Books

Hardcover | Heyday Books | 288 pages

 

Tekebash and Saba

Recipes and Stories from an East African Kitchen

Author: Saba Alemayoh

Mother-daughter duo, Tekebash and Saba, tell their story and the story of their homeland, Ethiopia, through cherished recipes and family memories. A touching, personal cookbook that tells a larger story of family, history, and the refugee experience.

Mother–daughter duo Tekebash and Saba tell their story, and the story of their homeland, Ethiopia, through the lens of food, demonstrating how sharing food from another culture can offer us all a path forward, towards empathy and understanding, and a world that is more cohesive and connected.

Born in Tigray, Tekebash escaped the civil war at the age of 17 to join other refugees in Sudan. She has been on a migration journey ever since. Despite having spent more time abroad than she has at home, she is unequivocally Tigre and has worked with food all her life. Her restaurant, Saba’s Ethiopia, brings Ethiopian food and culture to Melbourne.

Tekebash not only worked with food but loved her daughter Saba through food. The recipes in this book are its backbone and the structure around which personal and cultural stories are woven.

 

 

Hardcover | Interlink | 208 pages

From acclaimed food writer and world traveler Eleanor Ford comes a vibrant collection of 100 mouthwatering recipes for Indonesian cuisine--from the refined cooking of Java to the spicy heart of Sumatra and the festival foods of Bali.

Indonesian food is the hidden treasure of South East Asian cookery, waiting to be uncovered, and this wondrous cookbook opens an unexplored culinary region to food lovers and travellers. It is an unprecedented culinary celebration of Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago--a land rich with tropical rainforests, smoking volcanoes, and silver sand beaches that was also the beating heart of the spice trade. Today its unforgettable dishes are a celebration of rice and spice--homegrown clove and nutmeg, ginger and chilly, coconut, turmeric, peanuts, and more.

Through delightful, easy-to-follow text and instructions, Fire Islands reveals how to set up an Indonesian kitchen and how to create one hundred authentic Indonesian recipes--everything from crunchy snacks and street food to sweet and sticky rice dishes, spicy noodles, fragrant sauces, tangy broths, rich drinks, and much more. This bright, beautifully designed package has mouthwatering photographs of the dishes throughout coupled with original images from the lush, food paradise.

 

Hardcover | Apollo Publishers | 240 pages

 

Award-winning food writer Sumayya Usmani's stunning memoir conjures a story of what it was like growing up in Pakistan and how the women in her life inspired her to trust her instincts in the kitchen.

From a young age, food was Sumayya's portal to nurturing, love and self-expression. She spent the first eight years of her life at sea, with a father who captained merchant ships and a mother who preferred to cook for the family herself on a tiny electric stove in their cabin rather than eat in the officer's mess.

When the family moved to Karachi, Sumayya grew up torn between the social expectations of life as a young girl in Pakistan, and the inspiration she felt in the kitchen, watching her mother, and her Nani Mummy (maternal grandmother) and Dadi's (paternal grandmother) confidence, intuition and effortless ability to build complex, layered flavours in their cooking.

This evocative and moving food memoir – which includes the most meaningful recipes of Sumayya's childhood – tells the story of how Sumayya's self-belief grew throughout her young life, allowing her to trust her instincts and find her own path between the expectations of following in her father's footsteps as a lawyer and the pressures of a Pakistani woman's presumed place in the household. Gradually, through the warmth of her family life, the meaning of 'andaza' comes to her: that the flavour and meaning of a recipe is not a list of measured ingredients, but a feeling in your hands, as you let the elements of a meal come together through instinct and experience.

Recipes include:

• Nani Mummy's prawn karahi
• Potatoes with curry leaves and turmeric
• Chicken boti tikka, Bundoo Khan style
• Mummy's wedding-style chicken korma
• Bitter lemon, mustard seed and garlic pullao
• Dadi's banana and fennel seed gulgulay doughnut

 

Hardcover | Quarto | 312 pages

 

Influenced by its neighbours and the countries closest to it, Burmese food draws techniques and ingredients from Thailand, India and China but uses flavours of its own to make something subtle, delicious and unique.

The food of Burma is little known, but MiMi seeks to change that within these pages, revealing its secrets and providing context to each recipe with stories from her time in Burma and her family's heritage.

Beginning with a look at the ingredients that make Burmese food unique – as well as suitable alternatives – MiMi goes on to discuss the special techniques and equipment needed before delving into chapters such as fritters, rice and noodles, salads, meat and fish and sweet snacks. Within these pages you'll find 100 incredible recipes, enabling you to create a taste of Burma in your own kitchen.

 

Hardcover | Bloomsbury | 272 pages

 

Author: Vishwesh Bhatt

One of the South’s best chefs invites you to grill, stew, and fry your own way to a more expansive and delicious dinner.

A Vishwesh Bhatt dish conjures an evolving American South. Peanut Masala–Stuffed Baby Eggplant alongside fried okra, tossed in tangy chaat masala. Collard-Wrapped Catfish with a spicy Peanut Pesto. These much-loved dishes are stars on the menu at Snackbar in Oxford, Mississippi, where Bhatt has been the executive chef since 2009, earning him Best Chef: South (2019 James Beard Awards) and induction into the Fellowship of Southern Farmers, Artisans, and Chefs in 2022. His food draws from his Indian heritage and is unpretentious, inventive, and incredibly delicious.

I Am From Here organizes 130 recipes by ingredient, emphasizing staples, spices, and vegetables that are as beloved on the Indian subcontinent as they are in the American South. Summer means okra, tomatoes, corn, and peas. Winter brings sweet potatoes and greens: mustards, collards, kale, and spinach. Rice is a constant throughout.

Bhatt vividly recounts the special meals cooked by his mother and grandmothers—vegetarian comfort food such as Khichadi, custardy rice pudding, and Stewed Gujarati-Style Black-Eyed Peas—and presents them alongside dishes he’s shared with friends, colleagues, and family across the decades. Recipes run the gamut from uncomplicated roast chicken and Citrus-Herb Rice Salad to dinner party–worthy Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Tandoori Spices.

Writing for the home cook, Bhatt includes recipes for making your own spice mixes, including a versatile chaat masala. A mix-and-match meal-planning guide will help you pair dishes for different occasions. And every ingredient is within reach even if you’re cooking far away from the warmth of Mississippi. This cookbook thoughtfully, and persuasively, expands notions of what it means to be, and cook like, a Southerner today.
 

Hardcover | WW Nortan | 320 pages