Sometimes I feel like I need to pinch myself to make sure that this life I share with Reuben is real. That I didn’t imagine any of it. That it’s not just a dream. Because, you see, Reuben has given me an incredible life – a life I could never have imagined.
I saw him for the first time in 1997 when I was doing a practical at Monneaux in Franschhoek while studying at the Institute of Culinary Arts. He was so good-looking you couldn’t not notice him. He’d come for an interview with chef Richard Carstens. I turned to my friend Carmen, who also worked there, and asked: ‘Wie’s daai?’ (Who is that?) and she replied, ‘Dis my boetie’ (That’s my little brother). And so Reuben and I became friends, and initially it was our shared love of food that brought us together.
