Review: My Feast

Another review from my fellow foodies at Northfields Cook Book Club… this time member Ellinor Fitzgibbon got her hands on Peter Kuruvita’s tome of recipes from the Far East…

My Feast 
By Peter Kuruvita
Published by Hardie Grant Books
£25

Who is it for?

This is a grown up cook book for someone with plenty of time and no small children hanging on to their ankles!
If I had a huge and beautiful kitchen with lots of pots/pans/bowls and ingredients I would cook from this book :o)

Easy to follow

The recipes are reasonably easy to follow, although some have a lot of ingredients so you need to be very good at multi tasking……

However many of the products required are not in your everyday supermarket, never mind even in Waitrose!

e.g – fresh anchovies, live painted crayfish, ghee, coconut oil, banana leaves, curry leaves – even a large hessian sack!!! one would have to take a large basket and head off to the likes of Earlsfield, Earls court etc or try the WingYip supermarket at Staples corner.

Photopraphy/styling

This book is GORGEOUS! Exceedingly exotic and mouthwatering, one can almost smell the sun, sea and the food!  It brought back  so many memories of my childhood, living in the tropics!

It is beautifully put together and the photography is fabulous,  they have captured the colours and the sunlight in the pictures and was such a joy leafing through the book, I wish I were living there again.

Most likely to cook

All of it if only I had the time and could get my hands on the ingredients easily. I’m going to make the mango salsa and a variation of the crab ceviche – will try seabass from Poisson instead!

Least likely to cook

The pan roasted painted crayfish and fresh anchovies – based purely on getting the ingredients and killing the crayfish!! I am a wimp!

Would you buy it for a friend?

I would definitely give this book to my parents and friends who lived in Indonesia, great for those who have the time and would be a really nice gift for them to relive their days there.

Rating out of 10

8/10

Thanks Ellie! 

Here’s a reminder about the next meeting of Northfields Cook Book Club…

We’re having a Vintage Tea Party fundraiser for The Children’s Society, and the theme is CAKE!

If you’re local to West London and fancy joining us it’ll be
Thursday 5th September, 8pm
Venue: The Clocktower Cafe, Hanwell

Bring along:

• £5 donation
• your favourite cake recipe to share with the group (bring the book or a print-out to read from)
• and if you have time bake a cake too

Look up Northfields Cook Book Club on Facebook if you want to join the group – new members extremely welcome – especially if they have recipes to share!