Onezwa Mbola held up the first copy of her cookbook on video, then broke the good news to her 1.2 million TikTok followers. Her comment section was flooded with congratulatory messages, validating the strength of the culinary community she has built.

A Food Love Story has since become a local bestseller, with Mbola doing a three-city book tour to Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban. “I am a published author now. It’s such a beautiful book, and now people are going to have my story — it was an emotional and proud moment.”

The 31-year-old food content creator and MasterChef SA Season 4 alumna had made a life-changing decision to uproot her life in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, and return to her roots in Willowvale, a seaside village in the Eastern Cape. Mbola began documenting her new lifestyle online, inviting the world into it.

“In my YouTube videos four years ago, I would say that I wanted to document all of these recipes — this was when I had moved back home and realised how many people seemed to have forgotten this rich and deep knowledge about my culture and food. I felt like I had a story to tell because I’d left my job to move to this rural life, and now I’m living this life and showing people that this is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

Mbola recalls the ebbs and flows during the writing process. “I love notebooks and have three or four in my kitchen because I’m always taking notes of the things I want to try out. I’ve always been writing down recipes. I’ve wanted to write a book for about five years — I get to pass this knowledge on to my child because it was passed down to me. I began taking notes and curating how I would like the book to look,” she says.

A year into her book deal, self-doubt crept in, and the writing process, she confesses, became challenging, as it was emotional. The voyage forced her to look inward, but this was also where she found clarity. “I hesitated at first, but had to confront my ego. This is not just a project about me; it’s also about my mother and for my son. The process became smoother, and I became more confident in my voice,” she says.

The eighty-plus recipes in the cookbook form an intricate tale woven through connection, communication, and deep care, in which Mbola invites people to create love stories of their own using the language of food. “I want this to be a book that people use, with creased pages. It felt like I was writing a love story from my mother, but also for the people; it isn’t just about recipes but also about community, and I want them to go out and build communities using this book as the cornerstone.”

A seat at the table with Mbola and SMag

To mark SMag’s 10-year anniversary, Mbola curated a three-course menu drawn from the pages of her cookbook

Starters: Ububazi (stinging nettle) and fennel soup with butter beans

“If this dish were not in the book, I don’t know, we’d have to cancel the whole book. It uses a wild green that is widely available in most people’s backyards. When cooked, it’s rich and mild, and we use it in umfino. Pair it with fennel, which is a meaty vegetable with a bright, lemony flavour. It has complex flavours and is a good, hearty soup.”

Mains: Spicy garlic prawns with creamy millet

“Millet is an indigenous grain in Africa and is used to make a silky risotto paired with spicy prawns, perfect for winter. Through this pairing, I wanted to bring in indigenous African grains and the food that I grew up on, which is seafood.”

Dessert: Umthubi granadilla layered cake

“Umthubi is colostrum, the very first milk you get from a cow after it gives birth. Once cooked, it becomes so creamy and delicious. The cake is silky smooth with a lovely sponge infused with granadilla, which grows abundantly in our village.

“In the book, it signifies a new birth. I only started baking when I moved back home, which was a new beginning for me.”