now cooking is a surrender of self, an act of service. Your wish is my command. What is your wish? And yet, in this case, the act of service feels so insignificant, so hopelessly inadequate, because it’s impossible to give what is really wished for: more time. This is not intended as a morbid reflection but rather a call to action: go and cook your last supper today. Or this year at least. We may not know which meal will be our last, but if we do, body, mind, spirit (or perhaps all three) might not be in a place to enjoy it as fully as we can right now.

My dad and I would love to hear from you, what will you cook this year as a life-affirming ‘last supper’ meal? Leave a comment below if you feel moved to share.

It started with a Turkish glass earring, a tiny lemon with an equally tiny leaf at the top of it, dangling from Sivan’s ear. Sivan is an artist and artisan weaver but during her studies worked at an ice-cream shop in our neighbourhood. One day we stopped by for a scoop, because the lemon-curd ripple was made with the fruit from our tree. The serendipito…

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Please note this post is anecdotal and not intended as nutritional advice. Consult a qualified professional when planning nutrition for marathons and endurance events.

It started with a kind of foreshadowing over the festive season, when a dear friend, Dawid, who never fails to inspire, served up plump Medjool dates with a copper bain-marie of melted dark chocolate for dessert to include the vegan-leaning guests at the table. And somehow, from that moment, 2025 seemed destined to be Year of the Date.

In February I found myself stuffing a waist bag with 10 individually wrapped Medjool dates in the hope they would provide enough energy for my legs to run 42.2km in under five hours. And just over two weeks ago I zipped up a hydration pack holding more dates (14 this time) in the hope of completing the 56km that is the Two Oceans Ultra Marathon.

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Lulu was waiting to receive us, dressed in crisp white with knotted silver-and-gold earrings and a hint of baby-blue eyeliner. She was 93 years old at the time and, although petite, commanded the room. Knowing we’d travelled from the southern hemisphere to meet her, Lulu welcomed us as if we were long, lost friends.

The moment we’d opened the car door in front of Domaine Tempier’s tasting room, we could smell the sea. We were under an hour’s drive from Marseille, on the south coast of France, where Lucie (Lulu) Tempier was born. Her wine farm, a wedding gift from her father, had played a pivotal role in restoring Bandol’s winemaking reputation and for Lulu and her husband, Lucien, inspired their life’s work.

The Mourvèdre grape had once been the pride of Provençal vines, specifically in the Bandol region where Domaine Tempier is located – before phylloxera devastated vineyards and quantity was put above quality. Lucien was determined to produce Bandol red blends, built on a foundation of Mourvèdre, that were as highly regarded as other French wines famous for their ability to age.

His first wine, in 1943, was a rosé, which is why it matters that the Bandol Tempier Rosé is 50 percent Mourvèdre, worthy of cellaring, and considered an iconic rosé in wine circles. And if Lucien is seen as a spiritual father of Bandol wine, Lulu must be recognised as a spiritual mother of intuitive, seasonally led home cooking – which is why we went to meet her.

Between raising children and vines, Lulu and Lucien were dedicated advocates of Bandol wine, through traveling and hosting. With one guest they developed an almost familial bond: US-born food writer Alice Waters, who championed the farm-to-table movement in Berkeley and beyond, and campaigned for the kitchen garden planted by Michelle Obama at the presidential home in Washington.

We were ushered into Lulu’s parlour, adjacent to her office. She apparently only retired at 75 and went on to live to 102. In that moment I couldn’t help but ask the obvious: what was the secret to her longevity? ‘I don’t drink water,’ Lulu said, eyes sparkling, ‘only wine’. To be sure of this, she added, she kept her mouth shut in the shower.

But there was clearly so much more that kept her interested and full of life’s vigour. She cooked her signature bouillabaisse over vine-cutting-fuelled fires, made time to play scrabble with her great grandchildren (at the time she had 24), went to the local market to select the produce that inspired her menus, and swam in the sea every single day.

The beach is where she met Lucien. Lulu told us how he had such blonde hair and clear blue eyes, she thought he was Swedish. Brandon recapped in high-school French: ‘So a girl meets a boy with white hair, and it leads to a vegetable garden at the White House?’ Lulu smiled. A story written in the stars.

When the clock struck noon, she informed us it was time for apéritifs and while she made preparations, I noticed the glow of a lamp to my left, illuminating messages scribbled on the shade by various wine importers: ‘Lulu and Lucien for eternity’ […] ‘Lulu I admire you’. 

‘Is this how you envisioned your life?’ I asked Lulu when she returned armed with vin rosé and a pottery teacup of Niçoise olives. Lulu paused, ‘I was 18 when I married Lucien. I wasn’t thinking of the future. I was in love,’ she answered, ‘The war broke out three years later […] If you’ve been through difficult times, it is easier to feel good about what comes after.’

It was then that I realised why we were really there: to witness a life well lived. It wasn’t lost on me that in striving to create a wine that only becomes more enchanting as it ages, Lulu had found the secret to doing the same herself. (I like to think her style of cooking has something to do with it.)

As if giving me the manual, Lulu handed over the last precious copy of her book, in which the author, Richard Olney, observes: the Peyrauds are ‘dedicated to the belief that the meaning of life lies in love and friendship and these qualities are best expressed at the table.’

That night, back at our rented kitchen in the Luberon valley, we channelled Lulu. I sliced sweet, white summer onions from Coustellet farmers’ market for her pissaladière, or onion tart. Brandon simmered a head of fat, purple-streaked garlic for her aïgo boulido, a broth of garlic and bay leaves. We uncorked a bottle of Bandol rosé and laughed and talked until we were too tired to do so anymore.

I still make this soup when fresh, juicy garlic comes into season in early summer and imagine Lulu pounding plump cloves in a marble mortar to make her aïoli. Its purpose, as the introduction reads, is ‘to soothe systems worn thin from an enthusiastic celebration of the table’. But mostly I make it to remind me of Lulu, because – in cooking and in life – Lulu seemed to know what was important.

How Lulu’s cooking made us rethink flavour is coming up in next week’s story, when we return to the third part in the courgette series. To catch up on part two and one in the series, click here.

My mum grew up a Durban girl, honest and fair. She spent her days working, her holidays on the back of motorbikes in the Drakensberg and her weekends on those famous beaches, swimming in the warm, safe waters of the Indian Ocean netted off from Tiger and Zambezi sharks and their Ragged-tooth friends.

Now it’s just a theory, but I believe that in adolescence, she absorbed equal amounts of gamma rays, UV light and salt. So I entered the world surrounded by a super-saturated saline solution and it’s a chemical imbalance that affects me to this day. I grew up thinking Lot’s wife got a pretty good deal. And when I take my seat in the movie theatre, I’m secretly hoping I’ve oversalted my corn. Your ‘inedible’ is my siren song.

But there are ground rules, starting with, ‘all salt is not created equal’. You may be drawn to crystals collected from saltpans in the Kalahari desert or mined from pink mountains in Pakistan, but me, I’m a sea salt guy. And from the subtle minerality of Khoisan hand-harvested on the Cape’s West Coast to ethereal flakes of fleur de sel, gently raked from ripples of evaporating sea water on the beaches of Brittany, sodium chloride comes in all shapes and sizes and prices.

Depending on the trace minerals in the primordial brine from which they emerge and the compactness of the crystals, you will be amazed how different they can be. It’s an experiment worth trying. Buy a few different salts (not flavoured or smoked) and taste-test them to see what you like and what you think they’d be good for.

Compare the medicinal, metallic afterburn of a classic iodised table salt with something that doesn’t come in a plastic tube and you’ll stop scoffing at salty sommeliers. You’ll understand why they idolize those pyramids of Maldon, lovingly extracted from a river estuary on England’s east coast. To me they’re delicate and sweet and tangy, but also crunchy, which makes a perfect finishing salt for everything from rare meat to heirloom tomatoes.

Imagine how disappointing a pretzel roll would be without little meteors of salt embedded in the crust, or how weird a Margarita would be if those same crystals covered the rim of the glass! Think about the textural difference between my popcorn salt, made by turning a handful of that mild Khoisan into a fine powder in our coffee grinder, and the rest of it that sits in a wooden box next to our stovetop waiting for its five seconds of flame.

But above all, we keep an ample supply on hand because it makes everything taste better. Okay, maybe almost everything. Scientists will tell you it suppresses bitterness while increasing the more pleasant sensations of sweet, sour and umami. I’m just happy to know there’s always fairy dust in the kitchen and not ask too many questions.

It’s why chefs always tell you to ‘season’ everything well, which basically means, add salt. Seasoning per se is a moveable feast, but a simple description could be something like: at each stage of the cooking process, as you add ingredients, add salt until the newly added flavours ‘pop’. Most importantly, don’t taste immediately after adding salt, rather let it cook off a little so the salt can incorporate before tasting to see where you’re at, and if it needs more.

All of this seasoning is one the reasons restaurant food tastes so damn good. Put simply, chefs use a lot more salt than civilians who tend to be afraid of it, and not without reason because it turns out NaCl is a tricky character: quite literally a matter of life and death.

The pillars of salt and humanity are a match made in heaven: we need salt, we need to eat and salt makes our food taste better. But too much of it is said to cause everything from swollen ankles and high blood pressure to kidney stones and heart disease. Too little and your body will stop working as your nervous system shuts down. Arrivederci.

So here’s the moral of the story: as is the case when cooking, you need to season yourself regularly. It’s the only way to maintain the correct amount of salt your body needs. Which (fun fact) turns out to be about half a percent of your body weight, or perhaps a little more if, like me, your mum was a mermaid.

This is the first in a four-part series about salt, seasoning, and the secret to creating satisfying flavour when cooking entirely with vegetables, brought to you with a pinch of nostalgia and plenty of love for the women who raised us.

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