Kaff Your Opinion

The B - Complex

Here we go again…the complexity of the complex embedded deeply in our skin colour, conditioning or maybe even our genetics. We constantly find ourselves as “Black people” at loggerheads over the contrast between our heritage and our behaviour/mentality in these present times. Some of us are pro black, some are beyond racial confinements, some are radicals and some choose to sit on the middle of the fence and gladly tip to any side of the scale when it suits them. The aim of this article is not to say who is right or who is wrong but to hopefully encourage a discussion and not a debate if it is at all necessary.
 I walked into the office today and switched on my computer, just like many I logged on to quickly scan through what is relevant or interesting on the facebook pages and that is when I stumbled upon an advert from a brand that I have over the past few months grew fond of, mainly because of the way they have modernised their heritage. I clicked on the advert to check out their new website and as usual I was taken aback by their execution and how well they communicate their brand. I quickly called my colleague to come check out the designs and while she was looking I said “You see how dope it is, how well they hook up their heritage? Why can’t we do that with our brands?” she went into a brief silence and started telling me how I always compare black people to white people, my response was simple – “I only said that with regards to design and heritage, why can’t we execute our brands to those standards?” but I guess it came out wrong…or maybe it came out as it was intended but that ultimately put me in an uncle Ruckus box. I listened attentively and every time I had the opportunity to respond to her views I would reply by saying “Well I hear you and all but that is not what I intended for my statement to mean”. She went on to say how it’s a psychological thing, how I seem to compare everything that is black to white or how I seem to distance myself from black people because I somehow prefer white people more. This lead me to think and think and think about whether she is right or totally getting me confused, whether I was in denial or not. Am I poking wounds or do I compare everything to everything regardless of race, nature or shape? And that maybe people seem to highlight certain things that open a massive vault of information that they have collected over time and really dislike.
 Either way this event lead to this article that you are currently reading and I believe it goes beyond our office walls, streets, regions, countries and continents. It is a disease that we as black people suffer from, whether we judge other black people for being too black or not so black it is a disease that eats the very core of our existence… we judge, compare, or distance ourselves and that is a fact of our current nature. I have heard people comparing accents, people judging you by class or distancing themselves from where they are from (which is different from distancing yourself from who you are) and maybe I have become a perpetrator or maybe a victim of a disease that runs freely through our blood.


I feel as if I’m a parent who wants their children to grow and be the best at what they do and I guess sometimes as a parent you seem to find yourself in an unfair state of comparison, comparing your child to others and imposing your expectations on them, It is not right to compare and that folks is what I took from this subject/event/occurrence. Whether you are Black, white or green we shouldn’t compare, but I strongly believe that when we have ambition in whichever industry or trade it is good to set yourself benchmarks and aspirations regardless of shape, colour or form. Let us cure ourselves from The B complex.


Written by Lethabo Ngakane 

Live, love, create.

Ladies Who Lunch...Alone

Lunch has always been burdened with being called “the meal before dating.” How confusing it must be when a lady who lunches – especially a single lady who lunches reserves an entire table for herself proceeds to feast alone. A meal before dating?  Who could she possibly be dating when she covers every centimetre of the table with everything that she’ll require to fill her in her meal before supper?

A few weeks ago, my phone was in for service and I boldly went to a place where single women seem to regularly go. I asked the hostess for a table for one and she hesitated as she placed the second menu and wine list back in their tidy shelf.

“I’d like to see your wine list,” I said as she ushered me to a table.

“Would you like to sit outside?” She asked as she raised her eyebrow and the wine list out of their corners of convenience.

I nodded and politely followed her as I wondered why she imagined that I’d like to soberly sit in some dark corner of their restaurant, munching away at my lettuce leaves in sombre silence. The gentleman who arrived to take my order asked: “will you be waiting for anyone, or will it be just you?” as I perused the menu and pursed my lips.

 Just me decided to order wine by the glass and not by the bottle as it became obvious that more than just the wind was ruffling the outside lunch tables this afternoon.

Just me. I had thought about inviting a friend or a dining partner, but my phone had been in for service and I could not contact anyone who wasn’t within earshot or a high-five’s-distance, so ‘just me’ would have to suffice.

For years I had watched women reading books to distract themselves from the busy-ness of dining alone. I had seen diners distract themselves by flipping through their phones or hiding behind newspapers, but I hadn’t a book or a phone, so I busied myself with the business of lunch. I ordered a starter and surrendered my fingers and taste buds to layers of butter, pools of olive oil and balsamic vinegar that became the science of eating bread.

Eat, Pray, Love author Elisabeth Gilbert famously travelled around the world and wrote an entire section in her book about the pleasure of ‘eating’. When did eating stop becoming pleasurable? When did we begin hiding our take out orders in brown paper bags? When did we begin driving away after ordering like we had committed some obscene crime? Had enjoyment and pleasure become some sort of daylight robbery?

The Italians call ‘la dolce far niente’ the art of doing nothing. They don’t call it ‘the art of doing something before something else. Elisabeth writes in her book that she sought pleasure by trying to find the very best food in Italy. She and her dining companion travel to Naples where pizza is like a gift from the gods. They don’t rush their cheese, they don’t lament the crust of the pizza because they are ‘trying to cut carbs.’ They eat. And they enjoy it. Unashamedly. In fact, Liz (I call her Liz, after reading two of her books I feel like we’re tight like that), writes that she wants to “experience something beautiful.” The fact that this gelato and red wine and pizza and pasta – even aubergine and pan-fried potatoes become beautiful is a sign that surely our take-away boxes are missing an essential ingredient.

A few years ago, a book came out that drew every yo-yo dieter out of their expanding closets. Mireille Guiliano, a former spokesperson for Champagne Veuve Clicquot and former President and CEO of Clicquot, Inc. 

(LVMH) wrote a book called “French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure” and changed every rule that American television had ever taught us about eating. Gone were the days of ‘family meals.’ Away were the ideas that bread, Champagne, chocolate and romance were not key ingredients to a balanced diet and lifestyle. She even went on Oprah and spoke about how pleasurable dining is. She spoke about enjoying each morsel. She discussed small portions and respect for each chef and plate. The sin of enjoying a meal seemed to disappear like the waistlines of those who understood how marvellous the act of eating is. Eating became a luxury good. It was to be enjoyed like a treasured handbag or a coveted pair of shoes or a couture dress – where no two meals would ever be the same.  Her bio reads: “Mireille is passionate about food and wine and cites breakfast, lunch and dinner as her favorite pastimes. The sound of corks popping is truly music to her ears.”

What could be more melodic than a cork popping? What could be more symphonic than a spoon slipping into a bowl of hot soup and a knife and fork preparing to dance across a plate? What could be more pleasurable than dining?

What could be a greater art than a meal designed to please a single woman? A meal for two? Perhaps. Possibly. Probably. But should the idea that Adam might have had to eat his figs alone have taken the pleasure out of the sweet decadence of enjoying an afternoon fruit?

I’d like to see your wine list. 

As Liz Gilbert writes: I’d like to marvel at something beautiful - “Language, gelato, spaghetti, anything.”  Unashamedly. In broad daylight, in the middle of a Monday afternoon where I have nothing better to do than enjoy my food.

I don’t want to believe in a world where the lonely are forced to suffer rushed, cold soup and fried sticks of potato accompanied by weird composites of meat disguised as burgers. Where lunch becomes something you do behind your laptop in a coffee shop. Where there is nothing artistic about drinking in the afternoon. A young poet, Warsan Shire writes: “i am a lover without a lover. i am lovely and lonely and i belong deeply to myself.” She waltzes with the idea of being completely alone. Like Amelie who likes nothing better than cracking the top of her crème brulee with the back of a tiny teaspoon. What a pleasure it is to take small pleasure in small things. Lunch has always been ‘the mistress of the meals’. Breakfast has been legitimised by being called ‘the most important meal of the day’. Supper has the notoriety of ‘the last evening meal’ but at least Leonardo da Vinci sat and imagined how gallant a meal of that infamy would be. Who lunches? Business men and women between shopping trips. Do they get a world famous painting out of it? No, but they did get a mention in  Stephen Sondheim's ‘Company’ – an entire drunken toast of a song.

Ladies who lunch are described as well-off, well-dressed women who meet for social luncheons, usually during the working week in a high-class restaurants or in department stores mid-shopping trip often under the pretext of raising money for charity. Just that description would make me want to bury my unmarried face in my flowy-kaftan sleeve.

I want to believe in lunch again. I want to believe in a meal that is a celebration in and of itself. Where wine accompanies even a course of fruit. Where a diner revels in the act of buttering bread and sitting on a side-walk and dining a la-carte. I want champagne, chocolate and romace to be the key ingredients to afternoon splendour. I want clean plates to be like the sign that a trip to paradise was beyond sublime. More than anything that happens after breakfast and before supper, I want all the single ladies to put their glasses up and demand more wine. Because what’s a better celebration than ladies who lunch? Even alone.

Written by Tshepang Molisana