Marc Kent's busy, colourful kitchen-cum-dining room is the hub of the home he shares with wife Brigitte and their angelic blonde blue-eyed twins Carter and Drew. He admits to having been 'mellowed' by Marc Kent's family.
He likes to cook to music: preferably Bob Marley, on vinyl, played on his Linn turntable, and fed through a pair of heavyweight original AE speakers.
'There's a guy in Stellenbosch who sells this stuff. He knows a sucker when he sees one. Look at this: porn for men... !' whispers Marc, paging through a tome that is a recent European publication covering state-of-the-art sound equipment.
'When I turned 40, I decided to go “back to black”. I'm reliving the GR-eighties [the 'great 80s']! There is an amazing vinyl shop near the Corner Surf Shop in Muizenberg so, it there's no wave on Wednesdays, I stock up on vinyl.'
'I’m not really into food and wine matching. You eat what you like and you drink what you like.'
He does all the family cooking. 'I’m a lucky girl,' grins Brigitte. 'Except when I travel on the twine business,' her husband points out disapprovingly. 'Then the kids get to eat differently: fish fingers and stuff.' But these are also children who eat blue cheese by the chunk, pick and snack on fresh snow peas from Dad's herb garden, and have been known to chew and swallow a red-hot chilli pepper, a hair-raising problem swiftly solved with mouthfuls of cold milk and blocks of chocolate!
The latest garden project is a tunnel for cultivating berries year-round: gooseberries, blueberries, blackberries, elderberries... for the pot, but also purely for the taste sensation and tactile pleasure Marc wants his children to experience by picking and eating fresh fruit.
A sleek, temperature-controlled (at an average 12°C) industrial fridge built into his farmhouse-style kitchen holds 120 bottles of wine. The content comprises mostly rustic reds from the southern Rhone and southwest France in appellations like Cahors: wine made for southern French peasant cooking, which is what Marc most enjoys preparing. He also loves spicy Asian food, chilli, and curries. 'I’m a KZN boy, after all.' To drink with that: German whites such as Mosel and naturally sweet Spätlese and Auslese.
Marc's kitchen is cluttered with memorabilia. On his European wine travels, he collects glass water carafes with which drinks such as pastis are traditionally served. The line-up of retro designs atop the fridge ends, somewhat incongruous, with a Castle Lager beer quart bottle.
'It was just my dad and me when we came to Cape Town. I was only 10. I learned to cook with him. He always preferred to drink his Castle in quarts. Each year, on his birthday, I sit down and enjoy one...'
The bright green dresser holds, besides an array of recipe books, an unusual fresh herb and spice rack with glass drawers, which was salvaged while on a trip to Sweden. From France comes a massive, marble-topped, ornately carved oyster-shucking table.
The brightly painted wooden cockerel is local. 'It's from a roadside artist in Mpumalanga. Isn't it great?' He gives it a cuddle and quips: 'It's a man thing...'
Aromatic green fig preserve with ginger and chilli recipe by Marc Kent paired with chilled Boekenhoutskloof Noble Late Harvest wine....
Duck Cassoulet recipe by Marc Kent paired with Boekenhoutskloof Cabernet Sauvignon....