Watch: Tickle taste buds with cooking classes by Ballito’s The Avocado Pair

Instead of book club Tuesdays, imagine spending that time with three friends sipping wine while learning how to cook with food extraordinaire, Nicky van Eeden, in the comfort of your own kitchen.

Not only has she brought an international taste sensation to the North Coast through her business,

The Avocado Pair, Nicky is here to share her love of food with eager-to-learn aspiring cooks.

Nicky spent some time at the renowned cookery shop Recipease, owned by Jamie Oliver, where she taught the art of cooking.

Her main influence, she says, was Luke Mackay, a professional chef and cookery writer based in London. 

Nicky, together with Luke and Dave Turcan, ran a deli/cafe in South Kensington for 6 years, stocking more than 6 000 products and seating 100 diners.

Residents of South Kensington often flooded the Brompton Food Market, which is how Nicky learned to cope in a small kitchen while delivering quantity and quality. 

Her nutritious vegetarian salads, roasted root vegetables, red and yellow tomato salad with basil and mozzarella and other goodies are still being raved about.

Nicky also sports an international education from the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine.

Inspired into a life of food, Zimbabwean-born Nicky says the women in her family led her onto the road of pursuing a career in the culinary world. 

“Ouma always made us huge lunches on Sundays and I often got to spend time in the kitchen with her,” she says.

Nicky’s family used to farm avocado pears so when it came to choosing a name for her new business, she and sister-in-law Fay settled on the name The Avocado Pair.

They share a severe addiction for avocado.

The experience of sharing recipes online during lockdown saw Nicky spot a gap in the North Coast market for cooking classes, further cementing the first step to realising her 10-year plan of opening her own café.

Nicky has started by offering classes to anyone keen to learn how to cook, including children.

In her own words, ‘cooking is a basic skill, similar to reading and writing’. 

Having further road-tripped abroad and visiting almost every country on the planet, Nicky has experienced cuisines from Mexican through to Asian, now sporting in-depth knowledge which she hopes to apply in tidying up many North Coast restaurants’ menus on a consultancy basis.

If you feel like cooking up a storm with Nicky, give her a ring at 063 469 3257.