Telling Stories Lunch by Savs

Savs

It's Saturday morning, 05:05, and I’m standing in my kitchen sprinkling micro rocket over ham rolls and feeling for all the world like a Michelin-level chef. “Micro rocket”, I tell myself, “you classy bugger, you”.

You’d never say it to look at my not inconsiderable girth, but food is low on my list of priorities. I could eat a burger from my favourite place three times a day, forever, and never think twice about it. Indeed, for several years my onstream lunches, such as they were, were a few bars of something called “Race Food”. I would buy them at the garage shop on the way to the stream as I stopped for my habitual pre-dawn coffee. As far as food goes they’re bloody horrible but, I assured myself, until that wonderful day when science fiction becomes reality and I can take a capsule every few hours they’re the next best thing. They were developed for marathon runners who need an occasional meal but who don’t have the time to stop to eat or, I think more accurately (and to not put too fine a point on it), crap. They’re a small, perfect-to-eatin-one-gulp-between-casts, calorie dense, chocolate bar looking little thing. Don’t be fooled, they taste exactly like the bodily function that they're designed to repress, but they get the job done (provided that the job is one that needs to be done quickly and without any lasting satisfaction).

When it comes to meals while angling there are two distinct schools of thought. I’m of the “stay one step ahead of death” school. I’m not entirely Bear Grylls about the whole thing (for instance, I carry sufficient drinking water) but I’m also certainly not of the “cast thine gaze yonder, there stands a comfortable tree - let us perambulate hither and sojourn in it’s ample shade to enjoy a light al fresco luncheon” school either. Truth be told, the school to which you align is not something that anyone really consciously decides, so I’m comparing rather than judging. Like political beliefs or sexual orientation it’s just an instance where one leans naturally to either the left or the right as a result, perhaps, of a trick of nature or nurture.

Despite a need for haste and simplicity I will concede that I do like a coffee while tackling up. I simply refuse to drink that foul chicory stuff but my coffee doesn’t have to be overly terrific either - all I need is something that’ll perk me up and prolong the buzz of what is typically the four cups I’ve already knocked back since waking. If gourmet coffee is your thing and you spend time on arrival grinding beans and priming stoves so be it, but you’re going to need to walk several pools upstream to serve to me my cup.

Also, I find that an ice cold coke, full of sugar and caffeine, is a potent tonic after a long hot day and it sets one up perfectly for the drive home. Beer, to my profound dismay, makes me drowsy and I’ve been known to slip within seconds into full REM sleep in the passenger seat. I obviously won’t have one shortly before driving myself home, and neither should you. Nothing ruins a good day quite like dying does. I digress. So, I’m standing in my kitchen, artfully sprinkling my micro rocket, and my mind drifts to a recent conversation that I had with a friend. He’s in the Swartberg as I write this and he sent me his menu for the week, whether for affirmation or to gloat I can’t be sure. His list of meals is astounding.

Lunch on the bank is a cheese platter with oddities like pine nuts and capers. A chilled bottle of wine of notable vintage and impeccable cultivar is a given. It’s all very much more civilised than a half loaf of white and a bag of Niknaks, I’ll grant you that, but it’s time consuming and to my mind thoroughly unnecessary. Any activity that keeps you away from the water for any length of time is an activity worth culling from your routine.

As for his dinners! Oy vey, this guy will never see the evening rise. I didn’t even begin to understand most of his dinner menus and had to consult my teenage daughter and resident Masterchef devotee. “Puddleduck”, I shouted, “what the heck is ‘jus’ and why would you put it on your lamb ribs?”. I pronounced 'jus' phonetically, mostly because I lack culture. “Daaad”, she sighed, “it’s pronounced 'jous' and it’s like basically the scrachings of what’s left in the roasting pan. Don’t even say it, it’s not what you make, you just burn everything .” She makes a tidy point. But jus? My god, what has reality television done to us?

I like to think that I’ve had some small hand in weaning some my regular circle off their propensity to complicate things that benefit from a monastic level of simplicity. McGupta, for example, makes toast and jam for breakfast every day. You’re not looking for variety here, just calories. The Supermodel handles lunch and buys preprepared chicken mayo and bashes it onto rolls before we leave. He’s practical, that one, and it’s an endearing feature of his personality. Less practical is The Sensei who eats a family-sized bowl of muesli in the morning despite the fact that early morning roughage is the midmorning nemesis of the wader-clad angler.

Doc, the first time that I fished with him, took me entirely by surprise and remains a tough nut to crack. Towards midday he stepped onto the bank and behind a tree. Thinking that he was one of the muesli munching lunatics I shuffled up and nabbed the next pool until it finally registered that he was repeatedly calling my name.

I turned around and on the bank under the tree was spread a red and white chequered table cloth. On the tablecloth, on wooden boards and bone china, was an assortment of foods from crackers and cheese to pork pies, the ubiquitous Durban samosa and various other posh nibbley things. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth I sidled up and quickly started shoving things into my face.

I swear, it was by far the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me and I was quite overwhelmed.

When, after our freshly ground and espressed macchiato (in a le Crouset cup, infused with Amarula, topped with fresh cream and accompanied by an imported chocolate ball), he leaned in on one knee I fully anticipated that he was going to propose to me. As it turns out he was just tidying up.

It’s a funny thing, but right there, under that tree, full of exotic foodstuffs and thoroughly replete I would probably have said yes.