THE HAPPY LIFE LUCKY PEACH THIS MONTH’S LUCKY SUBSCRIBER, Tracy Quin of GEA New Zealand, will receive all three of the publications reviewed on this page. Enjoy, Tracy! www.foodtechnology.co.nz 27 If you’re tired of the same-old food magazines that abound any bookshop or supermarket magazine stand, a new kid on the block has breezed into the market by way of Australia that could just be your saviour. Lucky Peach, an American-based sophisticated quarterly journal of food and writing, promises a plethora of world feature writing, and is incredibly impressive in its contents and design. Wacky and offbeat, it tackles subjects as diverse as coffee and grits through the mediums of essays, art, photography and recipes, but if you’re after food that is totally good for you, it might be better to keep to a healthy living guide. The photos and imagery are contemporary and fascinating, with the issue’s main feature this quarter on breakfast. London-based cook Fushsia Dunlop writes that on her first morning in Kai-feng in Vietnam, her friend picked her up at seven to take her to breakfast. “The name of the place, of course, had been a partial giveaway: Sun’s Double Sheep Intestines. But there was something else in there besides the large and small intestines of sheep and oxen. I prodded the mysterious shapes that lurked beneath the surface of the liquid. Zhiyong noticed me puzzling and was quick to explain: it was yang taipan, sheep placenta.” New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch says when he first hung out in Rwanda after the genocide of 1994, he figured he’d be fine for breakfast, as coffee was one of the country’s two main exports, but he was wrong. “It was a grim brew; opaque and scalding and without flavour, except, at times, a toxic bitterness that no amount of sugar or Nido (the ubiquitous brand of tinned milk powder) could alleviate. And the taste was the least of the punishment; it wasn’t until the swill reached your gut that it really got rough. I drank it anyway, of course.” Perfect for business lobbies for customers to leaf through…that is, of course, if you can tear it away from the cool hipsters in your household. Lola Berry believes happiness isn’t something you get from status, money or material things…it’s something you must find within yourself, and she would probably know. As a leading Australian nutritionist, she’s been on telly talking about food, is a spokeswoman on nutrition and general wellbeing in print and on radio, and has a huge and interactive online following. Along with that, she’s written four best sellers dealing with issues such as inspiring ingredients, diets and smoothies and juices. It’s exhausting just to read about it. But Berry has concocted up a superb book that fits perfectly in the hand and offers an explosion of ways in which you can achievably reach overall happiness…and it all starts with deciding to take the plunge and love yourself. “Trust me,” she says, “I’ve been there. I was the queen of excuses: ‘I’m too busy’, ‘I’m travelling’, and ‘I don’t want to appear rude by refusing their food’. It took me a while, but I now understand that all of these excuses were a reflection of my lack of self-respect. I had to learn to put myself first, to stop judging myself and worrying about what other people thought of me, to see myself as a kind and loving person.” With 60 wholefood recipes and practical advice on maintaining optimum health across all areas of your life, this is a must-have for soulful summer reading. Mexican, Central and South American cuisine is the hottest food trend worldwide, and flicking through this guide to everything Viva La Latina, it’s not hard to understand why. My Kitchen Rules New Zealand chef judge Grace Ramirez (a North American-raised chef of Venezuelan descent who now divides her time between Auckland and New York) meanders her way through the food history and ingredients of this fascinating part of the world, offering more than 100 mouth-watering recipes - such as salmon with caramelised shallot and mango salsa, or steamed corn parcels - with stunning photographs and high production values. Ramirez says the book is her journey, a collection of her memories, the places she’s been, the friends she’s made and the family recipes that have been, on the whole, handed down to her by Abulita Vincy, her great-grandmother and Abuela Mary, her grandmother. “Although I had a busy career as a television producer, I wasn’t feeling truly fulfilled,” Ramirez says. “I wanted to become a chef but didn’t know how to start. Sensing this, Abuela Mary sat me down, took my hand in hers, looked into my eyes and said, “Te los paso, ahora te toca a ti, ya no me pertenecen” (I’m passing on to you my gift of cooking, I don’t need it anymore.” From that moment on, food took over my life.” Ramirez was picked from 60,000 people to be a contestant on the US series of Masterchef, awarded a scholarship to the prestigious French Culinary Institute in New York City, and is an ambassador for Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, a non-profit organisation that helps orphaned, abandoned and at-risk children in South America. LUCKY PEACH (Lucky Peach Publishing; available now; $24.99; more information: www.newsouthbooks.com.au). THE HAPPY LIFE by Lola Berry (MacMillan; available now; $39.99; more information: www.macmillan.co.nz). LA LATINA by Grace Ramirez (Penguin Random House; available now; $60; more information: www.randomhouse.co.nz). LA LATINA B O O K R E V I E W S
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