What do you feed a man who spent decades eating prison food in the name of freedom and reconciliation?

It was an intimidating question Xoliswa Ndoyiya wasn’t sure she knew how to answer. It was about 20 years ago and at the time she was just a young cook working at a Jewish retirement home in Johannesburg, South Africa. But a friend had urged her to apply for the job as Nelson Mandela’s personal chef.

So she did. And when he met her, he immediately put her at ease.

"I believe that you are a great cook, but can you cook our food?" Ndoyiya recalled being asked by Mandela, who had only recently been released from prison. It was a reference to the Xhosa foods Mandela had grown up eating, simple dishes rich with porridge-like maize, beans and vegetables.

Ndoyiya said she smiled. Yes, she knew ukutya kwasekhaya, the term South Africa’s Xhosa clan uses to describe comfort food.

"That was the end of the interview. I was hired," she said in a recent telephone interview. She has been with him ever since.

And now she is sharing the home cooking Mandela loves in a cookbook, Ukutya Kwasekhaya: Tastes from Nelson Mandela’s Kitchen (Real African Publishers), one of two recent books to use food as a fresh way to recount Mandela’s life from anti-apartheid fighter to prisoner to president to retired statesman.

Ndoyiya’s book, co-written with Anna Trapido, is a charming collection of mostly rustic, classic South African recipes, including many of Mandela’s childhood favorites.

Both books previously had been published in South Africa, but just now have been released in the United States.

Trapido, a chef and food writer, also wrote her own book, Hunger for Freedom (Jacana Media), a more academic account of the role food has played throughout Mandela’s life, from his childhood to during and after his time as South Africa’s first black president.

Trapido unearthed fascinating, humanizing stories, including that of Mandela’s first meal after his release from prison. The timing of his release was so sudden, there had been no time to prepare.

So it was decided at the last minute that Mandela (also often called Madiba, another term of affection) should dine at Archbishop Desmund Tutu’s home in Cape Town.

"We had no idea what (Madiba) liked to eat, so we thought, well, chicken is the safest thing, and I rushed to the nearest 7-Eleven," Lavinia Crawford-Browne, Tutu’s personal assistant, recalls in the book. "I bought up every chicken piece I could find and a crate of Coke, which turned out not to be enough and I had to go back.”

Until we tasted something entirely new, something truly, madly kim-chic, we thought we’d seen it all: every imaginable ingredient tossed in a tortilla, folded over with lotsa cheese and called a quesadilla.

Tex-Mex fare gets a huge kick from Korean kimchi. You may have eyed it in the grocery store and wondered what to do with the stuff.

Well, tuck this powerful pickle snugly in your cart and kiss ordinary quesadillas goodbye forever.

Kimchi is a pungent, lip-puckering mix of naturally fermented napa cabbage, garlic, chilis, ginger and spices.

Touted as one of world’s healthiest foods, the fiery condiment fights cancer, is loaded with vitamins, as well as an army of good bacteria for seamless digestive health.

Add a dab to noodles, rice, stews, wraps or sammies. Or pucker up for a straight-from-the jar tangy treat.

Kim-Chic Quesadillas with Tamari Roasted Tomatillo and Tomato Salsa

Serves 4 as entrée, 8 as appetizer

FOR THE SALSA:

6 plum tomatoes, halved

4 fresh tomatillos, shucks removed and halved

Olive oil, for drizzling and sautéing

Coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons ginger paste

2 red chilies, seeded and chopped

3 tablespoons tamari sauce

1 teaspoon agave syrup

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

4 teaspoons roasted sesame seeds

FOR THE QUESADILLAS:

Olive oil cooking spray

3 cups chopped napa cabbage

2 cloves garlic, minced, divided

1 tablespoon ginger paste

1 1/2 cups kimchi, drained

4 (10-inch) flour tortillas

1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro

3/4 cups shredded sharp cheddar

3/4 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese

For the salsa: Preheat oven to 300º. Line a baking dish with foil and place the tomatoes and tomatillos cut-side up. Drizzle with olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Slow roast for 2 hours; remove from oven and set aside.

Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, coating bottom with olive oil. Add onions, seasoning with salt and pepper; sauté until softened, about 10 minutes. Add 2 cloves garlic, 2 tablespoons ginger paste and the red chilies; sauté 2 minutes more. Stir in roasted tomatoes and tomatillos, breaking up with a wooden spoon. Add tamari and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in agave.

Once cooled, transfer mixture to a blender and pulse on lowest setting until salsa is mixed, but still chunky. If you have an immersion blender, skip this step and puree salsa right in the pan. Stir in sesame oil and sesame seeds. (Can be made up to a week ahead. Store refrigerated in an airtight container.)

For the quesadillas: Heat a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat, and coat bottom with cooking spray. Add napa cabbage with a few tablespoons of water and sauté until wilted, about 2 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and kimchi. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Lay the tortillas on a flat surface. On one half, layer the cilantro, cheeses and kimchi mixture. Fold over other half. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

Heat a clean, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cooking quesadillas about 2 minutes each side, until cheeses are melted and the tortillas are browned.

To serve: Cut quesadillas into quarters and drizzle with reserved salsa. Garnish with extra sesame seeds if desired. (Leftover salsa can be used in myriad ways – dip for chips, atop grilled chicken, chops or fish. Vegetarians and vegans can pump up sautéed tofu or tempeh.)

DIVA CONFESSIONS

Fresh, homemade salsa is always best.

But if the thought of roasting, stirring and blending your own makes you crave a long nap, by all means give yourself a break.

Don’t forgo a fun and fabulous recipe just because you’re lazy: cheat!

Grab a jar of salsa from the pantry, heat it up with minced garlic and ginger paste, add some tamari, sesame oil and sesame seeds, and voilà!

You’re done in minutes, ready to move onto more important matters.

Like choosing (and tasting) the perfect wine or beer to accompany.

Tom Gregersen has been responsible for planning, designing and installing more than 100 exhibitions at the Morikami. (Damon Higgins / Palm Beach Post)

THE SCENE MAKER: 
TOM GREGERSEN

WHO HE IS: Gregersen is the cultural director at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach. He holds a master’s degree in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan, and before joining the Morikami in 1978, Gregersen taught English as a second language in Japan. During his tenure at the Morikami, Gregersen has been responsible for planning, designing and installing more than 100 museum exhibitions and for overseeing the museum’s curatorial, collections, and education departments. Gregersen has authored or edited several exhibition-related catalogues and is currently working on a book about the Yamato Colony. He and his wife Sandi have one son and one daughter and live in Delray Beach.

A few of his favorite things:
FAVORITE CULTURAL INSTITUTION TO VISIT (OTHER THAN THE MORIKAMI!):
The Norton Museum of Art. I enjoy their special exhibitions and East Asian offerings, and I’m grateful that they are not competing with Morikami for Japanese art.
The Norton Museum of Art, 1451 S. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach. Info: (561) 832-5196; norton.org

FAVORITE MOVIE THEATER:
The Regal Cinema. My son is employed there.
Regal Delray Beach 18, 1660 S. Federal Highway, Delray Beach. Info: (561) 272-0510; regmovies.com
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SPOILER ALERT: DON’T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT LAST NIGHT’S “FOOD NETWORK STAR” OR WHAT HAPPENED TO LOCAL BOY JOSH LYONS!

OK, you’re still here. So I can tell you that Josh, of soon-to-be Clematis sushi palace Fuku, his own catering company, band Fell on Deaf Ears and some awesome vests, survived the cut again on the second episode. But I’m worried that if Team Giada had not been named the winner and thus immune from elimination, our goateed guy about town might have been cooking for his life again.

The challenge saw the teams research one specific aspect of a food-famous area of New York, either soul food-laden Harlem, Italian-flavored Arthur Avenue, or the Jewish and Kosher theme of the Lower East Side. They then have to lead a bus tour through that area, using their food as an edible landmark. Josh’s team got Little Italy, and he specifically was supposed to talk about a meat market. It’s not that his sausage and peppers crostini was awful. It’s that it was just OK. And when paired with a very, very long story about how Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro met on the phone when Pesci was working at a Little Italy restaurant that didn’t appear to have anything to do with the food he had cooked or the meat market he’d been inspired by, the scales were tipped for “Meh.” I’m worried. Come on, Josh. You’re gorgeous and funny and a rock star and we know you can cook. Make all that work for you. We want you around longer. We encourage gorgeous and talented. In fact, we prefer it.

Otherwise, I really dug last night’s episode, because it perfectly represented the two things that anyone with a cooking show should be able to master – cooking and showing. (This is not a difficult concept to understand.) It doesn’t matter how well you cook if you can’t engage an audience, because the folks on the other side of the camera can’t taste your food. They have to feel it. And it’s amazing how many of these contestants are eliminating themselves without realizing it because they can’t do both, or at least not out of their comfort zone of the food they usually cook.

“Well, won’t they be cooking their own food if they get a show, Leslie?”

Yes, technically, Person I Made Up! If they can win. But they’re on something we like to call a game show, and the way that these things work is that you are constantly thrown out of the comfort zone, and not just to judge how well you can roll with the punches and unpredictable world of live TV. It’s also because making people uncomfortable and shaking them up is good TV. And if this surprises you, you shouldn’t be on TV. That was punctuated by Team Bobby’s Kara, who completely blows not only her chicken and waffle challenge from Melba’s, but her presentation.

Kara tells us from the very beginning that she’s not comfortable with soul food, that she doesn’t know anything about it, that she doesn’t like fried chicken or waffles and basically that she’s not savvy enough to follow that with “…but I’m sure gonna find out all I can about them, because this is the challenge I landed on this here game show, and pretending it isn’t is like going on “The Price Is Right” and cussing Drew Carey out because you got Plinko instead of One Away.’” You rolled the dice, sister. Play through.

Kara’s discomfort is so palpable that when she starts her story, she not only gets flustered about describing Melba – she trips over “Black” and “African-American,” which doesn’t probably mean anything other than that she was so uncomfortable she flubbed those descriptors, which made her seem even more uncomfortable – the fact that she had to describe the woman’s race punctuates that even more. Ironically, those descriptors wouldn’t have sounded out of place if she’d actually told the story of the history of chicken and waffles – African-American musicians showed up hungry after a gig, and a resourceful cook rustled up what she had handy, thus creating a delicacy. (Convienience is how we arrived at a lot of ethnic delicacies, including chitterlings, hagis and any food involving gross meat baked inside another type of meat.)

Anyway, I am loving this team set-up, because it enages the mentors in a different way, and because it gives the contestants an added layer of advice. This doesn’t mean they have to take it, of course – you can lead a chef to the oven, but you can’t make him not screw it all up. Or something like that.

Peruvian meal prepared at La Granja chain restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens consists of rotisserie chicken, yellow rice, black beans and plantains. (Damon Higgins/The Palm Beach Post)

There’s no better bargain than freshly roasted chicken for a takeout dinner. Think about it: order burgers or pizza for a family of four and you may find yourself paying more than you intended, in terms of cash and calories.

If that rotisserie chicken is Peruvian-style pollo a la brasa, seasoned and slow-roasted, it turns weeknight take-out into a soulful affair. When La Granja, a rotisserie chicken chain with nearly 30 locations in Florida (six in Palm Beach County) and Aruba, opened a restaurant near my neighborhood, it quickly took its place in our family’s takeout roast chicken rotation.

This particular location landed in the Northlake Boulevard space formerly occupied by the Quarterdeck restaurant and, truth be told, it has yet to make the space its own. A functional bar goes largely unused (or used mostly for takeout traffic). The décor is minimal and fuss-free. The welcome station is a salad bar-like row of containers filled with fresh salsa, from the mild and oniony to the brazen and oniony.

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Bruce Seidel is confident the future of food television won’t be seen on television.

Which is why the Food Network and Cooking Channel veteran has checked out of network TV to oversee the launch of YouTube’s latest original content channel, HUNGRY. The channel, which goes live on July 2, is expected to feature a freewheeling blend of how-to and celebrity-driven food videos.

The venture is part of the Google Inc.-owned video site’s plan to launch roughly 100 channels of niche-oriented programming. Earlier this month, YouTube pledged to spend some $200 million to help market those channels across Google and its advertising network.

Seidel was drawn to the project in part for YouTube’s ability to create a more direct community with viewers than generally is possible with network television. It also offered more flexibility not just for viewers, but also for producers, who can more easily experiment with format and content.

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French chicken with Dijon mustard and scallions (AP photo)

By Elizabeth Karmel

When I was young, Julia Child was as much a fixture in my family’s kitchen as she was on television.

Not only did my mother watch her, she cooked right along with her, as well. The local public television station sent the recipes in advance and my mother collected them in a three-ring binder that she still has today.

My favorite menu was what we referred to as “French Chicken,” a butterflied chicken that is slathered with a mustard, white wine and scallion sauce that bakes on during roasting, becoming a delectable crust and infusing the chicken with the heady flavors of Dijon.

The vegetable was fresh peas cooked with Boston lettuce, and dessert was a delicious apple tart with Grand Marnier-spiked applesauce and a layer of apricot-glazed apple slices on top. This menu often was served as a birthday meal, so it is a fitting menu as we near Child’s 100th-birthday celebration.

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