Bites at a book launch

 

I went to my first book launch last week with my friend, Tamala from Tam's Tatler. It was delicious! Not just because they serve you free wine (which I maturely declined as I'd be driving home..and it was only a Tuesday!) but because the author - Sarah Graham - actually cooked from her cook book Bitten.
She's a South African food blogger and she had the great idea of turning her blog http://afoodieliveshere.com/ into a book.

Her casual non-fussed manner in the way she cooks (she admits to cheating and doing all things non-chefy) and the way she writes (including a rating from her husband, Rob at the end of every recipe) had me convinced. So much so that I actually bought her book! The final deal clincher were the salmon tartlets she whipped up (so so easy!) and that we actually got to try.

What made the evening even more unique (well I've got nothing to compare it to I suppose!) was that she through in a few ethical and environmental issues. Very unlike Oprah, the 'everyone look under your chairs' did not mean a free car...instead you would be the 'lucky' person to stand up and read the piece of paper out loud to the rest of the audience.
And guess who got a piece of paper under her chair! Yip, me - the girl who goes absolutely tomato red (see how I used the food analogy there) in the face at any sign of attention.
So anyway, in 'my best prefect voice' (as requested by Sarah) I read out my little piece of paper:

"The pigs processed by a single company, Smithfield Foods generates as much excrement as all of the human residents of the states of California and Texas combined....tends to migrate to nearby streams and rivers, causing algae blooms that kill fish and leave behind aquatic 'dead zones'"

Sarah had only selected parts of the paragraph that didn't have words like 'shit', 'crap' and 'piss' in order to keep the whole discussion PG (which made me want to chuckle of course, like an immature Grade 7 boy!). She wasn't trying to turn us all into vegetarians - particularly as many of her recipes do have some kind of meat element - but was merely trying to make us more aware and encourage wiser choices in the food we buy and eat.

So while I'm hardly on my way to becoming a kitchen connoisseur, I've definitely got some of her recipes lined up to try out - her salmon tartlets being number one - and maybe I'll even let Curly give me a rating :)