Pinotage and plum pavlova

So the Argus has come and gone. It may not have been much of an event this year, what with the South Easter howling at up to 100km an hour and the cycle race being cancelled about an hour in. Cancelled or not, for me the Argus is my line in the sand. My signal that the soul-destroyingly, pulse-slittingly endless howling of the Cape South Easter is about to stop; and that mellow autumn is about to come knocking on my kitchen door. The days may still be warm, but the signs are all around me.

The mornings have a decided chill to them now and in my garden the squirrels have gone into overdrive, collecting nuts from the large oak tree and burying them in my lawn. Come spring, the ones they forgot will emerge as baby oak trees.

At the market I fill my basket with shiny pomegranates, dark purple figs and the plumpest of plums. It seems that summer saves her best for last. My spice cupboard – largely ignored in favour of fresh herbs since September – gets restocked. Cinnamon, cloves, star anise, nutmeg, cumin, coriander… Fragrant, comforting and warming, these are my autumn and winter heroes.

I know it’s basic, but a pavlova has to be one of my all-time favourite desserts. In summer I stack it high with juicy strawberries. But come autumn, I feel the need for something a little, well, ‘more’. Those plums do nicely, especially when lightly poached in a decadent Pinotage syrup bursting with the heady perfume of cloves, cinnamon and star anise.