Category Archives: Celebrity braais

Rump on the braai, Jack Parow playing in the background, cold beer flowing liberally – it could have been a regular braai anywhere in South Africa. Except it wasn’t in South Africa, but St. Albans, just outside of London, home to the bulk of the South African players at top rugby club Saracens. Ethienne Reynecke, the former Lions hooker, hosted the braai as part of the build-up to National Braai Day, and his team-mates turned up en masse: Schalk Brits, Neil de Kock, Ernst Joubert, Derick Hougaard, Brad Barritt, Mouritz Botha, Jacques Burger, Deon Carstens and Petrus Du Plessis. Which, given the presence of Jan Braai and Dan Nicholl, meant a collection of chiselled athletes on show…

Jake was wrong after-all. Schalk is wearing Springbok colours.

Also in attendance was model Minki van der Westhuyzen, who confirmed that she maintains her figure by eating nothing but braai; on holiday in London, she was quite happy to drop in on Ethienne’s house for an afternoon round the fire. Saracens braais are regular features of life in London for the rugby stars, but this Sunday’s was one of the best: great meat from the Earlsfield market, good weather for London in September, and a group of mates enjoying the simplest of South African pleasures.

Jan had to significantly lower his standards, and braai some vegetables for Minki.

There were lowlights: Deon Carsten’s karaoke wasn’t quite in the Toks van der Linde class, and Brad Barritt’s insistence on playing Justin Bieber was a little worrying. But with bowls of pap accompanying some great rump, and Schalk Brits joining us later in the day armed with his usual beaming smile (he’d had to open a shopping centre earlier in the day, and had been swamped by fans for photos and autographs), it was a great South African day in London – and a precursor of the braai that Saracens will be having on September 24 in celebration of National Braai Day.

Saracens Squad delighted to meet up with their idols, Jan Braai and Dan Nicholl.

On Saturday morning 4 September myself and Braai4Heritage ambassador Dan Nicholl will arrive at Heathrow airport in London for the UK leg of the Soutie Braai Outreach Program (the SBOP). As many know, Braai4Heritage is about creating an annual day of celebration for South Africa. But you know this because the media tells you about it. The beauty of the Braai4Heritage celebration is that it falls on a public holiday, National Heritage Day. But this is not the case in other countries, so sometimes its difficult to celebrate there, as 24 September might be in the middle of the week. And we all know the poor guys in London work long hours. But this year 24 September falls on a Friday. So there is more than enough time to braai. And that is why we are heading over to London this weekend. To go and drum up support and raise awareness for National Braai Day on 24 September.

As much braaied meat as you can eat. This Saturday in London.

From 12:00 on Saturday 4 September there will be a braai at Shaka Zulu restaurant in Camden. For 20 pounds you can eat as much braaivleis* as you want. And they will have beers on special as well. There will also be a big screen showing how the Springboks “pleiser die Wallabies”. (In the words of Francois Hougaard). If you are a South African, and you are in London, please come and join us. If you are not a South African, but always wished you were, come and join us as well, and pretend you are.

If you are on Facebook, you can join the event page of this braai, and help us invite the other South Africans in London as well.

*Update. Shaka Zulu emailed us the final menu for the braai buffet on Saturday: Boerewors & chutney; Chicken Sosaties; Lamb chops; Rump steak with beer braaivleis basting sauce; Hot cheese & potato salad; Green leaf salad & mustard dressing; Grilled corn; Koeksisters

The Italians are famous (and rightly so) for many things. Building majestic sportscars. Successfully pulling of clothing several sizes to small. Playing football (the recent World Cup not included). Fitting people with concrete shoes and taking them swimming. It’s a long and admirable list, but one particular trait would not appear to be amongst them: the art of braaing.

South Africa's Ant & Dec. Also known as "The original Grant and Anele".

Sasha Martinengo is an institution on South African radio, patrolling the airwaves of 5FM with a winning blend of great music, an inherent sense of fun, and a love of Formula 1 that goes well beyond obsessive – and which has him at the helm of SuperSport’s F1 broadcasts. In between that, he DJs half a dozen gigs a week, jets off around the world to watch Grand Prix, and is single-handedly responsible for 18% of South Africa’s Twitter traffic. And occasionally, he tries to burn his house down. Sasha very kindly had Jan Braai and myself round to his suburban palace for a braai a few weeks back, and also dragged out his old partner in crime, Ian F (the old Ant and Dec of local prime time radio), undersized sports writer Kevin McCallum, who turns up wherever free beer and food are to be had, and Mrs. Martinengo, who, it turns out, is the spiky haired half of Swedish rockstars Roxette, now living in Johannesburg and married to the local doyen of radio. How does one greet Mrs. Martinengo, then? “How do you do, do you do…”

Where there's smoke there's not necessarily fire.

While Paula politely dealt with a string of awful Roxette jokes, Sasha got down to the art of braaing Italian style, which seemed to be based on recreating the skies above Iceland during the volcanic eruption (see picture for confirmation). But as everyone else retreated inside to cold beer, and Sasha’s new television (which is approximately the same size as Malawi), the Italian reined in his furnace, loaded up his meat, and in under an hour, one very happy group of braai afficionados had confirmation that’s it not just pasta the Italians have mastered. But I’m still not buying Sasha’s story that as a superstar DJ, he had to start his braai in something resembling dry ice.

If this is your first visit to this website, please go and read the vision and mission of the Braai4Heritage initiative. If you have done that before, you may, but don’t need to read it again. It has not changed since the last time. If you’re a first timer, it will give you some insight into the thought process when we launched National Braai Day a few years ago.

Ryan O'Connor, Justin Timberlake (imitating Braai4Heritage ambassador Dan Nicholl) and JP Duminy

Of all the things that we do to spread the Braai4Heritage message, the best word to get out there is word of mouth. To this effect we are busy with a series of high level talks with some of our fellow South Africans who, by talking about it, will give that word of mouth campaign a boost. This past weekend I had a braaiday warm-up event at National Braai Headquarters where KFM breakfast DJ Ryan O’Connor, and South African cricketer JP Duminy were both recruited to help. Mostly we talked about uniting 50 million people around a braai fire, but then of course I also braaied a few things for everyone to enjoy. And that they did. So much so that a few hours later, Springbok rugby player Bryan Habana remarked on Twitter that he was at Newlands for the WP – Bulls game and he “had a chat with JP at half time, and he said that I must wait for the Jan Braai meat”. That is a typical example of word-of-mouth. I tell JP Duminy about braaiday, and JP Duminy tells Bryan Habana about it. Next thing we know, Aaron Mokoena is braaing on 24 September.

Where do you fit into all of this? You need to help spread the message, by also telling those people in your circle of knowledge that on 24 September, they have to light a fire, and enjoy a braai. Another way in which you can help is by joining the Braai4Heritage Facebook fanpage, and to invite all your friends to join as well.

May the wors be with you!