Lunch with Jane DeGroot, 21 March (Good Friday)

First, a brief history lesson: my mother and father met at Wheaton College. That is all well and good, but it is entirely possible that they never would have tied the knot if it hadn’t been for one of mom’s good friends, Jane DeGroot. It was Jane who pushed my dad to ask my mom out on a date (he succeeded on his third try, but I suppose that’s another story for another day). As they say, the rest is history.

Jane is currently a TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) Fellow with the State Department at a university in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. She and several colleagues are here in Cape Town to enjoy a couple weeks of rest and relaxation. I haven’t seen Jane in quite a few years…so what fun it was to encounter her on the southern tip of Africa, of all places!

We enjoyed a brief stroll through downtown Cape Town and ended up at Nyoni’s Kraal for lunch.We had a wonderful time together, catching up on each other and each other’s families (the DeGroot kids and Gieser kids are roughly the same age), and sharing about God’s faithfulness in our lives. We were blessed to have this time together.

For interested parties, I jotted down a few dishes available at the restaurant:
Tasty
Vetkoek (Cape Dutch fried donut)
Samoosas (you can get these at Indian restaurants in the US; indicative of the Indian influence in the country)
Biltong (traditional dried meat, sort of like beef jerky)
Smoked snoek (typical fish caught along the Western Cape)

Maybe tasty but haven’t tried yet (have you?!)
Tripe (sheep or cow stomach) with samp and beans (thick bean stew) or pap (thickened cornmeal)
Amangina (chicken feet)
Mopane worms (from the Mopane tree in Zimbabwe)
Amatumbu (sheep intestines)