mom

So, me and Aunty Lorraine’s next Kiff Coffee stop was Cafe Mozart in Church Street which, as locals know, is something of an institution, having been around more or less since P.W. Botha. I never visited in the olden days so I don’t know how much it’s changed, but it’s quite blinged up now, with lots of fake roses adorning its small picket fence (which unsuccessfully keeps out buskers), and fun brick-a-brac-y things lining its walls. It’s totally unpretentious, and sometimes you’re just in the mood for unpretentious. And what’s cool about this cafe is that it’s located on a pedestrian street lined with antique stores and stalls where the same people since I worked on Greenmarket Square in 1992 arrive to arrange their hodgepodge of treasures on probably the same blue velvet cloths. It looks like they still haven’t sold anything.

Since we’d both had breakfast and it’s just wrong not to eat, we decided to share a toasted croissant with bacon, lettuce and tomato. It was so yum we had to have another, and the coffee was pretty good, too. Not that I’m an expert, as I’ve explained. My friend, Alison, and I had lunch there not too long ago and they do a very cool and madly inexpensive buffet. For R42 you get a glass of wine, soup with home-made bread, a full buffet (which that day included lamb stew, cauliflower bake, lasagne and several salads) and dessert. It’s a good deal whichever way you look at it.

Sometimes you just don't mess with a good thing, and a BLT is one of those things. — Sometimes you just don’t mess with a good thing, and a BLT is one of those things.

My mom and I laughed about how, as a child, I hated tomato (I still kind of do unless it’s on a BLT croissant or in a pasta sauce or they’re teeny and exceptionally sweet) and every time we were in a restaurant I’d take my tomato off my burger and every time my mom would ask me if she could have it and for some reason – knowing full well I wasn’t going to eat it myself – I’d say no. I have no idea what that was about, but just about every time we’re in a restaurant now she reminds me of that betrayal. I guess I’ll never live it down. That, and the time I ate dagga cookies on the afternoon of my 16th birthday and, in my deeply stoned state, had to sit at the dinner table with my parents’ best (quite posh) friends and eat a roast dinner, trying to stay on my chair and not completely die of hysterics when my best friend and partner in crime forewent the roast potatoes and lamb and gravy and only dished herself peas which she then found quite impossible to keep on her fork. It was a long dinner (sorry, mom, you cooked good food. I hope I’m still seeing you next week after reading this).

After a second cup of coffee we wandered around Greenmarket Square which is quite boring and same-y now, but we did watch a woman demonstrate 13 ways to wear a cardigan which was pretty impressive. And it was made of bamboo, what’s more. And then we congratulated ourselves on coming up with such a fun and clever tradition as regular coffee meetings. Talking in real life – as opposed to all this cyber stuff – is really very lovely.

So, if your husband – like mine – is straight and over 30 it’s probably not his best to sit and la-la in cafes and coffee shops, awesome as they might be. In fact, sometimes I think if I left my husband to his own devices instead of dragging him by the trouser leg to ‘events’ he’d never leave the house again, bless. So, quite by accident, I’ve embarked on a New Thing. Since my mom is DIVINE beyond and the only time I chat to her is for three seconds when she arrives to babysit and I should have been somewhere ten minutes ago, and as she also has the problem of a husband who is straight and over thirty, we’ve decided to meet for coffee every Tuesday morning. Which is so fab, actually, and so fun.

This Tuesday was our first meeting and we went to one of my favourites, Haas in Rose Street. I hadn’t decided to blog about it yet so I didn’t take any pictures, but here’s their website with loads http://haascollective.com/. It’s completely cool, and the waiters wear top hats and they do this savoury muffin (in truth, the real reason I go there) made with spinach, sweet peppers and melted cheese which they serve warm with home-made jam. It’s so big even I (greedy guts) can only eat half, and so divine you have to stop talking for a while. Haas is also part shop/gallery which sells stylish, rather beautiful artwork and knick knacks. So, it’s really quite win-win. And their coffee, of course, is great.

I read somewhere that they sell this rare, super-expensive coffee made from the poo of some exotic animal which lives in a tree on an island far away. (I’m not sure if they actually serve poo coffee – probably not – but what I have is really good and doesn’t taste anything like that).

Not that I’m a coffee connoisseur by any means. In truth, and if I was left to my own devices and wasn’t afraid of being ridiculed, I wouldn’t buy the Jacobs for a gazillion rand, I’d get that huge tin of Ricoffy white people buy for their maids and be happy as a banana. But since I’m married to a Scandinavian where coffee drinking is something of a religion (and who can blame them – without those hourly pots of jet-fuel-strength brew to keep them buzzing through the interminably long winters there’d be a lot more hara kiri going on, in my opinion), it’s become a bit of an indispensable part of my life. But I’m not going to be all blah-blah-these-coffee-beans-have-a-clean-nose-and-top-notes-of-veldskoen-and-chewing-tobacco, I’m going to talk about how fun it is to sit there and what you can eat and who you’re inclined to see. Because there are so, so many amazing cafes in this town that I just never get the chance to go to.

And we’ll go to fabulous places, and we’ll go to places that are fabulous for different reasons. And I think this new year’s tradition is going to make 2014 quite a fun one. I’m excited. Watch this space!