Unless you’ve been living under a rock, by now you would’ve seen my dear friend Zola Nene’s smiling face either on Expresso Morning Show or on every bookshelf in the country with her beautiful new cookbook, Simply Delicious. It’s a collection of incredibly good-looking food interwoven with stories of her childhood and her food journey.  One of the things I love most about Zola’s food is how unpretentious it is – and this tart is a great example. Even though she is a trained chef, she has no airs and graces about using a packet of jelly mix, a tin of condensed milk and some crushed biscuits when it’s needed – basically, she’s one of us, guys!  When I saw this recipe, I was immediately transported back to being a kid – my mom used to make a recipe just like this, but with pineapple instead of granadilla and I think we all have a version of this fridge tart somewhere in our childhood!

Even though Zola and I both grew up in George (which basically means George people are insanely cool btw), and went to the same high school AND chef school , we only became food soul mates 8 years ago when, thanks to a happy coincidence, we worked together at Top Billing and Expresso Morning Show. Zola is one of those people who is just incredibly fun to be around and her passion for food is infectious! Like me, she understands that cravings give life direction and together, there is nothing we wouldn’t do to satisfy a demanding craving – we once walked what felt like 100km around Durban in search of a curry – I think we’re both still recovering from that! Not to mention that we never got that craving satisfied! Whether we were doing cooking classes together, shooting inserts, braving deadlines or travelling across the country, there would always be lots of laughter, general silliness and always, always good food!   Not-surprisingly, our catch-ups always revolve around eating – whether it’s visiting a new restaurant, driving across town for a flaky pastry or having a heated debate about some new food trend, the one thing I can rely on is that Zola will ALWAYS order dessert with me and if that isn’t yet another reason to love her then I don’t know what is!