Amy van der Merwe

I think I started cooking out of a love of color and creativity. I feel like cooking is an edible art form. I studied fine art at university majoring in Kiln formed glass and worked in hospitality through my study years and after. I managed to travel so much of the world working in various restaurants and I really loved it. When I moved back home to South Africa I started a market stall selling beautiful salads, I then started a lunch delivery service from my housemate’s home. From there I was approached to start a restaurant and then to consult as a chef trainer and recipe developer at luxury lodges across Southern Africa. Once I had children, I wanted to be home more, so I started teaching myself photography and now I am a full-time recipe developer and food photographer. We live on a farm cottage in Stellenbosch South Africa, this is the winelands in the mountains close to Cape Town. It is summer at the moment so we have beautiful vegetables in the garden and stone fruit on the trees. I love cooking with plants with different colors and textures, and luckily for me my husband loves to grow them. My favorite way to cook is over a fire, I love the smoke and the harsh heat, but also love that it can be manipulated to be gentle, and you can cook slowly. Luckily, we have a fire pit in our garden that I can cook on.