Wednesday 10 April 2013

Christine & Christian - Episode 1: Welcome Home

They say, never judge a book by its cover. What about judging it by the weight?
On Monday, in a kind of a spur of the moment thing, while browsing on the Internet, I ordered a new cookbook. I expected it to be ready for picking up on Thursday after I got the confirmation it had been send out. Today, being at work the whole day, I wouldn't be able to receive it personally. However, a friendly neighbour stepped in and took the package from the delivery service.
Well, I didn't expect the package to be so big and it turned out the book was over 3 kg in weight. Judging by the weight? Let me show you the cover first.


Every journey has a beginning ... but not necessarily an ending. This is supposed to be the beginning. For as to where this will be going, who knows!
It may all have sound like me having a plan about cooking through a complete book, blogging about it and all that like. However, I'm not that planning kind of person, although that would help a lot at times, I reckon.
Now, here we are with a copy of Tasting India by Christine Manfield. I've set my mind on completely going through this book ... over 250 recipes and over 450 pages. A first glance inside revealed, that it will not all be about cooking.
Why that book? Who knows!
By the way, do you know Christine Manfield? So far, I only know, she has written a few other cookbooks, is from Australia and has a restaurant there in Sydney, and apparently, has written the very cookbook you see on that picture and that I'm going to work through.
Why that book? You might know, that I have mentioned it before, I wanted to do such a thing. I didn't want to go with a book I already have or that already has been done quite popular or from a person, I've cooked a lot from already. So my mind was blank and I asked around on the net.
Strangely, there was not so much of a suggesting mood around there, but one person, which name is not to be mentioned at this point, suggested this book and ... eh ... well, since I have a whoever knows what relationship with Australia, I thought by myself ... go for it.
Fine, the book is not about Australia, but about India ... and there are a lot of people out there, who love a good Indian meal. What more reason do I need? Right, the name of the author would make a fine title for this project: Christine & Christian.

"Welcome Home!"

That's what I can say to this book, since it finally arrived. Here is its new home and now it's the time to work with it.
For now I can say, watch out for more episodes from Christine & Christian. As time goes by I will write more about it, while I continue doing the normal things around here on the blog as I used to do so before.

4 comments:

  1. Well it may be used a a muscle building tool Chris, but it looks beautiful. I look forward to seeing what you will make from it.

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    1. Right, who needs the gym. When you do a bit thinking, you can find good alternatives at home doing exercise with useful work, like cooking.
      The cover of the book has a soft cloth-like touch. That's very luvly.
      First of all, I think, I will set my mind on something simple, where I don't need to shop for so many extra ingredients, although, this might be an issue later on.

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  2. I have a couple of heavy books like that: an Oxford Companion to Food (which I won many years ago, while visiting the OUP show, you had to guess the weight of the book) and a Russian culinary volume from the mid 1950s.
    Looking forward to your Christianiana.

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    1. Well, I got tons of pictures in the book. Did you, too?

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