The ABC of Zee's food

CHEF: GAME FOR A CHALLENGE, HIS FIVE-STAR DISHES DO THE TALKING

- Hein Kaiser

He's not a typical, highly strung chef. Not in the way that cooking shows always depict kitchen bosses. Head chef at the five-star Golden Impalas Bush Resort in the Dinokeng Game Reserve, Zee Zink, is quite the opposite. He's as chilled as they come.

He wears his love for his craft on his sleeve, and it's evident in ever meal he preps, because it's delicious.

Zink said that he's had a lifelong affair with food. "My relationship with food goes back to my childhood. My grandmother loved cooking, and I was always by her side. That is where my love for food began."

It's also his gran that taught him the basics. But cheffing was not on his radar. After school he studied food technology and looked forward to audits, testing and the behind-the-scenes science that keeps the hospitality sector compliant to health regulations.

His studies saw him placed inside hotel kitchens, rather than laboratories and he fell in love with cooking all over again. "It pushed me to grow my cooking skills and eventually become a chef instead," he said.

Since then, Zink has cooked across the country and had cheffing sorties in West Africa and the United Kingdom.