Marshmallow frosting and quick Oreo truffles

While trying to come up with a title for this post, I was hit by a disgustingly sweet and delicious bit of inspiration… It’s going to be amazing, even better than these wonderful and fairly easy treats, which, for the moment, don’t go together (unless you really want them to…).

Oreo truffles are easy and delicious

Omnomnom. Slutty brownies are her favourite treat, hence choosing to top those with this amazing frosting

Slutty brownies were the request for the evening (I don’t blame them) but marshmallow frosting was just like sugar overload and excessive but amazing of course.

Slutty brownie cupcakes

Cupcake versions of the slutty brownie worked pretty well

The Marshmallow frosting is something that I am still working on – it was delicious, but it needs a bit of refining. I will share the recipe with you, give it a try, maybe it works out better for you (but how wrong can you go with that much sugar and egg whites? Meringue is one of the best things in the world!).

Mmm foamy…

Meringue and marshmallow is so satisfying when it is a success

Not enough sugar in the marshmallow stuffed choc chip cookies from this recipe, apparently more frosting was required on the top as well

I ended up with a fair amount of leftovers, so obviously we had to get rid of it in the classiest manner possible

The Oreo truffles are the easiest little gems to whip up – super delicious, practically fool proof, and a very short list of ingredients. And the flavours complement each other spectacularly: you have the sweet Oreos mixed with the almost-savoury cream cheese, and dipped in a bitter dark chocolate which offsets the extreme sweetness of the Oreos. Well, this is what I have heard, I didn’t think the Oreo centre was that sweet at all, but I’m just not as sensitive to that sort of thing. Go ahead, give me more sugar!

I may have a slight Oreo addiction

I’ve only recently learnt to truly appreciate cream cheese (glad it didn’t happen even later in my life, I would have missed out on so much!)

Neat little balls of Oreos and cream cheese

I used my new chocolatier to melt my chocolate – it’s a seriously handy little device!

Marshmallow frosting inspired by Martha Stewart’s High Hat frosting

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups Caster sugar
• 6 egg whites
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (not tartaric acid which almost happened in a lapse of concentration)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Place sugar, water, egg whites and cream of tarter in a heat proof bowl, and beat with an electric mixer until foamy
2. Place bowl over a pot of water simmering at low heat. Continue to beat on high speed for about 10 minutes until stiff peaks start to form
3. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract
4. Pipe onto whatever tickles your fancy, and a bit of toasting might go down well as well

Oreo Truffles

Ingredients

• 16 Oreos
• 110g Plain cream cheese
• 110g melted Bournville (or dark chocolate of your choice – Bournville is still nice and sweet and not too bitter)

Method

1. Crush the Oreos – liquidize them or place them in a plastic bag and beat with a rolling pin if you feel like letting off a bit of steam
2. Add the cream cheese to the crushed Oreos, mix well (can be done in the mixer) until there is cream cheese all throughout the mixture (it mustn’t be too white and visible though)
3. Form into balls
4. Melt the chocolate, and dip the Oreo balls in the chocolate, ensuring they are fully covered
5. Leave to set on wax paper or

The Homeground Advantage

Homeground Coffee Roasters: delicious, authentic and exclusive. And pretty much just not suited to Grahamstown. You would think that with their prime location right near campus, a cute little hole-in-the-wall that’s perfectly suited to the small-town that is G’Town, they would cater for one of their nearest consumers. Alas, the drive for excellence comes with a price, and if it’s not pay-day, most students are unable to afford it on a regular basis.

Homeground Coffee Roasters

The have done very well on their branding and image, using quirky decor all around their coffee kiosk

Homeground coffee is good. It has a unique flavour, and it is certainly prepared with lots of love, skill and attention to detail, which is highly commendable. You can really taste the subtleties in their flavours that they pride themselves on. It’s not my favourite flavour, but it is pretty great coffee in its essence.

Café mocha/chococcino ? You choose

Their menu is thorough and caters for the common coffee drinker, that is, those who do not appreciate the art that is coffee. There is almost an attitude of “Fine, I guess I will have to put milk and sugar in your coffee, Peasant… Oh, you want cappuccino art with that? Of course you do, Hipster.”

Latté art and a mocha-nut truffle slice. Only 15% flour in that brownie chunk of gold

They also have a delicious range of baked goods. You can grab a packet of interesting flavoured biscotti biscuits which do well for a car snack (if they make it that far…). They do huge scones and muffins, spinach and feta flavoured and blueberry respectively. They like to change it up a bit as well, which is quite nice. That is the joy of being a small independent business in a close-knit town, I suppose.

Cappuccino and a great big blueberry muffin for breakfast to go please!

Obviously this exclusivity comes with a price. I understand that they are teeny and probably have substantial overheads for their location and the fact that they don’t sell much to the local community – they serve as the coffee supplier for their other branches in Kenton and Johannesburg – so high prices are to be expected. But R22 for a tiny slice of truffle brownie something? It’s a bit excessive. Though it is made with top quality ingredients and it is absolutely delicious. That’s probably why I am complaining: I just can’t afford to eat as much as it’s deliciousness warrants!

Carrot cupcake with orange cream cheese frosting. Dinky and delicious!

Their open hours are also a bit of an issue in my life, but I feel the same way about most of Grahamstown’s other businesses: how can you only be open half-day on Saturday and not at all on Sunday? Those are treat days!

White chocolate almond and cranberry blondie bar. This was delicious, though I do think the cranberries were a bit overpowering of the other flavours. (Cranberries are great though, right?)

It’s a classy little spot, great to have a little chat with a cup of good quality coffee and a slice of Blondie, unless you’re living within your budget. Definitely worth the occasional treat though, so certainly do yourself the favour whenever you have the opportunity.

Lovely setting with a lovely coffee

Rolo-stuffed milk chocolate chip cookies

Now, I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but these were literally the most amazing cookies I have ever made and ever eaten. The slutty brownies were pretty good as far as taste goes, but these cookies are definitely the most delicious things that I have EVER baked.

Big Rolo-stuffed milk chocolate chip cookies – the best I have ever had

I had something else planned and ready to make for quite a while, but a craving for buttery cookies interfered with that, and so the Rolo-cookies were born! It took a while for me to make them because I kept eating all the Rolos… Oops…

I managed to perfect the chocolate chip cookie recipe that I initially had, although this time I used milk chocolate chips to complement the milk chocolate in the Rolos. It worked out quite nicely, as it was a nice draw away from my traditional Bournville.

The cookies are chewy, but not too much, and they don’t taste like butter (although the craving was most certainly satisfied). They are best enjoyed warm when the caramel inside the Rolos is still all melty and bursting with flavour, but cold Rolos are just as delicious, are they not?

I had to use the big Rolo slabs as my initial Rolo supply because they didn’t have any rolls the first time I went. This meant massive cookies, but that’s not a legitimate problem, is it?

Rearing to go – those beautiful mounds waiting to be transformed from delicious cookie dough into chewy, Rolo-stuffed, melted perfection

Ready and large. Give those babies just a few minutes to cool, then grab one while it’s still warm with a melted caramel and chocolate centre

They are still delicious once cooled. And once you’ve started eating them, you don’t worry about how pretty they are anymore

I even attempted to make caramel for the first time – it needs some work, but definitely on the way to success

Caramel-filled heart – now that’s true love indeed ❤ (and true love is always messy, particularly if you rush it)

Rolo-stuffed milk chocolate chip cookies

Makes 18 smaller cookies, 12 large ones (with big Rolo bits)

Ingredients

• 150g salted butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips (130g chopped up Cadbury Dairy Milk)
• 2 rolls of Rolos

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius, and line your baking tray
2. Cream the butter
3. Add the sugar to the creamed butter, and beat until well-mixed
4. Add the two eggs and beat until well-combined
5. Add dry ingredients and mix until you have a consistent dough. This dough is not too dry and holds its form fairly well
6. Add in your chocolate chips and mix until they are evenly distributed throughout the mixture
7. Prepare bottom cookie layer, making sure there is enough flattened out cookie dough that when there is a Rolo sitting neatly on there, it has a fair amount of dough surrounding it. This helps in step  8. Place Rolo on each cookie base
8. Place your top cookie layer on top of the Rolo, and press down the sides, tucking that Rolo neatly and comfortably in there, ready for a cosy nap
9. Place tray on middle rack and bake for 15 minutes (depending on the oven)
10. Remove from oven and let cool. After 10 minutes, eat one, and marvel at its greatness, then let the others cool and save them for later

Eastern Cape life – Grahamstown Flower Festival

Who doesn’t love a goodie bag of free stuff?

My gran lives on a farm. My mom seems to love the farm. My brother wants to live on my gran’s farm in England because it is so clean. And I’m over here like, “Ooh look! A plant!” Meanwhile it’s actually a weed, not even part of the flower show.

All the pretty flowers

Ok, I am exaggerating, but I consider myself to be very much a city girl, and this farm-life is not one that I am used to. I went to the flower festival motivated by the fact that I knew that a certain coffee company was coming to town, and their coffee is pretty amazing. I figured that if they were going to be there, there was bound to be other delicious goodies and interesting stalls selling loads of useless things that I will fall for and spend far too much money on. I was not disappointed, but I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the things that I found.

Some girls were selling some hippie pants

There were flowers, of course, and a number of other plants that I won’t even try begin to name. In short: plants. Some local Eastern Cape greenery in celebration of summer (the first day of the festival was a real stunner) as well as some flowers that I do actually recognise.

This is an example of the types of sales-folk surrounding the local Botanical Gardens

Gorgeous sunflowers being sold out of the sun…

There were getups that I know would look great in my house… My house that I don’t have… So I settled for a cute succulent in a teacup and saucer. It now belongs on my windowsill, and is the closest thing to a pet that I have ever had to look after independently. Writing that just reminded me that I have yet to water it. Clearly it’s not looking too good. It is cute, nonetheless.

My new plant!

There were R5 pancakes (sold by a dear bunch of women), bacon and egg butties [‘rolls’ for those of you who need the translation] (that I purchased from the Dean of Students, and they were amazing!), and a Chip’n’Dip too (which I thought was majorly out of place, but hey). And then there was the coffee of course, truly splendid coffee.

Unfortunately I did not buy another bag of their coffee because I haven’t opened my first one – their sample sachets were great, though, and they also supplied Lindie’s brownies, which can be seen on my Instagram feed

I also ended up buying myself a few necklaces, and a gift for a bestie back in Jo’burg.

New jewellery! Because I basically have none

I did not attend any of the talks because I do not own a farm and I don’t garden just yet. I probably won’t for a while, and whatever I need to know when I do decide to make my plants all pretty (and keep them alive) will probably be available on the Internet. I do think the presentations most likely went down a treat in this little town of Grahamstown, because there is quite a substantial farming culture in the Eastern Cape, from what I have gathered.

Lovely water feature and plants for my house of the distant future

These are just adorable to look at

Overall it was a lovely day. Day 2 was a bit wet and rainy, but a decent event overall. Farmers’ markets are quaint, but I look forward to returning home to my Metropolitan Johannesburg in the next seven weeks.

3-Ingredient Bar One Cupcakes

Note: this definitely classifies as one of my “Sweet Experiments”, but it is more of an adaptation of another recipe rather than being made according to an actual recipe. It is based on a recipe for 3-ingredient Nutella brownies that I found on Pinterest, but I am not sure on the actual origin, so I can only direct you here. So I bring to you 3-Ingredient Bar One Cupcakes.

Teddy awaits a gorgeous Bar One Cupcake. He needed some new love…

I followed the same recipe of 1 cup of chocolate-y-ness, 10tbsp flour, and two eggs, but this time it was more challenging. The bar one has to be melted down first, in order for it to be mixed into batter form.

Melty melty Bar Ones. I id it as a Bain-Marie, but with the milk you could probably get away with using a microwave, just don’t burn that delicious chocolate

Some milk is also added so that it keeps its more liquid consistency, which makes the stirring in of the other ingredients easier. Then the flour is added while the melted Bar Ones are still quite warm and runny. This also gives the mixture an opportunity for the mixture to cool down a bit before adding the eggs, to avoid a scrambled egg effect.

This is the chocolate that you must make sure you do not eat. You need it for the recipe. Just keep reminding yourself of that. Trust me, I understand the temptation. This is basically the colour of the completed batter as well

They rise in quite an interesting way as well. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn, and make sure your pan is well-prepared for all that melted chocolate

They turned out quite nice, but not as sweet and moist as I had expected. Bearing this in mind, I had a similar outcome when attempting the Nutella version: the muffin/brownie is kind of dry. The end outcome is a subtle chocolate muffin, nothing too special about the flavour, apart from the obvious Bar One undertones in the chocolate flavour of the muffin, which was nice, obviously. It’s a good thing that the muffin itself is not too sweet though…

Check out those sexy muffin-bottoms! Quite an interesting and unintentional effect

The real star of the show is the Bar One sauce/”frosting”. It’s very sweet, which offsets the subtle muffin and gives the whole thing a really great taste experience. It also adds some texture to the cupcake, and a lot stickier than your conventional frosting. It’s absolutely amazing, in fact.

A simple cupcake with the best sauce-y frosting you could ask for. No wonder Rainbow Teddy has a smile on his face

Please note though, that this recipe makes a humble 6 cupcakes, which is fine if you’re baking for yourself to eat, right? So be sure to double the recipe if it is meant for sharing.

3-Ingredient Bar One Cupcakes 

Makes 6 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 250 g Melted Bar Ones
• 30 ml Milk
• 10 tbsp flour
• 2 large eggs
• 50 g melted Bar Ones with dash of milk for the icing

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius, and line a muffin tray
2. Melt the Bar Ones to a very runny consistency, adding the milk as the mixture requires (it helps to have the milk in early so that stirring is easier)
3. Remove the melted chocolate and add the flour, mixing until all the flour is well mixed (should not have any white bits visible – a nice smooth consistency). Let mixture cool slightly (must still be runny)
4. Add the eggs and stir vigorously until ingredients are thoroughly mixed together
5. Spoon mixture into prepared tray, and bake for 15-20 minutes (be sure not to let muffin edges brown – this will produce a very dry muffin)
6. Remove muffins and let them cool
7. Melt remaining 50g of Bar One with a dash of milk (about a tablespoon), stirring continuously to get a smooth mixture
8. Pour Bar One sauce over muffins. Don’t be too generous as the sauce runs eagerly to the sides of the muffin

A little perspective

Sometimes we get caught up in our own lives, and we tend to easily forget that there are people with more struggles than our own. Sometimes we’ll realise this, and, in a moment of inspiration, we decide we are feeling really charitable, and we perhaps make a large donation of money, or we go on an outreach excursion, feeding some animals in a shelter, or making tea for the elderly. That’s great and all, but you know what they say about giving a man a fish…

This year, my journalism course has been encouraging us to get hyper-involved with the surrounding Grahamstown community. Our projects are required to make a lasting impact on our target groups. Rhodes students apparently tend to be somewhat poor at maintaining these relationships, and often will provide a service purely because it is the requirement of the course. I suppose I feel like I have done a similar thing with this assignment I’m about to share, but, at the same time, this one was a profile, not a suggestion to get actively involved.

I was in Port Elizabeth over the Vac, so I went in search of a local reading group in that city (long distance profiling just isn’t smart for this type of thing) so that I could profile someone/the group itself. After driving up and down Main Road, Walmer, a number of times, I finally found Walmer Methodist Church, and asked if they could help me. I was put in touch with Hannah Bayley, the co-ordinator of their church reading group outreach program that they have at John Masiza primary school.

“Friends”

The very next day, I was traveling into the Walmer Township with Hannah, to observe what goes on around the school, and find out how their reading group runs. It was very interesting. Attached is the profile that I wrote about the reading program, and how it is actually so much more than that.

The small groups of learners huddle down the corridor outside the classrooms

I was impressed by the amount of learners that they actually manage to reach out to. What else struck me was that they are very focused on enabling and empowering, rather than just charitable giving. Hannah mentioned how she is often encouraging companies to use their reading group as an outlet for their corporate-social responsibility, whereby they would normally just throw money to needy groups, and solve current problems, but not providing sustainable solutions for groups in need. And that is where Hannah comes in.

Some Grade 2 learners very eager to have their photo taken

Hannah Bayley worked as a primary and preprimary school teacher before she got as heavily involved with co-ordinating the reading group. This gives her an advantage when running the group because she has experience with teaching younger children. She also helps out in the preprimary section of John Masiza, a section of the school that looks to be on a promising road to improvement.

The preprimary learners of John Masiza, with their teachers and Hannah Bayley

Something that concerned me about the visit was the lack of a library. Hannah explained that there were school mothers who were eager to get involved in running a school library (though lack of action suggests lack of enthusiasm to get this done), but that, for the time being, there is no school library running. There is also no local library, with the closest one being the Walmer library, 2km away. 2km isn’t particularly far, but it is a lot further than the newly-built community centre (less than 800m away from the school) that is supposed to be home to the community library, but which stands empty for lack of people to run it. This in a country which faces a massive unemployment problem. It is baffling. How are the children expected to do research projects? The high-spec computer labs that I was not able to get a look at (they were locked) were reserved for Grade 7s. What about everyone else? And where do they learn computer skills?

The reading program uses the Fantastic Phonics reading program, which Hannah and some of her colleagues feel is one of the best series for this type of project

The grounds and facilities at the school were also a bit of a worry. It’s great that Hannah and her team are working to beautify the school and that some of the teachers were very much on board with all of this, but the school is still messy, goats roaming freely outside the classrooms, endless broken chairs stacked and stored wherever there is space, and dangerously broken-down classroom buildings: the broken glass is a huge hazard.

Goats roam casually around the grounds of John Masiza. The week previous to my visit, Hannah and a team from her church had been to cut the grass on the fields

Where else are the chairs supposed to go? Apparently the principle won’t get rid of them (through recycling etc.) because they are government property, and you can’t just get rid of things that aren’t yours to get rid of

An abandoned classroom used as storage for broken desks and chairs

The school most certainly faces many challenges, but somehow they seem to manage. There are good people involved in the school, and I think that the work that Hannah and her team is doing is really great. The manner in which they help is certainly more sustainable than many other projects. I enjoyed getting a tour of the school, and it made me feel really lucky to be in the position that I am in: I went to a good school, and I am now able to study at a good University. It also means that now I feel a responsibility to people like the learners at John Masiza, and I think I really need to get more involved in projects like this. Holding thumbs for the future!

Children are generally so much friendlier than adults, it’s heartwarming. The poses that they pick up from older folk is less encouraging though: Deuces!

Finally made Slutty Brownies

Holidays are a tough (yet wonderful) time for me because I tend to overindulge in all the wonderful things that I don’t generally have access to in the little isolated town of Grahamstown. You may also be aware that I don’t have easy access to a kitchen, which makes baking and cooking pretty difficult. However, I was recently lucky enough to be offered kitchen facilities in my Warden’s flat, and I took the opportunity to make something so wonderful and delicious, that I will most certainly be baking them again within the next two weeks.

The name is interesting, but they’re just so delicious and indulgent, that everyone wants a piece. Slutty brownies have been on my “To-make” list for a while, and I now see that I was not mistaken in choosing this recipe.

The Slutty Brownie is made up of a base layer of chocolate chip cookies, a layer of Oreos, and topped off with a fudgey brownie layer. Those are basically the three most wonderful treats in the world, right?

I chose to stick with simple box mixes, which made it cheaper and fail-proof. I didn’t want to end up with a dud layer of choc chip cookies and a perfect brownie on top, that would have been such a waste!

Just some casual ingredients waiting to become something awesome!

The three main components: cookie dough (delicious as is, by the way, who cares about Salmonella…?)

Place the cookies into neat rows to make sure you get evenly distributed Oreo-goodness

Try not to notice the fact that I was 1 Oreo short…

Add your brownie layer

Pop it into the oven

I would advise that you bake for a few minutes longer than the recommended time to cook the brownies, because they are quite thick, and all that baking heat needs to get deep down through to the cookie layer. Your cookies are not that likely to burn, just beware if you are using a metal cooking dish.

See the lovely layers, so inviting and tempting

Ooey gooey delicious finished product

They could possibly have stayed in the oven a little longer, but then the ooey gooey-ness of the brownies would have been lost. The softer brownie also offsets a crispier cookie layer, so you really get to enjoy the textures. The Oreo layer is like a small burst of happy in your mouth, a pleasant surprise each time you come across one with that characteristic sweet frosting inside.

Cake day inspiration

I don’t know who they are, but the person that decided National Sponge Cake Day should be a thing, had to be one of the brightest people ever. I am very happy right now because of them.

Today the local Indoor Cycling studio is hosting a 12 hour cycle marathon. I am instructing two 1hour sessions. After my first one, I decided I would come celebrate this fine day. On the menu this morning (yes, it was my breakfast, don’t judge me), was a Bar One cake slice accompanied by a Bar One milkshake.

My tummy is in heaven, and my brain has been inspired. Basically this post is just to share this wonderful day with you and warn you that Bar One is likely to permeate my recipes in the near future.

Beach day with Demarte Pena

You’ve really got to love spontaneity: this past weekend it took me to the beach in Port Alfred, a mere 45 minute drive from where I live. I had a charming ocean stroll, then went for some lovely fish lunch on the Kowie river where we casually bumped into friends. And the featherweight EFC Africa champion, Demarte Pena. It really isn’t every day you get to hang out with the top MMA fighter in Africa, is it?

MMA beach soccer team, Demarte Pena is the third from the left in the back row

I met Demarte recently through his trip to Grahamstown to train up the Rhodes University MMA (mixed martial arts) club. We have a mutual friend, and I was fortunate enough to get to interview Pena for the student newspaper, Activate. Apart from being an incredible athlete, he is also a really nice guy, and I really enjoyed interviewing him, and had a jam partying with him in one of Grahamstown finest establishments that is Friar Tucks. On his last day of his visit, he and the rest of the MMA club went through to Port Alfred, where they had lunch and a casual game of beach soccer.

Beach soccer on East Beach in Port Alfred

Here are some of the interesting things Pena had to say in our interview:

Demarte Pena, EFC Africa Featherweight Champion, with me, Kendra Dykman, at Haricots, Grahamstown. (Photo by Sekata Ramokgopa)

On his evening at Friars: “It was different. Normally just so restricted because of my training through the year, so hardly have time to really go out, so, it was good.”

Pena trains in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, with Richard Quan as his head coach. Because of the multiple disciplines involved in MMA, he also works with a number of other trainers. He has been a professional fighter for two years. “It’s been great. I started fighting when I was back in Pretoria, and I eventually moved to Jo’burg where I joined my current team.”

Pena started with Judo and Karate back in his home country of Angola, but didn’t fight as much when he came over to South Africa. “I lost a little bit of that love and passion for it for a while, but when I was in high school, I met a few other guys who were training as well. At that time when I started training again I was doing Muay Thai and a little bit of Kung Fu. We would mess around after school, train together. We learned about UFC.”

“I didn’t actually want to be a professional fighter. But one thing led to another: the opportunity came to fight for EFC Africa, the promotors here. They called my trainer and said there was a chance for me to fight. I was like ‘alright, let’s do it’.” Pena weighed in the 62-66kg category, and won his first fight, even though he hadn’t been training for the fight. After a second fight, Pena was granted the opportunity to fight for the title, where he beat the top contender in his division. “It’s been quite a speedy journey to the title. After I became champion, I decided to work on my training.”

At that time, Pena was studying towards a BComm in Entrepreneurship, at Tuks University, which he gave up and moved to Jo’burg, in order to pursue his his fighting career. When he moved to Johannesburg, he didn’t have a place to stay, so he stayed at the gym from Monday to Saturday, where he says he needed to stay and train.

He defended his title for the first time, and managed to “hustle” a place to stay. “The more you win, the more you get paid. You still get paid if you lose, but it’s half, so it’s a b****.”

“I became the third guy in history to defend his title for the third time, and recently, on the 19th of July, I fought and I defended my title. I am the only guy to defend his title for the fourth time in the history of African MMA.”

“It’s getting better as the sport grows. The fights are shown live in, I think, 111 countries worldwide.”

“For now I just want to establish myself more as an African fighter, but maybe in two more years time, hopefully, I can fight overseas. Just get more fights in. I train very hard and I put so much work in, in two more years I think I will be able to fight overseas and be more competitive there. So, just keep fighting and just keep pushing hard.”

“Guys normally retire around 35/36. You can open your own gym, or you can coach, but for me, right now, I do other things as well, like businesses as well. So I don’t need to rely on my fighting. I’m young still now, and I have a lot of time, so the cash you make from the sponsorships and the fights, you can do other things. So when I stop fighting I can live off the businesses and other things.”

On the things he enjoys most about being a fighter: “For me, the biggest thing is self-progress as a man and as an athlete,” said Pena. “It doesn’t just build you as a fighter, it builds your character; it makes you a stronger person. Not to be able to bully someone to enforce your own will, but self-confidence as well and the way you conduct yourself.”

“It’s not a sport for me, it’s something that I do, that I love and that I enjoy.”

“It is painful, but obviously you need to put in the hours. It’s rough but it’s not as bad as it looks. You want to make sure that you’re so well-conditioned that your body is ready to take that punishment.”

“We train Mondays to Saturdays, roughly four or five hours every day, and we train in many disciplines. So we train in the ground game, train in the kickboxing, training in wrestling, you’re doing lifting, general conditioning, sprints, jogging. So it’s so many things you’re training in together so you can compete at a high level of the sport. It’s not that just anybody can do it, this type of sport you have to really like what you’re doing. Because once you’re in there and you’re getting hit, it has to be something that you actually enjoy doing.”

“For me, I’d rather take the guy down and control the guy. It’s easier because you get hit less.” This comes from Pena’s past wrestling experience, but he makes sure that he’s not predictable as a fighter by utilising other fighting styles as well.

“Ever since I became champion I’ve tried to promote the sport a lot.” Pena coaches kids in Joburg as well. The sport is still relatively new in South Africa. Even at Rhodes it has only really starting to take off in the most recent years, however Rhodes is the only University with a club like this. “There’s still that stigma that it’s cage fighting, that it’s brutal, that it’s violent.”

He came to Grahamstown to promote the sport and share his knowledge and get a few more people excited about the sport here. “Who knows, in a few more years, or less, we can get a champion coming from here.”

Alex Awolaja, a member of the club described his experience. “The fact that the number one fighter in the EFC is here and willing to teach us is such a learning experience. I’ve trained alongside him in Jo’burg, but being coached by him is way better: I’ve learned a great deal more. Also going out and chilling with him is great.”

Pena worked with the Rhodes club over a training weekend over this long weekend past. “Just getting back to basics, showing them a lot more grappling and wrestling techniques. If you have a good base then everything you build on gets better. The guys are very motivated and they want to learn. I’m pushing them very hard. They’re not just giving up, they’re actually appreciating my time here. It’s exciting when you go somewhere and the people are passionate for the sport that you love as well as you are. It makes everything worth it. I don’t want to go to a place where the guys are slacking and you can see they don’t really want to do it. So I’m really impressed with the people who have been coming to the seminars.”

“The world is so unpredictable, and if I can play a little part for someone else, maybe they can mention me and they can say that I was one of the factors for them becoming champion or succeeded in the sport, then I’ll be happy.”

“For me, the biggest thing is to leave a legacy, just to be remembered you know, because we’re just passengers in this world: you don’t know when your last day is. This sport is so great because it gives me the opportunity to be an inspiration for someone else, not just specifically in Mixed Martial Arts, but anything in life. It’s a challenge to train that hard. You also get criticised a lot, obviously, when you’re fighting a guy, and his fans are swearing at you at times, and a lot of people don’t believe that you can accomplish something. So it’s not just a physical battle in itself, but very mental. It’s the challenge that I love.”

“The thing that I enjoy the most, is when someone has been underestimated and they overcome, that’s the thing that I live for in life. I was once watching a show, America’s Got Talent or something like that, and this one guy walks up on stage, and he was a chicken farmer. Like a rough-looking kind of guy, and as soon as he started talking with his funny accent, everyone started laughing and judging him like a trailer-trash kind of guy. So when the judges see him, already in their minds they were like, ‘This guy can’t sing, he can’t do anything.’ Obviously everybody would expect him to fail. And then when he started to sing, it was so brilliant that every single person that had doubted him before just stood up and applauded him for that. That’s the thing I live for: when people say you can’t do it, and you’re not good enough, and you’re this or that, and you overcome.

“When people underestimate you, that’s when you must do everything possible that to show them that you can.”

Dining Hall dinners can’t be all that bad… Can they?

Dining hall dinners are the biggest challenge for the fussy eaters in Res. You can have chicken, or something whose name you don’t recognise… And more often than not, people will order anything, and just grab slices of bread to make a sandwich, or they will organise something in their room, like microwave pasta, 2 minute noodles, or take-aways. At least the lunches aren’t quite this bad.

This is a collection of most of the dinners I experience on our two week meal cycle.

Week 1

Chicken stew and dumpling (but actually it’s just a ball of flavourless dough that apparently tastes ok if you add stuff to it)

Tuesday: Bean wrap (vegetarian option)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday: One of the good ones: Grilled sirloin with cheesecake (some of the best we could know)

Thursday: “Grilled chicken strips” with health bread (pretty darn good bread)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday: roast chicken again

Saturday: Chicken schnitzel. One of those meals that reminds me of home. Generally the rice is also done quite nicely as well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday: tuna wraps with tomato and mozzarella cheese. This one is quite delicious if you like tuna

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2

Monday: chicken stirfry (looks just like the grilled chicken strips, but ok) with a wrap and an apple crumble-type dessert

Tuesday: chicken curry. This was definitely on a bad day, not the most appetising piece of chicken I’ve seen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday: Sweet potatoes with grilled soya sausages (yes vegetarian option). It comes with chocolate mousse. This one is a good one, especially because you score some cheese with those protein-packed viennas

Saturday: Cape Malay style mutton curry. This can be a good meal, but one can be put off sometimes by the fatty or gristly bits that occasionally put a dampener on the meal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday: Mexican enchiladas. Basically another vegetarian bean wrap. But hey: cheese is always a win

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2

I suppose when I look at it like this it really isn’t that bad… But the lunches are definitely better. I also feel that they really skimp on the vegetables. When I ask for lots of vegetables, I get a normal sized serving. When I ask for less rice, or a small amount of rice, they halve it, and I still end up getting served more than I would if I had dished it up myself. I only have a few more weeks in this town, not many more dinner cycles left. I will enjoy my last days here! The food isn’t bad enough to change that.

Also be warned that I need to review just about every restaurant in this town before that time is up, so much delicious content is on its way.