Fehmz — all the hues and flavours of the Spice Rainbow

Fehmz is, like me, a cookbook author, and we were on a panel together at the Kingsmead Book Fair in Rosebank, Johannesburg last weekend, being interviewed by Sally Andrew of Tannie Maria Klein Karoo detective novels fame. I suspect that Sally was the bigger drawcard of the three of us, given her massive status in the publishing firmament.

But more to the point is that Fehmz is just so damn nice (as is Sally by the way; she seems unaffected by her fame). And I use that word intentionally, because Fehmz’ debut cookbook is titled Damn Good Food.

I wish I were one of her kids, so that I could eat her food every day. Spices are everywhere, and all the colours of the Spice Rainbow perpetuate every page of the book. She told us that when she first received proof pages of the book during the design phase, she took a big, bold pen and started writing the names of colours on every white page she saw. I can imagine: Saffron! Mustard! Lime! Aubergine! Strawberry! Mango! Turmeric!

For a couple of months now, Fehmz and I have had a bit of an accidental rivalry. When my book Retro Karoo Food was launched in early March, Fehmz’ Damn Good Food was the best-selling cookbook in South Africa, according to Nielsen. Then mine knocked her off the top spot and into second place. Since then, I gather we’ve had a bit of a to-and-fro, and we laughed about it a lot last Saturday, deciding that we’re both delighted to step aside for the other.

Anyone who thinks that any hue darker than pastel is “loud” may not appreciate her colour palette, but I am big on colour. Bold turquoise walls welcomed guests to our favourite City Bowl home. And I’m always having to be talked down a shade or two when choosing paint colours. Keep your minimalism, your muted palette and your timid earth tones. They are not for the likes of us.

And death to beige!

There is no beige in Fehmz’ life. Yet she had to fight the odds to find her way to this role she has as a social media entrepreneur and, now, cookbook author. She was approached by Jonathan Ball (the imprint for her book is Human & Rousseau) and persuaded to do it. Reluctant at first, she ultimately decided to give it a whirl. And then her strong personality rose to the fore, and the final product sure does stand out on the cookbook shelves.

In her Dedication, which Sally asked her to read to the room at the book fair, she says: “To the girl who was too fat to be pretty, too dark to find love, too loud to be marriage material, and too different to be accepted…”

How fabulous that it is her conquering of those very things that makes her the vibrant creature she is, and has everything to do with the fabulousness of her book.

She’s super generous to other cooks. The book is salted and peppered with recipes by the people in her life. So what do I most want to cook myself? How about this Indian fudge?

Okay, I am not actually going to make this, as it is not entirely suitable for a Type 2 diabetic diet. However, I sorely wish I could both make it and eat it. It’s made with chana (chickpea) flour, that slightly-off-white flour you buy in spice stores. I love it and sometimes make chilli bites (bhajias) with it.

“It’s a one-pot dish that you cook and only pour out once it’s ready to be set. It seems intimidating at first, but honestly, the hardest part is sifting the chickpea flour,” Fehmz writes.

The savoury dish I most want to make in this book is one that her father makes. It is a very verdant dish of chicken thighs with mint and coriander (dhania) and just look at it. We are not sharing this particular recioe, as we do want you all to go out and buy her book and knock mine off the charts again. As has happened a few times now.

I think it’s the bright green of the mint and coriander leaf in the marinade that grabbed me. It also includes turmeric (her second favourite spice, after cumin, which is also my favourite). It’s served with hot roti or naan.

Fehmz also loves fenugreek, a spice she thinks underrated and underused. She has a recipe in the book for Methi Bhaji or fenugreek cake, but be aware that this is not a sweet cake but savoury. It’s served at parties and events, and is an item on an iftar table during Ramadan.

But the recipe I most want to cook is this utterly desirable fish and rice dish by her aunty Pinky, who in fact was a neighbour, not a relative.

Her uncle Yagen and aunty Pinky owned a cosmetics business and a nightclub, and a young Fehmz was fascinated with Pinky’s fish breyani. Just look at that fish breyani, which she calls fish and rice in the book. It’s torture only to look at it. I have to have it.

As with many cookbooks including my own, there are diversions from the central theme. This is because like everyone else we are people of varied interests and food palettes. So Fehmz has such diverse off-the-beaten-track dishes in her otherwise very spicy tome as Basque cheesecake, tiramisu tres leches, baklava, and milk tart.

Oh and “fehmcakes”, in the introduction for which she divulges that she is a petrolhead “who used to meet up for car meets and drag races”. Well, who knew: this is something that the much younger me did on occasion too, out Goodwood way. “One day there was a morning car meet,” she writes, “and I decided to take some breakfast pancakes with me. My friend, Shaun Mooloo, enjoyed them so much that he encouraged others to have a taste. But instead of saying, ‘Have you tasted Fehmz’ cakes?’, he missed a beat and said, ‘Have you tasted Fehmcakes?’ And it stuck to this day.”

One of my favourite images from the book – apart from all the richly coloured ones of Fehmz herself in ever brighter hues as you page through the book – is on page 68. It’s simply stuffed pasta shells, but look at that caramelised finish, who wouldn’t grab a spoon and just pile in?

Fehmz writes: “My best friend and I shared our first job and, most importantly, a love of food. We’d see dishes in movies or magazines and immediately want to recreate them. That’s how this recipe was born. Over the years it’s developed into a true showstopper that gets ‘wait whaaaattt!?’ reactions whenever I share it on social media.” I can see why.

Finally, I can look, but not touch, the image and its dish on page 55 of the book. It is for Noorjan Maasi’s coconut pudding, decorated with berries, figs and pomegranate, and is cruelly, desperately desirable, so I will quickly turn the page and move on.

And while I cry into my pretzels somewhere in a grotty bar and yearn for the days when I could devour as many sweet things as I wanted to, you can make it and, look, just eat the damn thing okay?

I shall console myself with the pretty pictures and the wealth of colour on every page of this beautiful, striking and very different cookbook. It well deserves its spot on the top of the local cookbook charts, and I hope that, on publication of this story, Fehmz and her Damn Good Food will once more rise to the top spot.

For a while.

Femz signs off her communications, her book and her public appearances with a loud utterance of a made-up word: Donezos! (Pr: done-zoes)

It means “done!”, and Sally and I joined her in shouting it to the room as we wrapped our session.

Fehmz project: donezos. Friendship made: donezos. This story: donezos! DM

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