Death By Carbs

by Paige Nick

  ‘I told you a thousand times, I can’t turn it off,’ Thabo said. ‘If I

  turn it off, then when I turn it back on again, we’ll have to put in a password to use Uncle Mlungu’s free minutes, and I don’t have his password. Do you know Uncle’s password, hey? Do you?’

  ‘Maybe Uncle Mlungu’s password is “stinks like shit”, or “going rotten”.’ Papsak turned up his nose and looked daggers over his shoulder at the offending corpse.

  The phone stopped ringing. A minute later, it started up again.

  ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ Papsak asked, nodding at the phone buzzing around in the gusheshe’s consol.

  ‘Just ignore it. We have more important problems.’

  ‘I know! That’s what I’ve been trying to say! We’ve been driving around forever, Thabo. Everywhere I say we must dump Uncle, you don’t like it. Too light, too dark, too close to town, too close to people running. When is this all going to be over? I just want to go home and sleep.’

  ‘We have a plan, Papsak, let’s stick to it. We’re going to drive around here and find a quiet spot, and then toss Uncle Mlungu in the sand dunes, remember? I think this will be perfect for us.’

  ‘I hope so. I don’t know why there are always so many people all the time in all the places where we want to dump Uncle. I’m tired, I want to go home,’ Papsak whined.

  ‘It’s the beach, Papsak, we should have known there would be people here.’

  ‘Why aren’t they at work? And now what?’

  ‘We just carry on driving around carefully till we find the right place. I know there will be one. And we don’t break any laws, so the cops

  don’t pull us over,’ Thabo said. ‘Everything will be fine, you’ll see.’

  Papsak didn’t seem convinced. He pulled a face, then wound down his window and waved the fresh air in with his hand. ‘Shew, Uncle Mlungu, sies man!’

  THE FANS

  Thursday 9:16am

  THE BANTING FOR LIFE FACEBOOK PAGE

  Lydia Steenberg

  Hey everyone, this is one of my favourite Banting recipes, so I thought I’d share it with you all. I do find that on those cold mornings especially I miss oats. So here’s one of the recipes I received with one of Maureen’s Marvellous ENDORSED meal plans. I hope she doesn’t mind me posting it here on the page, but I absolutely love it, so I wanted to share it. Just about every day I thank my lucky stars that I came across Maureen. Here it is:

  Banting Porridge

  A Tim Noakes ENDORSED recipe, created by Maureen Ewehout

  - 2 tablespoons cashews

  - 2 tablespoons almonds

  - 2 tablespoons pecans

  - 2 tablespoons walnuts

  - 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

  - 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds

  - 1 tablespoon chia seeds

  - 100ml coconut milk or full cream milk

  - A pinch of cinnamon

  Place the nuts in a large bowl and sprinkle a little salt over them. Fill the bowl with water so the nuts are covered. Soak overnight. Then in the morning, drain the nuts and rinse 2 or 3 times until the water runs clear. Blend the nut mixture with coconut milk and cinnamon. Microwave for 30 seconds. Serve with strawberries and love, from Maureen and Tim Noakes too (RIP).

  Like 243

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  THE HIJACKERS

  Thursday 9:42am

  The phone in the middle consol of the car started ringing again, making Papsak jump. ‘Who is this, always looking for dead Uncle Mlungu?’ he complained. ‘And always the same number calling, every time.’

  ‘Maybe it’s his wife? She probably wants his body back so they can bury him.’

  ‘What if it’s the police?’ Papsak asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘I don’t think it’s the police. They have big computers that can track phones. If it was the police, they would have already found us and put us in jail.’

  ‘Maybe you must just answer it next time it rings, and tell whoever is calling that Uncle Mlungu is dead and gone and they must stop phoning now.’

  ‘Wait, you’ve given me an idea, Paps.’ Thabo grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Do you think whoever keeps phoning him would pay to get the body back?’

  ‘What, like money?’

  ‘Yes. We could get rid of the body for once and for all, and make some money at the same time.’

  ‘Maybe. How much do you think we could get for Uncle?’ Papsak asked.

  ‘I don’t know, what’s a dead mlungu worth?’

  ‘I don’t know, about five thousand maybe?’

  ‘What about a famous dead mlungu?’.

  ‘Twelve thousand?’

  ‘I’m thinking maybe even fifteen.’

  ‘You think we could get fifteen thousand large for Uncle Mlungu, even though he’s starting to smell like bad fish, or Brother Philemon from church?’ Papsak asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s good that it’s a lot of money. We will have to use some of it to re-cover the back seat of the gusheshe.’

  Thabo nodded.

  ‘Okay, so what do we do now? Do you want to phone that number that keeps calling so we can talk to them?’

  ‘No, let’s not waste airtime or battery.’

  ‘We could always send a “please call me”.’

  Thabo looked down at the cell phone. ‘We can’t, the call isn’t coming from a cell phone. We just wait for it to ring again.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t?’

  ‘It will.’

  THE CO-AUTHORS

  Thursday 12:06pm

  ‘Chef!’ The waiter came into the kitchen carrying a full plate of Italian roasted chicken with seasonal salad and cauli-mash.

  ‘Is there a problem with the chicken?’ Marco asked. The diner had taken one bite out of the chicken leg. Nothing else had been touched.

  ‘No, it’s not the chicken. The gentleman at table five wants to know if it comes with chips.’

  Marco sighed. ‘This restaurant is called the Banting Bistro. Did he not see the sign, or read the menu?’

  ‘What should I tell him?’ the waiter asked, looking bored.

  ‘Take it back and ask if he’d like some asparagus chips instead.’

  Marco peered through the hatch and watched the waiter walk back through the restaurant carrying the plate. There were only two tables occupied in the restaurant, and they’d been seated too far apart, so the place looked stark and felt very quiet. Marco turned up the music and made a mental note to remind the waiters to seat customers closer together. It helped create more of an ambience. Marco watched the waiter bend down to speak to the customer, a man in his fifties with a greying beard, accompanied by a woman with short grey hair, who was eating the cauli-risotto and artichoke hearts.

  The waiter returned to the kitchen, still carrying the plate on his palm.

  ‘He says if you won’t make him chips, he’s going down the street to McDonalds.’

  ‘Oh fuck it,’ Marco said, opening the deep freezer and pulling out a bag of McCain’s rustic-cut frozen chips. ‘Tell him they’ll be out in a minute.’

  THE EX-PUBLISHER

  Thursday 12:44pm

  ‘. . . and you’re sure you don’t want a lawyer?’ Detective September asked.

  ‘Do you think I need one?’ Frank rasped.

  ‘If you haven’t done anything wrong, then I don’t see why.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t remember very much about last night.’ Frank licked his chapped lips and downed the paper cup of tepid water the detective had brought him.

  ‘What about the night before that?’ the cop asked. ‘How much of that do you remember?’

  ‘Why am I here?’ Frank asked. ‘I have the most vile fucking hangover of my life.’
/>   ‘Mr Collins, are you aware that Professor Tim Noakes was murdered two nights ago in his home in Constantia?’

  Frank couldn’t help bristling at Noakes’s name. ‘Call me Frank,’ he said. ‘Of course I know, it was all over the news yesterday.’

  ‘Okay, Frank, and where were you two nights ago, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘I do mind you asking, actually!’ Frank shot back.

  ‘Why? If you don’t have anything to hide, this should all be over within the hour, and you’ll be home in time for an afternoon nap. You look like you need one.’

  ‘Two nights ago I was at home. Alone. As usual. Okay? You happy now?’

  ‘Not really, Frank. That’s not what you told everyone in the Slug and Cactus last night, as well as the two policemen who arrested you.’

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I would have told you I was Dolly Parton last night and believed it myself. I was out of my fucking head!’

  ‘Is it not true, Frank, that you believe Professor Noakes is the reason your career fell apart?’ the detective asked, reading from his scribbled notes.

  ‘Sure, but that doesn’t mean I did him in. You’ve got zero proof.’

  ‘Weeeelll, that’s not strictly true, Frank,’ said Detective September, his moustache twitching with excitement, threatening to dislodge a few crumbs. ‘There’s the small matter of the confession you kept making last night.’

  Frank looked at him, dumbfounded.

  ‘We have twelve eye-witnesses, or should I say ear-witnesses, who heard you say that you punched Tim Noakes in the face numerous times “until he fell over”. I believe those were your exact words.’

  ‘I did, but not like that! It was a cardboard cutout that I punched. As anyone at the bookshop where I work . . . worked,’ Frank corrected himself, ‘will tell you.’

  The detective referred to his notes again. ‘You also stated numerous times that you were glad he was dead. Plus there’s also the state of your hand to consider,’ September said. ‘Your knuckles are shredded. We had a nurse look at you when they brought you in last night, and we suspect some of the bones in your hands are broken, Frank. You clearly hit something very hard. What are we supposed to think?’

  ‘I punched a wall a couple of times, Detective. A fucking wall! That wasn’t illegal last time I looked. Neither is being glad somebody is dead. I think maybe you’d better get me that lawyer now.’

  ‘Frank. . .’ Detective September began.

  ‘Mr Collins to you, if you don’t mind,’ Frank grumbled. ‘And I’d like another cup of water, and some Panado please. My brain feels three sizes too big for my fucking skull.’

  THE CO-AUTHORS

  Thursday 3:04pm

  ‘Oh God, please don’t tell me you’re on TripAdvisor again?’

  ‘Look at these wankers, Chris. They’ve given my sun-dried tomato and ham cauli-pizza two stars. TWO STARS! That’s my nonna’s sun-dried tomato recipe. How dare they? “Rubbery!” they said! People have been making them like this in Italy for generations. These idiots wouldn’t know a decent, properly cured sun-dried tomato if it jumped up and bit them in the face.’

  ‘Honey, you’re not writing a response, are you?’ Chris said, putting on his glasses and leaning over Marco’s shoulder to get a closer look

  at what he was bashing out on the poor, innocent keyboard.

  ‘Oh, and guess where they’re from? You get two guesses; no actually you only get one guess! They could only be from America!’ Marco

  ranted.

  ‘Marco,’ Chris said gently, ‘we’ve talked about this before, sweet-

  heart. Step away from the keyboard right now. Remember, we agreed, we do not respond to trolls on the internet, particularly the ones on TripAdvisor.’

  Marco stopped typing, looked at Chris, then took a deep breath and pushed the laptop away.

  ‘I know . . . you’re right,’ Marco said. Then after a pause, ‘Chris, do you think things would have been different if I’d gone on MasterChef instead?’

  Chris sighed. ‘Like I say every single time we have this conversation, of course they would have been different, but there are no guarantees that they would have been any better, my love.’

  ‘I don’t know if this is what I really want,’ said Marco, knuckling

  his eyes.

  ‘Why would you say that? You have your new book coming out in a few months, Noakes is out of the way so only your name will go on it, and you owe Shaun and Xolisa nothing. And Shireen, well, she’s all

  the way up in Joburg, and everyone knows she’s batshit crazy. So you don’t have to share the limelight with anyone any more. You’ll be a household name by the end of the year. Then the restaurant will pick up, and forget being a contestant on MasterChef, they’ll be begging

  you to judge it.’

  ‘I know . . . I know. It’s just I’ve given up so much to be here, but where has it gotten me? My restaurant is two Banting breakfasts away from closing down, my publisher airbrushed my author photo so much I look like a Kardashian, and now some tool on TripAdvisor says the chef at the Banting Bistro has two left hands. This isn’t what I trained in Italy for seven years for. My whole life is food. Do you have any

  idea how difficult it is for me to make the kind of food I love, and the kind of food I’m proud of, living like this? I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Why would you say that? You’re excited about the new book, aren’t you?’

  ‘You know I am. But honestly, Noakes wrote it. He’s the household name. This is his work. I’m mostly just riding on his coat-tails. Of course I believe in what he’s doing, sugar kills, and processed foods and

  carbs are the devil, we need to eat fresh homemade food, blah blah

  blah, but I miss making pasta and ciabatta and gnocchi, and . . . and proper pizza, not cauli-pizza! My nonna lived to be ninety-seven,

  and she ate pasta every day of her life. Fresh, home-cooked pasta,

  made with love and no GMOs.’

  ‘Come on, now you’re being dramatic. Everything you cook you make with love. What’s all this really about?’

  ‘What if I’m not cut out for this lifestyle under a spotlight, Chris? I can’t be seen out in public eating as much as a macaroon. I stress when I put on a kilo. You know me, I’m a big guy naturally. What kind of Banting guru is twenty kilos overweight?’

  ‘You know I prefer it when you’re heavier, right? You’re my bear. I don’t like it when you’re too skinny,’ Chris said. ‘You’re perfect just the way you are.’

  ‘I know, but that’s because you love me. Out there I’ll be a laughing stock.’

  ‘Fuck out there, who cares about out there?’ Chris said, waving him off. ‘Look Marco, I love you and I’m behind you whatever you decide to do, but you need to decide now. Noakes is gone, so either you take

  this opportunity to reinvent yourself, bring out his book and make yourself famous off the back of it. Or go the other way, can it all, and find your own path, open an alphabetti spaghetti restaurant for all I

  care. But whatever you do, don’t take all your shit out on those poor ignorant fuckers on TripAdvisor.’

  THE FANS

  Thursday 3:16pm

  THE BANTING FOR LIFE FACEBOOK PAGE

  Nicky Page

  Hello fellow Banting friends, I’ve struggled with my weight just about my entire life. I’m insulin resistant, with metabolic disorder, or what they term type two diabetes, which I manage with pills and exercise. I’ve managed to lose twenty kilograms over the last fifteen years, simply by watching what I eat fastidiously, and exercising at least three or four times a week. So my weight loss has been slow but consistent, which I’m proud of.

  I found that eating carefully and running (I’m up to 5km, whooohoo) is enough to keep my weight steady, but I need to work really, really hard to
chip off a couple of kilos in a year over and above that.

  Seeing everyone’s incredible success here on this page is one of the reasons that I decided to start Banting, and I’m in week three now.

  I may not have picked the best time to start Banting, I’m overseas right now on a writer’s retreat, writing a novel, and internationally they’re not as Bant-friendly as they are in South Africa, but I’m giving it a try. Week one was difficult, I could feel myself coming off my carb addiction, and I lost two kilograms. Week two I felt quite hungry but I think my brain was just adjusting, and now at the beginning of week three, I feel like I may have actually put on weight, which is a bit devastating. There’s no scale where

  I am out here in the middle of nowhere, but I’m going to keep on trucking. I want to thank all of you on this page for inspiring me with your words and pictures to give this thing a good bash. I see people on this page losing weight from the very first second, and I do wonder how long it will be before I start to see something shift?

  Like 347

  Maureen Ewehout well done for taking this first step towards changing your life, you can be very proud of yourself Nicky Page. Everyone has a different body and different metabolic issues. I create and sell individualised meal plans that have been ENDORSED by the late, great Tim Noakes, please DM me if you’d like to chat about finding some personalised solutions tailormade for you.

  Like 47

  Nandi Gwashe Nicky, congratulations on starting your banting journey, you won’t regret it. For me it took two months before the weight started to drop off, persevere and keep shifting your plan to see what works best for you. Stay with us.