Inaugural Issue Served Perfect

Our Perfect Guest – Mmule Setati

Our Perfect Guest Mmule Setati

This month we step into South African Food Snob and recipe developer Mmule Setati's kitchen. She HATES eating bad food that’s not cooked from the soul! Her food blog 'feed my tribe’ is a combination of witty humor and beautiful family moments all tied together perfectly by delicious food!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself. Who is Mmule Setati?
Well, where do I start? I am a “Goddess” as my therapist would say. I am a 29-year-old born and raised in Diepkloof Soweto, Johannesburg, a first born to my parents & older sister to my siblings. I am a multifaced and talented mom of 2 handsome boys Motheo & Maruo and a wife to my amazing husband Mr. Setati.

2. What inspired you to start Feed My Tribe? Feed My Tribe was born out of my love and absolute passion for food and a way of healing, after coming back from my honeymoon in Croatia & Italy I was determined to share my findings and recipes with my friends and family on a social platform. When I dig deeper, I’ve realized that this was written in the stars way before I knew; I’d always come back from school and the first thing I’d do is tune into a cooking channel and obsess over Jamie Oliver or Nigella, I was probably 12/13 at the time.

3. Tell us about recipe development at Feed My Tribe, are there specific cuisines, ingredients or food philosophies that inspire your process? The thought process behind recipes is really not that difficult or complicated, most recipes actually come to me through meditation or moments of stillness, I never force myself to make something. If I’m required to make a recipe or develop a menu for a client or my cooking classes I ensure I know what the client is interested in and try and incorporate new recipes that they have not learnt. It makes the experience so much better. My rule is to always make sure that you enjoy what you are making or else you’ll have no desire to do it or complete the task at hand. I don’t enjoy baking (which is really strange because it was one of the first forms of cooking I learnt in my teens and I used to LOVE it) now in my adult life I don’t naturally gravitate towards it.

4. What is the best part of hosting cooking classes? Oh, these cooking classes, you know my cooking classes were a response to such a difficult time I was going through. During the first year Covid-19 hit, my business that I was running (a juice business) took such a knock. I tried everything in me to save it and sadly had to close it. The cooking classes started off as a way of me finding my next, one day I sat down with my friend Mapule and told her that before the end of the year I would host cooking classes and thereafter the universe aligned everything in my path to make it happen. The classes are more than getting to the place and learning how to make something, they are curated in such a way that we’ll do themed classes, the music will speak to the theme, the drinks are part of the experience and the people that come love to meet new people and learn new things whether you are experienced or clueless.

5. Share your food aspirations – any there any cook book/food show plans for the future?I have big plans for my baby and want to reach every corner possible for it. A cookbook is in the cards, hosting cooking classes in different cities and hopefully new countries and tangible goods that people can buy from me.

6. If you had to eat only one type of cuisine for the rest of your life, which would it be? Rank your top Italian, Asian & South African cuisine.

7. What are your ‘food-peeves’?On my profile it says “Food Snob” hahaha and I just believe that if you cook food for people make sure you do it well!!! The only peeve I have is eating bad food that’s not cooked from the soul.

8. What is your earliest food memory?I have so many but my maternal grandmother Stella has always been a huge inspiration for my love of food. Every time I’d visit her, with the little she had, she would make sure that we (grandkids) are all well fed. She would make bone marrow soup taste like love, looking back I realize that food was a love language for her too.

9. Tell us about your most memorable culinary adventure from your travels? My trip to Croatia will always be my best culinary experience, you will not believe how amazing the food tastes there and they mostly use fresh ingredients straight from the farm, it unbelievable actually. I had the best pastas, risottos (now I want to go back again).

10. What is your go-to lazy dinner? Literally a veggie & protein side, Stir Fry or Phutu & Amasi

11. What is your most nostalgic meal? My paternal grandmother used to make me Ting ya mabele every morning in primary school, I just remember sitting on her stoep in Diepkloof while the sun hit my face and enjoying this sour porridge, with lots of sugar in a metal bowl; bliss.

12. What ingredient(s) can’t you live without? Smoked paprika (the tribe knows me well), thyme, garlic & ginger.

13. Who is your dream dinner guest and what would you make them? My grandmother, I’d do anything to just have a last meal with her.

14. What would you absolutely NOT eat? Mopani worms and bat meat (my husband had bat stew once, I swear he is insane).

15. Tips (food photography, food styling) for running a successful food blog? Like anything in life consistency is what will set you apart from the rest, find your niche and play on that. Tips: always take food photos during the day, natural light is your best friend. You don’t need expensive equipment to start, your phone and YouTube are your best friend.

East African Mandazis

Also referred to as ‘African doughnuts’ or ‘beignets’, these soft and fluffy jewels are famous in the Eastern region of Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda). With a lovely hint of cardamom, this recipe will give your mandazis an authentic taste. They are usually served warm with a cup of hot chai masala or regular tea, but they also go down a treat with hot coffee.

Mandazis are authentically served plain, but as the world becomes a small village daily, some have come up with ways to jazz them up. You can choose to jazz yours up with your favourite jam or a knob of butter.

By Christine Tutuh @tutuhsdesserts

Full recipe on www.christinetutuh.com

Christine Okello

Meet Christine, a Kenyan living in Belgium and a mum of two kids. Christine has always had a sweet tooth but only started taking her baking seriously when she had just moved to a small village in Belgium’s countryside and could not find anyone to bake her daughter the kind of birthday cake she loved growing up. She turned on her oven, dusted off her mittens and hasn’t stopped baking since. At first, it was just baking for colleagues over the weekend, then she started blogging – sharing her recipes online and that’s how Tutuh’s Desserts came to life.

“That’s almost 2 years ago now. With the blogging, I started falling in love with taking photos of my bakes. I wanted to take even better pictures so I took a short course on food photography, (which I never imagined was a thing), and pulled out my very old canon camera and started taking pictures of everything I baked. I got great compliments on my photos whenever I would post them, on social media or on the blog.

Out of my love of baking and Tutuh’s Desserts blog, my love for sweet food photography and videography came alive, and a general love of social media. I hope to build a brand around all these. Hoping to start offer services such as sweet food photography, and social media management for small businesses and food bloggers in the foodie space. Venturing into recipe development for brands is also a plan for the future. But my biggest dream would be to own my own small coffee shop/bakery where I could serve my most delicious bakes for everyone to enjoy.”

Served Perfect With Natasha Siku

Served perfect with Natasha Siku

Remember the chicken wing shortage from late 2021 into 2022? It caused so much concern it created many chicken wing activists out of so many Batswana. Meanwhile the real chicken wing enthusiasts knew exactly where to go to get their fix – a local food joint called Wing It on, founded by someone whose name you’ve probably heard before – Natasha Siku.

And if you’ve never heard of Natasha, well, the ‘about’ section on one of her social media platforms reads “motivated by the fear of being average” which is really (almost) everything you need to know about her. In the lead up to ‘lunch with Natasha’, there was a lot of back and forth in getting the lunch together. It moved from dinner, to lunch, from a weekend shindig to a Monday out of town engagement at the exceptionally gorgeous Boruundi Private Lodge and camp site.

Once those details were out of the way, we moved onto the main event – the food! Initially she was intrigued by the idea of cooking for her guests, we bounced ideas off each other – a creamy pasta, some salmon, were some of the suggestions she put forth. I remember suggesting catering in one of our many phone calls and getting slight disapproval – “I love to cook” was the very kind ‘no’ she responded with. But, in the end, we scrapped everything and figured we’d just focus on having a good time and ensuring the vibes were immaculate, so catering it was!

Natasha, who describes herself as an athlete first, is a netball and tennis player, playing for both Botswana national teams respectively. I don’t know about you, but in my books, that on its own gets you a spot in my personal hall of fame! She is also the woman behind Botswana’s very first homegrown chicken wings establishment, Wing It On, an idea that was born from literally nothing. The day that the idea came to her, she was at her aunt’s house in the north of Gaborone where she stayed at the time. She thought back to her time in the United States during her college days, being in awe of the wing joints that offered wings in so many different flavours and thinking to herself “I could set that up back at home’’ so with only 2000 Pulas in hand, sheer determination and motivation (daringly sponsored by the fear of being average), she started that very same day experimenting with sauces to create different flavours and Wing It On came to be. “The key is to start’’ says Natasha. The very first ad she placed for Wing It On, on social media garnered over 150 000 impressions. She remembers waking up that morning and feeling lost for words. Nine flavours later and Wing It On has since seen immense growth with a physical outlet in Gaborone that continues to offer delivery for its customers.

Now back to the lunch, when it came to the guestlist, Natasha had a bit of a hard time deciding who to share a meal with, but ultimately ‘friendship’, the real authentic kind is what brought it all together.

While taking photographs and capturing all the instagrammable moments of conviviality between friends, our photographer whispers to me between shots “this is the first time I have ever seen Natasha not working”. That is how you become a star athlete and build a successful eatery – targeted intention and working at it day after day. At the table, which was beautifully set up in the lush garden, Natasha and her guests Lebowa, Queen, Tumi and Reitumetse enjoyed endless bubbles in between conversation. The conversation around the table was centered around friendship, a beautiful tribute from Natasha to her loved ones. She spoke of the meaning of friendship to her and gave personal messages of appreciation to each one of her guests, who in turn received it with so much love and sent it right back.

That Monday afternoon, the team, obsessed with excellence and ensuring that the host Natasha and her guests have a good time was a ball of nerves in anticipation for 3pm. A few minutes past the hour, Natasha, along with friends, arrived at the venue. We knew she was outside without so much of a knock or text alert. We heard her. Natasha is the type of person whose presence is strongly felt, she enters the room and commands attention, not in an obnoxious attention seeking manner, but in an indescribable way that just draws you to her. She stands up straight, her voice is commanding, she walks in and everybody asks ‘who is that girl’ (that’s of course if you didn’t already know who she is). Once she was in, instantly the mood was lighter and everybody was laughing, we all knew from then on that it would be a wonderful afternoon.

Our Perfect Guest Mmule Setati

East African Mandazis

Christine Okello

Served perfect with Natasha Siku

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