Weird and Wonderful 70's.

Not too sure how many of you are old enough to brag about surviving the 70's? It truly was an amazing period, and being a teenager in the 70's made it even more weird.

I mean, being a teenager in itself is awkward, with all your bits growing in funny places, hair sprouting in areas you never thought about before, your parents obviously on a sole mission to embarrass you, no-one liking you, too many people liking you, you liking no-one, the list of trauma for a teenager just goes on and on and on....

And to make it worse, as teenagers in the 70's we had to deal with some of the following:

- NO drugs. We had NOTHING to numb, help us cope, make us feel lovely (except for a swig of your parents imported liqueurs every now and then. And as you all know, a little sip of liqueur does not go a long way. At least not to your brain cells, it just lingers on your tongue, between your teeth and then down your gut)

I digress....

- NO Cellphones. We could not SMS, MMS, Whats-up, etc. We had to actually write words with a pen, or pencil (if you though you would want to delete) or coloured pens (if you really liked someone) onto a piece of paper, then fold it into intricate, tiny shapes and deliver it personally, or send a minion to deliver it for you. If you were advanced, you could slip it into a bag or pocket of the recipient. OOOH the excitement to discover a secret note in your school jacket, slowly unfolding it and reading it under your desk.

NO TV or Internet. Not too sure what we did with all that free time, but can remember listening to Springbok Radio, radio stories in the afternoon, visiting friends, stealing toffees at the corner cafe, thinking up excuses for not doing my homework, riding our bicycles, etc.

Hie-hie-hie, the clothes were hysterical. We dressed as if we were in a theme park. I remember white vinyl boots, so white that if a fly shat on it it would leave a mark, so vinyl, it made your calves sweat streams of salty water collecting in the bottom of the boot. And they made these squeaky noises - and oh how I adored them! I felt like I could be in ABBA when I strutted around all squeaky and sweaty.

Not actually me, but wishing it was

And then we had a jean called GAP. They were the biggest bell bottoms you have ever seen in your life. And as you walk these massive bottoms would come swinging past you with every step - but when you stood still, you looked amazing. Nothing to make a girls hips and bums look small like pant bottoms that are 5-times the width of your hips.

Again, not me - just to illustrate my point about above

And to top it all - our parents were weird!! They use to party a lot, and I mean a LOT! House parties and dinner parties were all the rage - which brings me to my one challenge. Hosting a 70's dinner party and cooking my way through a volume of "Fyn Kookkuns" .

I have lost volume 1, so PLEASE, if you can find me another one, I will invite you to a dinner party. Or come and host one at your house. Your choice.

Starting with volume 2 seems to be the logical thing to do until I get a volume 1. (Sorry, my volume 2 looks a bit worse for wear)

Another funny thing about the 70's were the colours! Lots of green and orange, and not just any green. Not like a nice grass-green or lime green. No, the green had to be either avocado colour, a dark, depressing forest green, or some hybrid between gall yellow and sick green. I even remember dressing up in green from head-to-toe. Green shoes, green pants, green jumper. Worse thing, none of these different greens harmonised with each other, but boy, green was the in-thing!

So here is the menu for the first dinner party, and my lucky guests for this memorable event will be my dad, his friend (a girlfriend nogal), my long-suffering husband, my lovely son and his adorable friend (his boyfriend nogal). I told you the 70's were weird!!

See how green everything is - the background, event eh plates and other crockery. Not a very appetising colour I must admit. And the food is also a bit off-colour, but I will give feedback as it might taste better than what it looks.

And just one more thing about the 70's for now - even the vegetables were weird. This picture comes out of volume 2, as they teach us to cook different vegetables. Imagine if these poor specimen ended up in Woolies - they would be left in their pretty wicker baskets to rot as they just do not look like the veggies we are used to now. Especially the red cabbage (it looks very plastic?),the celery (it looks half-dead), the unidentified bulby things in the front, the very dark and dangerous looking green cabbage mutant at the back. Shame.

See you soon

Lovies

Lizette