Alison Ripley Cubitt's Blog, page 8

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

 

‘Plato says the purpose of philosophy is to teach us how to die.  There’s nothing to learn unless we’re living. In death we’re equal. It has that advantage over life,’  so says philosophy student Gauri who falls for idealistic, rebel Udayan. Udayan is the brother of Subhash, and as children in 1960s Calcutta, they are inseparable. But as the children grow, Udayan is drawn into a Maoist political movement, the Naxalite that tries (and ultimately fails) to take on India’s post-independence government.

Like so many of those who are drawn to political causes, all Udayan can do is be in the moment and fight for his beliefs.  He is too young and self-righteous to see how his actions will impact on those around him and puts his politics before his family – as so many radicalised young men do. The Lowland examines the long term impact on one ordinary family, left behind to pick up the pieces when the freedom fight is stopped in its tracks.

Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer for her short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies and The Lowland is only her second novel.  The Lowland was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and once again revisits a familiar theme, of the sense of disconnection and alienation felt by those, in this case Bengalis, who make a new life in the West.

The story is set in Tollygunge Calcutta and Rhode Island (described in loving detail that it comes as no surprise that Lahiri grew up there).  It is told from three different points of view – Subhash, Udayan’s brother who chooses to leave his homeland behind and travels to America to further his career; from Gauri, the quiet, bookish girl who married Udayan, and finally from the point of view of Udayan himself.

The hardest character to fathom is Gauri as although she has moved to the West, like many migrants, she cherry picks the best of the new country, but her heart and soul remains firmly stuck in her old culture.  She seems incapable of addressing her emotional problems, preferring to transfer all her passive energy into an education and an academic career while at the same time being unable to parent her daughter Bela and to take care of her emotional needs. Then there is Subhash, who chose to take Gauri with him to America to offer her a new life abroad, but whom Gauri also rejects because he is no substitute for Udayan.  

At times, the story is as grey as the pebbles on those Rhode Island beaches Lahiri describes so well.  And Lahiri does at least give us some hope for these characters, allowing Subhash happiness in later life and for Gauri there is a glimmer of hope that there may be some sort of redemption. It’s just a shame that Gauri’s philosophical beliefs were, for too long skewed towards the dying and not the living. But despite my slight irritation with Gauri, The Lowland is so beautifully written and ultimately gripping that it was hard to put down.

Lambert Nagle Cooks Rhubarb Pie

I’d be lying to you if I told you I grew this rhubarb.  Nor did I cycle down to the farmers’ market to buy it either because it’s not on until next weekend. I’d forgotten this, of course while I was in Sainsbury’s, impulse buying these glossy pink stalks. But when I realised, it was a relief – one less thing to feel guilty about.  There’s enough guilt-ridden angst in the world without that….

One example of which is that while I was trying to get to Somerset from Hampshire for a 10.30am start yesterday, my GPS decided it would be a really good idea to take a scenic shortcut via Glastonbury.  Only it hasn’t been watching the news, has it? The Somerset Levels, an area of around 20 square miles, usually all green fields and countryside has been underwater for weeks. And all I could think about – as I hurtled down the umpteenth country road only to come to yet another road block was, Woe is Me. When I should have been thinking about what it must be like for the locals after all these weeks. It hasn’t been possible to drive in or out of some of these places since before Christmas.

So I abandoned the GPS, pulled myself together and got out my Google Map and found my way and even managed to get to Taunton barely five minutes late.  So I hope you’ll forgive me today for feeling a little tired today after my 200 mile drive and just this once forgetting to check where the ingredients for Sunday lunch came from. It’s only rhubarb, innit?  Why would anyone go to the trouble of importing a vegetable (yes, it’s not even a fruit) that will remain forever unfashionable? Because unlike kale you can’t whizz rhubarb into a smoothie –  in its raw state it gives you terrible belly ache…

So I suppose I should be including a recipe for Humble Pie rather than Rhubarb Pie, when it turns out I was wrong and it wasn’t grown in the UK at all but in The Netherlands. Who knew rhubarb was even worth cultivating under glass, being put on a lorry and then sailing across the North Sea to where we grow loads of the stuff ourselves….

But I’d got it home by then and was hankering for old-fashioned rhubarb pie – like the one my grandmother used to make.  But that one was really more like a rhubarb sandwich – layered between buttery shortcrust pastry.  You could get away with pudding like that in the 1960s because you’d probably dug the rhubarb up yourself, walked to the shops for the rest of the ingredients or taken the bus and then lugged the shopping home, like she used to do.  But this is the 21st century and although I did happen to walk to the supermarket, I’m not going to rub that one in. Besides, you’ve probably been to the gym this morning.

And if you have. you aren’t going to thank me for a double whammy of pastry – even professional rugby players aren’t allowed pastry, it’s supposed to be that bad for you… But if you fancy rhubarb pie for Sunday lunch my solution is to have just one layer of pastry and put it on top and cut down on the sugar in the filling.  But then again, you might have had it up to here with parsimony and plan to eat it with custard or clotted cream or ice-cream.

RHUBARB PIE

Preheat the fan-assisted oven to 180C.

PASTRY

2oz ice cold butter or vegetable shortening

2oz fine wholemeal

2oz plain flour (or use all plain flour if you want it to look less rustic)

milk for brushing over the uncooked pastry

caster sugar for sprinkling on top before baking

Up to 1 tbs water added a drop at a time

METHOD

Cube butter, add flour and combine in a food processor and pulse until the consistency of fine breadcrumbs

Add the water one drop at a time and pulse until the pastry combines in a ball and leaves the sides of the bowl clean

Rest the pastry in the fridge for half an hour while you make the filling

FRUIT

600gm Rhubarb chopped into batons about half an inch wide

150g Sugar or the equivalent of xylitol

2tsp Arrowroot

1tsp dried ginger

METHOD

Roll the rhubarb in the sugar and arrowroot and then put in a 22cm shallow pie dish

Bake the rhubarb for 15 minutes or until it’s beginning to soften.  Check the consistency. If the fruit is too juicy you will need to drain some liquid off – as the last thing we want is the pastry lid to collapse into the fruit.

Roll out the pastry to a thickness that you can roll over a rolling pin. Place on top of the pie carefully. You can crimp the pastry at the sides if you can be arsed or want to be fancy. Brush lightly with milk and sprinkle with caster sugar. Bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is crisp. Serves 6 city slickers or 4 in the West Country, as I was reminded yesterday.

Transylvanian Granny Says Fracking Will Make Your Flesh Fall Off

Anti- fracking protesting in the South Downs looks tame in comparison to the way they do things in Romania.

Here’s the Channel 4 News story on it where villagers from poor communities, the Orthodox church and urban eco-warriors are united in taking a stand against the global corporations who want to exploit their land and extract shale gas….

http://www.channel4.com/news/fracking-romania-protests-pungesti-chevron-victor-ponta

 

Fractured – the prequel to Revolution Earth

Fractured (a long short story) and available shortly is the prequel to Revolution Earth.  All proceeds will go to making the short film version, Fractured Earth, currently in development.

Sometimes it takes more than courage to stand up for what you believe in

Courier rider Cara decides to help anti-fracking protestor Jonie, who is passionate about causes but finds herself caught up in a much bigger operation than she can tackle alone. Cara, resentful, self-absorbed and indifferent to almost anyone but herself, is at first, reluctant.  As they sabotage fracking equipment, wrestle a former cop and are chased through the countryside, Cara learns to put someone else’s needs first.  And Jonie finds out that sometimes even the strongest individuals need to ask for help.

In a damp field in Hampshire just before dawn, JONIE, 23 blonde hair tucked loosely under her cap,  crawls commando style to spy on a secret fracking site.

In Bethnal Green, stroppy cycle courier CARA, 19 is pissed off that she’s  been called in to work on her day off to go and haul Jonie back in to the office. A package has gone missing, the client is threatening to sue and their boss TARIQ, 39, who just manages to make a living at his courier firm, is livid.

While Jonie is on the phone to Tariq, giving her side of the story, he tracks her phone expertly on his computer screen.  Jonie hangs up abruptly. The frackers are on to her.  Cara, always up for a bit of aggro, is suddenly interested and eagerly sets off on her bike to bring Jonie back. Cara pedals furiously through city streets and country lanes with Tariq directing her from his computer.  As the road runs out, he sends her along a rutted bridleway.

Meanwhile, back at fracking central, with the workers on a cigarette break, Jonie steals the keys to a digger.  But when former cop PHIL, late 40s, who hates his job as a lowly security guard, starts his shift, he finds the keys missing and a hair scrunchie with tell-tale blonde hair attached.  A glimmer of reflected  sunlight gives away Jonie’s hideaway. Phil ambushes Jonie.  Then threatens her.  The other workers surround her. There’s nowhere to run.  She throws the keys in the air.  Splat. They land in a cowpat.  The guys snigger. Phil, angry at being humiliated, goes to get the keys but at the last minute grabs Jonie. He frogmarches her across the field and throws her off the land.

Cara is so bushed, she has to walk her bike across the field.  Relief, as she spots a dejected Jonie slumped in the hedge.  But Jonie is furious with her. She tells Cara where to go.  Tariq’s not just a boss but a friend and Cara doesn’t like it when an ungrateful rider tries to dick him around.  Jonie stops Cara in full rant and hands over her iPad to show Cara that Tariq’s client, the PR company, have lured protestors to the wrong sites. The real dirt is going on right here.

Jonie admits that even though she thought she could tackle this by herself she really could do with Cara’s help.  Cara tells Jonie’s she’s mad but that, yeah, she’s in.

As it gets dark and the other workers knock off and only Phil is left, Jonie and Cara make a run for it to sabotage a digger. But the fuel cap is locked.  Jonie finds a screwdriver in her bag and improvises with a stone to hammer it off.  But Phil has spotted the both of them. He runs out of  the nearby portakabin carrying a crow scarer attached to a gas cylinder.  Boom!  At night, in the countryside, to Jonie it sounds like a bomb.  She drops her tools and shivers with fright. But Cara isn’t so easily scared.

She drills the lid off the fuel cap. Just as she’s pouring sugar into the fuel tank, Phil roars up the field in a huge, menacing tractor, headlights on full.  Both Jonie and Cara are momentarily blinded by the light.  Phil leaves the powerful engine running and leaps from the tractor. Jonie is ready for him.   She fends off Phil with karate kicks so precise and rapid that even muscly Phil is no match for her.

Cara and Jonie run for their lives.  Phil floors it in the powerful tractor, gaining on them until he is on their tail. They leap the gate, struggle to find the bikes and set off down the lane.  Phil, at full throttle is determined to catch them but at the last moment the two fugitives escape down the bridlepath.

As Jonie and Cara head off to face Tariq, Cara stands on her pedals in a dance of victory.  She reaches out to high five Jonie.

Back in the office, Tariq hunches over his computer screen. He watches two blinking dots moving side by side on his computer map; his face lit by a hint of a smile.

Struggling with ebook Formatting?

On Joel Friedlander’s blog Ed Ditto has written: How to Publish Your eBook from Word to Kindle in under Ten Minutes

Of all the vexing and annoying job’s I hate the most – formatting has got to be it…. It’s particularly vexing because you don’t just format once and that’s it – if there are revisions, edits and corrections (and there will be – no matter how many times your work has been proofread) then you have to spend ages tweaking the layout and formatting.  Then you upload to Kindle preview and that will tell you that you have made mistakes that need fixing. And that process can be repeated until finally Kindle is happy.  So I was thrilled to come across Ed Ditto on Joel Friedlander’s, (book design guy) blog.  His advice is the best I’ve seen on the web. And I don’t care if it takes me ten hours….. just as long as the darn thing gets done and I can go and pour myself a glass of wine and bask in the smug glory that I’ve been able to achieve something a bit techy….

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/01/ed-ditto-scrivener/

Thanks to Ed Ditto (@BooksbyEd)

Food is the Drug and She Needs to Score: Mad Men Season 5

In a well-written novel or TV drama you shouldn’t be able to notice the signposting of historical events.  In Downton Abbey, this can be clunky, mainly because the series is a sort of posh soap opera, about life on the Downton estate.  In order to give the viewer a historical context, the writer has the characters discuss politics and events taking place in the wider world.  On occasions it seems contrived, particularly where Irish chauffeur turned estate manager, Tom Branson is concerned.

With whichever character he is talking to at the time, Tom seems remarkably well-informed about the Easter Rising in 1916 and then latterly the war for independence in Ireland. It’s all the more admirable, when you consider that he spends nearly all his time stuck in the middle of rural Yorkshire. And his only source of news, (apart from letters) are newspapers, as the BBC didn’t even exist before 1921 and radio broadcasts only began at the end of 1922.

Mad Men pulls off the trick of creating the historical story world rather better:

Season 5, Episode 8 is set at Thanksgiving in 1966, when New York is shrouded in a cloud of poisonous smog. Don Draper and his team at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price have won the Heinz baked beans account.  In an ironic parallel storyline, suburban housewife Betty Francis, Don’s ex wife is pinning her hopes on losing weight with a future Heinz owned company – Weight Watchers.

Weight Watchers is barely three years old in 1966, and if Betty’s breakfast is anything to go by, still had some way to go with its eating plan.  Like many on prescribed diets, Betty is required to eat a bizarre combination of foods she wouldn’t normally eat and, we see her joylessly eating burnt white toast, half a grapefruit and carefully weighed cubes of cheese.

Watching the point in history when the diet industry was born is fascinating, particularly as it is 50 years ago now since Weight Watchers was dreamed up by New York housewife Jean Nidetch.  And although the company may well have helped  many people lose weight, it has made far more money out of failure, from yo-yo dieters who have had to go back on the programme after they’ve put it all back on.

Betty personifies the kind of person for whom no amount of weight loss classes or dietary advice is going to help, unless she can address that her overeating is a symptom and not the cause of her unhappiness.  Like many of us, Betty is an emotional eater.  And in the week before her weigh-in, there is one huge diet-wrecking emotional trigger that sends Betty overboard.

When picking up the children from Don and Megan’s, Betty can’t resist letting herself into the apartment while Megan is busy. As she walks around the light filled Manhattan apartment with its trendy décor and fabulous views, she seems to be comparing her former life with Don to the one he has with Megan, and in that moment finds her own wanting.

But it is when she spies Megan getting changed, casually throwing a sweater over her lithe and beautiful body, that so cruelly drives the message home to Betty: Don has replaced her with a younger, much thinner model and as Betty looks down at her frumpy shirtwaister dress, her self-esteem has shrunk to an all-time low.

This emotional trigger of the loss of her own youth and beauty sends Betty straight to the fridge when she gets home: she’s not hungry, she’s after a quick fix to allay her anxiety and grabs the nearest junk food, a can of Cool Whip (fake whipped cream) and squirts it straight into her mouth.  And the advertising agency that won the Cool Whip account? SCDP, of course.  But even Betty in her moment of despair comes to her senses: she spits the mouthful out.

And in another neat history defining moment, Cool Whip (luckily for the rest of the world, never sold anywhere outside North America) is perhaps the first food product manufactured in a lab – consisting of trans fats and hydrogenated vegetable oil, the baddies that helped make America and the rest of the Western world fat.

It is little wonder then that at her first Weight Watchers meeting, Betty is unenthusiastic about having to stand up and have her weight recorded in front of the meeting at the group weigh-in.  While the woman who loses the most weight that week is politely applauded, this immediately invites negative comparisons from the other women there who couldn’t find the necessary willpower that week.  By the downcast look on her face, Betty regards her half-pound loss as failure, although the group leader tries to mitigate her disappointment with encouraging words.  Betty feels the need to explain herself and without going into detail tells the group, that she “had a very trying experience the previous week.” We the audience know exactly what Betty is talking about, even if the weight loss group doesn’t.

It’s not just Betty who comfort eats in this episode, either.  She finds husband Harry cooking himself a late-night steak as he confides that he’s worried about his political future.  He tells her that he can’t live on fish five nights a week.  Betty apologises, as she is genuinely fond of Harry and doesn’t want to alienate him. She willingly participates in the midnight feast and we see him feeding her pieces of steak.

Back at the final weigh-in at Weight Watchers before Thanksgiving, Betty and her fellow group members are warned about the food temptations that will be lurking around every corner this holiday weekend.  Betty hasn’t lost any weight, and her group leader tells her that staying the same is better than gaining.  Betty finds the homilies a little difficult to believe but is ready to trot them out again at the Francis family Thanksgiving dinner. When it’s her turn to give thanks, she says, “I’m thankful that I have everything I want. And that no-one else has anything better.” We all know that this is a lie – in that Megan, in her eyes seems to have it all.  As if to underscore Betty’s feelings at this point, she turns to food once again, to try to solve her emotional problems and grabs a bite of (presumably forbidden) Turkey stuffing from her plate. There is an emotional beat as Betty’s face lights up in a moment of sheer pleasure.  Food is the drug here, and she’s just scored. 

 

 

 

Lambert Nagle Cooks! – Crunchy Toasted Muesli

Crunchy Toasted Muesli

My favourite brand of muesli is packaged as a masterpiece of marketing, pretending as it does, to hail from a bucolic, idealised region of South West England, harking back sometime to around 1895– where by day the villagers frolicked around in their white smocks Morris dancing and by night were so tanked up on cider they don’t care if they do look like prats in their white leggings with bells on.

As if.  No doubt on an industrial estate far from the countryside, food workers in hairnets will be toiling away, mixing rolled oats with the best of them, just so that I can have my breakfast fix.

I realised though that I was shelling out £3.79 a packet due to this rural fantasy, and it’s got to stop.  They say that there are ’16 glorious bowlfuls’ in every packet, but I can’t stick to the serving size of 46g because after a couple of brazil nuts and an almond or two, all you’ve got left is a measly portion of grit.  So I have to have 60g, which even then barely gets me through to lunchtime.

In the interests of economy and because apparently, even dried fruit is a no-no because of its high sugar content, I’ve decided to going back to making my own. And because those Atlantic storms are causing havoc on both sides of the Pond, I’ve decided that toasted muesli is the one thing that will get me through the winter – that and New Zealand pinot noir (but not necessarily at the same meal).

This recipe is one of Australian chef Bill Granger’s which I’ve adapted. And because I’ve used a version of his recipe here, it seems only fair to tell you that you no longer have to fly all the way to Sydney to sample some of Bill’s food as he now has an eatery in London.  Hooray!

Granger & Co, 175 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2SB.  I have no idea how the food is as the only time I got to visit the queue in this no booking restaurant was out the door and down the street.  But it must be good if the very well-heeled locals in that neighbourhood are willing to wait in line for a table. I’ve been a devotee of Bill since he first opened his first café in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia.

Darlinghurst is still cool (and a bit grungy) and is still recognisably the same neighbourhood as I knew in my early twenties when I lived in Macleay Street, down the road.  It’s still (thankfully) as casual a place to breakfast as it always was, which is great as I’ve got a feeling that I’d feel a bit out of place at his London joint.

CRUNCHY TOASTED MUESLI

INGREDIENTS

300 g/3 cups rolled porridge oats

125 ml/half cup unsweetened apple juice

2tbs rice bran oil or a similar flavourless vegetable oil

80g/2 handfuls unpeeled almonds

125g/1cup sunflower seeds

30g/quarter cup flaked coconut

40g/quarter cup sesame seeds

1tsp cinnamon

 125g/2 large handfuls brazil nuts

Fresh fruit, yoghurt or milk to serve

 METHOD

 Preheat the oven to 160C/Gas 2.  Place all the ingredients, except for the brazil nuts in a large bowl and stir well to combine.  Spread the mixture evenly over a large baking tray and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Stir and add in the brazil nuts, stirring again to ensure the nuts don’t get too brown.  Bake for further 15 minutes.

I know from this photograph it looks as though I should be serving this up to Merlin and Cavan, the two horses I ride, but believe me, you don’t have to be a four-legged vegan to enjoy it.

And the Mountains Echoed

 

TV news reduces Afghanistan to a dusty backdrop where wars have been fought, often by outsiders while its people have had to stand by while their country is over-run by ever more brutal regimes, each one seemingly more desperate for power.  It is, perhaps, one of the world’s most misunderstood countries yet with this one work of fiction And the Mountains Echoed Khaled Hosseini shows us that what matters most in life is the same, whether you are a dirt-poor family from Afghanistan, or a rich one who lives in the West. 

It is a beautifully told, sprawling masterpiece of a tale about two siblings, Abdhullah and Pari, who are separated as children because their family cannot afford to keep them both. 

I doubt there are many other writers who could pull off what Hosseini has done in this book: telling his overarching story of Abdullah and Pari in a series of vignettes, with each chapter told by a different character, sometimes two.  Some reviewers have commented that these chapters are so self-contained they could even be short stories while other readers have criticised the writer for this.

I stand somewhere between the two sides, admiring this experimental story-telling technique and the vast cast of characters that move in and out of the narrative – some of whom disappear without a trace. I never once found it to be a distraction as all Hosseini’s characters are so believable that I enjoyed these tangential asides. I think the writer is mirroring real life – where people do move in and out of our lives.

The denouement, for some readers, was unsatisfactory, but for me, in the vast tragic story of a family from Afghanistan, there can be no such thing as a neat, Hollywood ending.

Lambert Nagle Cooks!

I love flying in to Singapore.  It’s a wonderful foodie destination and you can happily eat your way around a fusion of the cuisines of Indonesia, Malaysia, India and China.  So you can imagine how cheated I felt on my last visit, when I was nursing the tail end of the worst bout of food poisoning I’d ever experienced.  You know, the one where you get the blinding headaches in the middle of the night, where no amount of Paracetamol and icepacks to soothe your fevered brow make any difference whatsoever?

Happily on this recent visit I was fighting fit.  Only, the snag was that this time there was no stopover and we had to fly straight through. So much for catching up with friends or getting out amongst the hawker markets – we barely had time to do more than grab a shower and a cup of coffee as we changed planes. 

So I did the next best thing.  I found this recipe for Rendang in The Straits Times and we made it as a team effort when we got home, in my desperate attempt to bring a little of the heat and spice of South East Asia to cheer up the rain-sodden British winter we have returned to.

Rendang originated in West Sumatra, Indonesia, from a ceremonial dish that took all day to cook, to produce what is almost a dry paste. Malaysia and Singapore make a version that to my mind is just as good, takes half the time and the dish has a lot more sauce, which you can mop up with rice.

You don’t have to use meat to make Rendang.  Even if Renang purists don’t agree, you can make it with tofu, prawns or chicken but adjust the cooking times accordingly. 

Incidentally, this recipe takes no prisoners on the chilli front.  If you can’t stand too much heat, then use the mildest chillies you can find.  I’m convinced that hot chillies, like chocolate are the culinary equivalent of happy pills.  And on a New Year’s Day, when even these most seasoned of walkers have decided to give the great outdoors the flick and go instead to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, instead, you need all the happiness you can get.

 BEEF RENDANG

 INGREDIENTS

100 g chilli paste (I used Mexican chipotle paste)

8 shallots

6 cloves garlic

3 cm ginger

1 heaped tsp ground turmeric

3 cm galangal

2 heaped tbs ground coriander

2 heaped tbs ground cumin

2 tbs toasted grated coconut (ground into a paste)

4 tbs oil

2 stalks lemongrass, sliced into 5cm pieces with stems smashed

1 cinnamon stick

3 star anise

3 cloves

1 kg beef, cut into chunks

200ml coconut milk

400ml water

2sp tamarind pulp, soaked in warm water

3 kaffir lime leaves

salt to taste

1 tsp sugar

METHOD

Process the first nine ingredients in a blender until they form a fine paste.

Heat oil in a large wok or saucepan and fry the lemongrass, cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves for 30 seconds.

Add the paste and fry for up to 10 minutes until fragrant and the oil separates from the paste.

Add beef and stir over high heat until evenly browned.

Pour in coconut milk and stir well.  Cook for 10 minutes until the coconut milk has reduced.(Incidentally, don’t be tempted to use low fat – it’s disgusting and the dish will be watery and horrible).

Add the water, stir and bring back to a simmer.

Add tamarind juice and lime leaves.

Cover and simmer until meat is tender but not falling apart.  This will take up to 3 hours.

 (You could, at this stage transfer the contents to a slow cooker and use that instead, but don’t ask me how they work, I’m scared of them.  My niece’s one exploded when she was out at work and she had to fish out bits of glass from the home cooked dinner that by then was probably smeared half way up the walls….)

You have to stir this every now and again as otherwise it will stick to the bottom.

Turn heat off and add salt and sugar just before serving with hot rice.

Serves four to five

Adapted from Adlena Wong’s recipe, featured in Singapore Cooks, The Straits Times, 30 December, 2013.

The Bookseller’s Top 100

http://allianceindependentauthors.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Bookseller_Orna.pdf?vsmaid=132&vcid=247

Orna Ross, founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors makes The Bookseller’s list of the Top 100, the book trade’s most influential people. Orna is the voice for writer/publishers, raising their profile at trade fairs such as London Book Fair. The Alliance is global now thanks to Orna and her team.