The Oppie Cookbook

I arrived in 67A African Street with a car boot sale of implements, and a dog-eared 1932 hardback copy of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management.

Y-Fronts

Ollie always fried breakfast dressed only in his in his y-fronts. A singularly unedifying sight. We’d wake to the sound of him yelping as flying drops of hot fat spat from the pan onto his naked skin.

Power Drill Pancakes

Slimer tried to whisk waffle mix with a fork sellotaped to a power drill. He let fly, there was screaming whirring, like the sound of a bucket of cutlery being thrown into a jet engine, and Slimer and the kitchen were claymored with goop.

Exploding Pressure Cookers

We had a squat, furious pressure cooker that turned anything- meat, pasta, or veg- into the consistency of runny paper mache in seconds. It would hiss and shake worryingly, occasionally exploding and projectile-vomiting ratatouille onto the ceiling.

Food Parcel Riots

Worried parents sent food drops, that were quickly hidden, lest the digs fight over them like famished Somalis attacking a food truck.

Francis always got great parcels from her Sandton folks. Chocolate, crunchies, tinned ham and what not. I phoned my hippie Howick mother and demanded same. A few days, a joyless brown paper parcel arrived, containing some trays, a bag of alfalfa seed, and “Make Your Own Bean Sprouts at Home” instructions. Francis still teases me about that.

Snap, Crackle, Pop: Food and Marijuana

After some reckless trial and error on the guinea pigs (Francis and me), Slimer perfected Rice Crispie dope biscuits that would render you a giggling mess, then leave you slumped dumb in the corner of the Union, peering through slitted eyes like a freshly-shelled tortoise and nodding somnolently.

During a boisterously stoned Pictionary game on George Street, Aimee made us peanut butter on toast, which went down a dope-dry mouth like sawdust in the Sahara. Conversation was silenced for an hour by the sound of mealy-mouthed, desperate chewing.

Jim and Anne made date-rape-drug-strength marijuana snackwiches in Kenton, with patchy results. Jim surfed the couch, hung ten for a few seconds then wiped out. Anne, Sera, and The Fat Guy with the Beard wandered off to the beach, and were last seen zig-zagging towards Diaz Cross.