RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER – Season 1 – Episodes 1-4 – (minor spoilers)

For seven years, Maria (Maria Doyle Kennedy) wrote the recipe column for the Klein Karoo Gazette, so when it was decided an advice column would sell more papers, she just added advice to her recipes. The first advice-seeking letter she picks up is from Martine Burger (Tinarie van Wyk Loots), and it asks her to ignore a previous letter because her husband would kill her if he found out about it. Maria bases her first food/advice column on Martine’s difficulties (without revealing her name), and the column goes viral.

In a fit of enthusiasm, the paper puts Maria’s full name on its website, and then quickly changes it back to Tannie Maria (at her request). Soon after, Maria gets a letter from an Aileen McClintock in Scotland, who seems to be an old friend. (Aileen’s husband Gordon was alerted when the name Maria Purvis appeared briefly on the internet.) We find out that Maria moved to South Africa ten years ago from a place near Edinburgh after inheriting her great-aunt’s house, and in a flashback to 2008 she looks unhappily married. Indications are that she doesn’t want someone in Scotland to find her.

Then Martine is found bludgeoned to death, and Maria is drawn into the murder investigation.

Maria and investigative reporter Jessie September (Kylie Fisher) decide (despite being warned off by police) to investigate Martine’s murder. They sneak into the crime scene (Martine’s kitchen) leaving their shoes on the front steps. (Maria’s shoes are a pair of Veldskoen, and Jessie’s are work boots.) Eccentric investigator that she is, Maria licks a spot on the table to find out what was spilled there, and discovers it was pomegranate juice, a favourite drink of Martine’s. Then a car pulls up outside and two shots are fired. Inside the house only a jar of pickles is broken, but outside, Martine’s gardener Lawrence (Sipho Mahlatshana) is shot dead. When the two women leave, they discover that someone has made off with the shoes they left on the steps.

“Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman.” — Sherlock Holmes – The Naval Treaty (1893)

Juices, eggs, syrups and oils drip and swirl throughout the show’s introduction. Maria’s style of cooking can best be described as gooey, and the results of her recipes, though probably delicious, are not something one should over-consume. She has a pet chicken named Morag, likely named after the second most famous loch monster in Scotland. Morag roams freely in the kitchen while she cooks, and at one point eats the seeds from a watermelon on the counter. Kennedy told an interviewer from DStv: “Morag is Tannie M’s best friend, the person (well, the chicken) that she talks to as you would a friend. She thinks out loud and asks Morag about whatever is on her mind. Morag doesn’t answer, of course, but the process and the company are good for Tannie M.”

The Gazette’s office is located behind the local butcher shop in the fictional town of Eden, and the butcher (Doep, played by Terence Bridgett) tolerates the occasional late rent payment from The Gazette in exchange for the publication of recipes that promote the sale of his meats. (When Doep has a surplus of mutton, Maria is persuaded to run a mutton recipe.) During an interview with the Chief of Police, she comments that two percent milk seems “useless”, and if, like Tannie Maria, one consumes such a large amount of meat and eggs, it probably would be.

Two romantic entanglements are developing. Maria’s editor Hattie (Jennifer Steyn) has the hots for Chief of Police Khaya Meyer (Tony Kgoroge) who seems reluctant to get involved with anyone. Meyer is secretive about his past and has a daughter in university who asks him for money a lot. Jessie September is very nearly in a relationship with Warrant Officer Regardt Snyman (Arno Greeff), whose father was also a policeman. Jessie suspects Regardt of fooling around with Candace (Rolanda Marais), an American in town ostensibly to make funeral arrangements for her late cousin Martine.

Maria gets people to talk to her by offering them food. (Her stuffed vetkoek are apparently irresistible, and in the second episode she ingratiates herself with both the police and the suspect they have in custody with a spectacular chocolate cake. As of the end of Episode Four, little progress has been made toward finding Martine’s killer, and the two main suspects have managed to wound one another with pistols, each believing that the other is the murderer. Then Candace arrives at the newspaper office and tells Hattie and Maria: “Ladies, I know exactly who the murderer is.”

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Miscellaneous Info

Sally Andrew, author of the Tannie Maria Mysteries, will publish her first cookbook — RECIPES TO DIE LIVE FOR. The book will feature recipes from each of the novels, and is also a celebration of “her philosophy, of South Africa’s Karoo region and of life itself”. The cookbook will be released by Penguin Random House in May 2024.

RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER is the first in a series of four novels by Sally Andrew, and was adapted for television by Karen Jeynes, who also directed the fourth episode.

The cookbook Maria is most often seen using in the series is Kook En Geniet (Cook and Enjoy It) by SJA de Villiers. She has two editions of it in her kitchen, and murder victim Martine also has a copy on her shelf.

The soundtrack album by Zethu Mashika has eleven tracks and at least six other songs are heard on the show:
— “Lisa se Klavier, performed by Arno Greeff
— “Remember Who You Are” by Zolani Mahola
— ““Mama’s Gonna Sort You Out” by Karen Zoid
— “Clap Your Hands and Stamp Your Feet” by Die Campbells
— “Lovesong” performed by Maria Doyle Kennedy and Kieran Kennedy
— “Please Don’t Treat Me So Doggone Mean” by Lucy Woodward

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RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER can be streamed on Acorn TV, and is also available on DVD.

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Sally Andrew has published her first cookbook, RECIPES TO DIE LIVE FOR, which features recipes from each of the Tannie Maria Mysteries.