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Behind the legacy of love scenes<br />
Putting a cookbook together is a labour of love. And writer Tayla Blaire and<br />
photographer Roelene Prinsloo enjoyed every (delicious) minute<br />
he first recipe in Our Italian Legacy of Love<br />
is for Café del Sol’s famous mayonnaise. And<br />
the last is for a Bellini. And in between. Oh<br />
gosh ... avocado al-ritz and Nona’s basil pesto<br />
and limoncello risotto. Fresh mussel pot and<br />
double-cooked chips and stuffed calamari. TPanna cotta with lemon curd topping and chocolate tart<br />
with pistachio crust and Mamma’s pavlova. Recipe after<br />
recipe after delicious recipe from the Café del Sol family<br />
kitchen, each a memory Chiara and Ryan Viljoen have<br />
of dishes from both their nonnas, as well as their mama,<br />
Luciana Treccani.<br />
And while the collection of recipes is a legacy of love, the<br />
same could be said for putting it together ... the behind the<br />
scenes planning, tasting, writing, tasting, photographing,<br />
and tasting!<br />
The first seeds of the book were planted in 2019, when<br />
freelance lifestyle writer Tayla Blaire was commissioned to<br />
write an article about Cafe Del Sol for the end-of-year issue<br />
of Get It magazine. “I was thrilled, having been a fan of<br />
the restaurant since 2008. Luciana and Chiara showed me<br />
how to make limoncello gnocchi and then we sat down<br />
to interview for the magazine. The interview ended up<br />
lasting almost four hours, as we started reminiscing about<br />
our respective travels to Italy - I had just come back from<br />
a three week backpacking trip there. I have a passion for<br />
Italian food, passed on to me from my mom, which came<br />
across, and they asked if I would be interested in helping<br />
them write a cookbook, something that had always been<br />
a dream of theirs. That <strong>Dec</strong>ember we put together a pitch<br />
for Penguin. It got approved. And boom! Suddenly I found<br />
myself in the role of ghostwriter for a cookbook.”<br />
So what is it like behind the scenes? “A whole lot more<br />
chaotic than the gorgeous glossy pages let on! Firstly,<br />
Chiara got way too enthusiastic with recipes ... I don’t think<br />
I’m exaggerating when I say that about 50 had to be cut<br />
from the first draft to the final book. That was probably the<br />
worst part – knowing how many exquisite recipes wouldn’t<br />
make it to print due to page limitations. The family also had<br />
a habit of saying that everything was their favourite family<br />
recipe ... and I had to repeatedly explain that a favourite<br />
implies there’s only one, and they had about twenty with<br />
that title. This was a battle they weren’t prepared to lose, so<br />
you’ll find a lot of favourites in this book!”<br />
Worried that her knowledge of Italian cooking would lead<br />
to her making connections that weren’t necessarily in the<br />
recipe, Tayla often dragged her husband into the room<br />
to read through a recipe to see if he could follow it. “If he<br />
could follow it, anyone can – and I say that with so much<br />
love! On the boring side ... maintaining consistency for<br />
method and measurements across every single recipe was<br />
tough as it gets really monotonous. But on the positive<br />
side ... I loved the endless chats to the family, hearing their<br />
stories and creatively weaving their narrative into the blurbs<br />
at the start of each recipe. My favourite part of the book is<br />
the opening pages – the story of the family. It was the first<br />
section I wrote and it really set the tone for everything that<br />
followed,” she says.<br />
“The family would ask my opinion on all kinds of things,<br />
from what I thought the cover should be to helping them<br />
choose which recipes to lose. That trust is so special to me,<br />
as it shows that they knew I held this book as close to my<br />
heart as it is to theirs”.<br />
Tayla managed to pop in during one of the shooting days<br />
for the photographs ... “and I happened to coincide my visit<br />
with lunchtime (of course she did!). They were shooting<br />
the risottos and after taking the pictures, we all sat down<br />
amidst boxes and flat-lays to eat every risotto from the<br />
book – it was heaven. Gosh, they make a good risotto. The<br />
best I have ever had, for sure.”<br />
Shooting (and eating) the risotto was Roelene Prinsloo, a<br />
sensational professional food photographer who makes<br />
every dish look mouth-watering.<br />
“I started specialising in food photography in 2002. When<br />
the chance came up to shoot the images for this book,<br />
I grabbed it with both hands. I love what I do so much<br />
it doesn’t even feel like work.” It can, however, be quite<br />
challenging to get a variety of settings and images when<br />
shooting a book. “It involves a lot of physically hard work,<br />
moving studio lights from one location to the next to set<br />
up a different set, but so worth it to get a different lifestyle<br />
feel. At the end of the day, even when I am exhausted, I am<br />
massively satisfied when I go through the lovely images.”<br />
“And shooting a recipe book is such great fun! It’s a<br />
wonderful opportunity to be really creative and to work<br />
together as a team. After working together so closely for so<br />
many days - usually around 10 days, but we did this book in<br />
a record of six - we feel like friends and family,” Roelene says.<br />
Tayla agrees with her. “At the launch of the book, I asked<br />
Luciana, Chiara and Ryan to sign my copy, and Chiara wrote<br />
that I am ‘officially part of the famiglia’ – and it really feels<br />
that way.”<br />
<strong>22</strong> Get It Magazine <strong>Dec</strong> <strong>21</strong> / <strong>Jan</strong> <strong>22</strong>