Anyway this involved a friend of mine called Lourens a few years ago. It was an experience I shall never forget.
It started off with a phone call from Lourens, who lived a few blocks away from me asking us to come around the next Saturday to watch Rugby and enjoy an oxtail potjie. For those of you who do not know what this is, it is a slow cooked oxtail stew in a three legged cast iron pot on the fire. There is quite a lot of technique involved keeping the temperature right and ensuring a good supply of coals for the 4 to 5 hours that is takes to cook.
Anyway, the Rugby game was at 5.00pm and we arrived at around 4.30. I expected to see a potjie simmering away in Lourens' braai area with delicious smells coming from it while we enjoyed (or not) the game. I should have been suspicious right then as nothing was happening. Anyway, I thought that maybe he was doing the potjie in his back yard or something.
At 7.00pm after watching the game, Lourens announced that now we may as well start cooking and then mentioned that he forgot to ask me to bring my potjie along as he did not own one. He said that he had to go to the local shop anyway as he had also forgotten to buy wood and we could pass by my place on the way. We set off in his car to run our erands. Anyway to cut a long story short, the fire and potjie was ready at around 9.00pm to start the cooking process. That is almost the last thing I remember about the evening as as I went to sleep on Lourens' couch or rather passed out from too much beer and hunger.
At around 12.30am on Sunday morning, another friend, Andrew, who was also there, shook me awake to tell me that the food was still not ready!
At around 2.30am I was again woken up to say that the meal was now being served. I have a vague memory of forcing it down in my sleepy stupor.
I think I am still scarred from this.
