Louise McClelland (Executive Producer)

Louise at Antelope Park

It’s been nearly 4 years since I first met Louise and hear team at Okuhle Media in Cape Town – during that time we filmed Sarah Graham Cooks Cape Town, and then spent over two and a half years conceptualising Food Safari, finding the right partners, the right platform for the show to air, and lots of other stuff. For whatever reason, it was a long, hard road to get this show made, and on air. It was soul destroying at times, it was crushing at some points, and we only finally made it largely because of the drive and determination of Louise (and Okuhle’s commercial director, Lara Black, who handled all our sponsors so well). Louise is the reason that our show will air not only here in South Africa and the rest of Africa via M-Net and DSTV, but also on Food Network in the USA in early January 2016, and further afield too.

Louise doesn’t get to go on the road that often any more, she’s mostly chained to her desk with a list of endless obligations and things to manage, but in this case she joined us in Zimbabwe for the first month, and I loved having her with us. She’s endlessly fun, game for anything, and LOVES the bush (and a g&t, yay!). She was in her element and it was really special to see. One stand-out memory for me was how blown away and awed she was by spending time in the bush with the lions from our lion conservation project.

Louise is so many wonderful things, but a couple of the things that I admire most about her are her passion, and her passion to follow her heart. She saw what we see in this show long before any of us saw it. She knew the magic we could make, and she chased it. And for that I thank you Lou – that we can see our dreams in full colour now, that we’ve been able to share such special places and such delicious food with the world.

Photo’s from ‘Sarah Graham’s Food Safari’ by Ricardo de Leça.