Made With Love

Xoliswa Ndoyiya, Nelson Mandela's personal chef for 22 years and now Chef de Tournant at Sanctuary Mandela, shares the dishes that Tata loved most.

There is one respect in which I dwarf all my contemporaries or at least about which I can confidently claim to be second to none - a healthy appetite. There was a time when I could polish off enormous quantities of food in any order. I could start from pudding backwards & feel just as happy & contented at the end of it all." - Nelson Mandela To many of us in the family, Sis' Xoli was more than Tat'omkhulu's personal chef, she was a big sister and a mother to many of my younger cousins and our children. The only dampener to her incredible labour of love and care was the fact that her own family and children did not benefit as much as Tat'omkhulu and his family did. In the kitchen she cooked up a storm, and many family members developed a preference for her special dishes. For me, each meal tasted like food prepared at an a la carte five-star restaurant - breakfast, lunch, and supper equally delectable. E-V-E-R-Y D-A-Y!" - Nandi Mandela