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Dear
Food Lover |
| Fresh
spring rolls, spicy fruit salad, and a hot-off-the-press Vietnamese
cookbook are this newsletter's highlights; plus our food lover's tour
to regional Vietnam in March. Print
text version now to read later... |
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| Globetrotting
through Singapore and Indonesia these past months, Robert and Morrison
sought dishes destined to enter the ever-expanding world lexicon of
favorite foods. While predicting next season's newest rave is a chancy
business, here are two forecasts: Rujak
is an absolutely sumptuous salad of cold crisp fruits and vegetables
-- from green papaya and mango, to cucumber, carrot and surprisingly,
raw potato. It's slathered with a treacle-like dressing of palm- or
coconut-sugar, and typically sprinkled with chili. Serve chilled,
it's a refreshing alternative to starter salads. |
|
Fresh
Spring Rolls are another great salad substitute, following
the popular trend to wrap and roll in the kitchen. To ensure
success, soak only one or two sheets of rice paper at a time
-- and then only momentarily. Pat dry, lay on a damp towel,
then roll with myriad ingredients like rice noodles and bean
sprouts, plus fresh herbs such as mint and cilantro (coriander
leaf). Add bean curd skin for vegetarian fill, or thin slices
of roast pork or halved prawns.These are forecast for my holiday
table this season, as they are healthy make-ahead-serve-later
table fare.
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| More
recipes are in Vietnamese
Home Cooking, which should be just coming on the American
market as we speak, and Amazon.com
is already taking pre-orders. I received a hot-off-the-press advance
copy from the printers, and it looks DELICIOUS! Re-reading it (admittedly,
I am a glutton for punishment!) enchanted me with memories of Vietnam:
the tastes of simmering pho soup at roadside stands; fresh spring
rolls; crispy crepes and yummy baguette sandwiches; super-black coffee;
magnificent verdant scenery and ancient ruins; and most of all the
smiling faces of people living in a land where time stands still. |
| Interest
in our Globetrotting Gourmet® Vietnam regional
food lover's tour is exceedingly high. Thankfully, it seems well off
the radar of trouble spots -- and Vietnam has become such a tourism
hot spot! We need to confirm final numbers, allowing you plenty
of time for visas, flight confirmations, and general planning. |
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So
we aren't kidding about reserving your space early -- NOW
rather than later. Leave your 10% deposit now to lock in the
price, and avoid any currency fluctuation surcharges! And
as an added incentive, receive FREE an autographed copy
of my brand-new book Vietnamese Home Cooking. Full remaining
payment is due no in January. reserve
your space here
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| Vietnam
is a unique destination, and we are especially excited to include
in March, classes with my co-authors Didier Corlou and Nguyen Thanh
Van, chefs at the Sofitel Metropole Hotel in Hanoi -- the city's grand
dowager, and for nearly a century one of Asia's leading properties.
We begin our 14-night Globetrotting Gourmet® tour to Vietnam by
experiencing the Metropole's 5-star service over four luxurious
nights, starting 28 March. |
| This
is a small group tour, limited to 16 maximum, escorted by ourselves
and local guides. Daily breakfast, most meals -- including unique
banquets and hawker meals alike, special cooking demonstrations
and classes, private coach throughout, deluxe boutique accommodation.
We stray off the beaten path to bring you the real Vietnam and
at an affordable price. |
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|
Read
day-by-day itinerary |
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| Also
available, a pre-tour option to the hill-tribes north of Hanoi, plus
a post-tour side trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Slightly new dates
on both excursions -- and better prices, too. You
now fly direct Saigon-Siem Reap, avoiding Phnom Penh. And we have
scored a GREAT hotel, the 5-star Pansea. details. |
| Globetrotting
Gourmet®
and Asianfoodtours.com
are especially excited to now offer all-inclusive land and flight
tour package prices ex Australia. Just as before, non-Australian customers
will need to purchase international air fares and insurance separately,
either from a local travel agent, or on the internet. (Or, cash in
those mileage points!!!) We can help you with all internal
Asian flight needs -- including your fares into Vietnam once you have
landed in Asia from Europe or America -- plus all other reservations.
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Our
September Globetrotting Gourmet® tour
to Bali was a great reunion with former participants from last
year's Thailand FoodTOUR. Voted best island destination by Travel
& Leisure magazine, we began our first day in Bali
designing dinner plates at Jenggala Ceramics factory, and premiered
our handiwork at the final night's banquet: a seafood feast
on Jimbaran beach served off our new ware! Now is the best time
to visit this "island of the gods", as normally-crowded
tourist sites are still relatively empty. Perfect photo opportunities
everywhere! Bali's annual remembrance ceremonies this month
were attended by world dignitaries, plus the ASEAN conference
held there, made us feel doubly proud in doing our part to help
revive the Balinese tourism economy. Should you have any friends
or contacts who would enjoy our tours, click
here, leaving their name and email address, plus country
of origin. |
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| Post
Bali, we visited Singapore for the annual moon cake festival.
Celebrated throughout China and its diaspora, it marks the overthrow
of the Mongols, when insurrectionist messages were secreted in small
cakes. |
| The
most popular filling is sweet lotus paste, with salted duck
yolks in the middle representing a full moon. We liked green-tea
mooncakes, while the ground floor of Takashimaya department
store on Orchard Road literally groans with both traditional
and trendy contemporary versions from every local producer.
Raffles Hotel substitutes chocolate truffle centres.
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| We
celebrated our group's last night together at B.R.O.T.H, voted Singapore's
best new restaurant of the year. It's just around the corner from
the Duxton Berjaya Hotel, which, by the way, boasts the island-nation's
best French eatery. While Singapore's hawker food is so delicious
(and cheap) that it's hard to entice us elsewhere, the Duxton's l'Aigle
d'Or restaurant tops my list of fine dining experiences anywhere.
We return to Singapore for Christmas -- an absolutely whimsical experience
with candy canes and frosted snow incongruously decorating the tropical
shopping mecca of Orchard Road. Equatorial rains never dampen the
festive joy, and it pours only sporadically, albeit spontaneously.
(Just don't get caught without a taxi within "coo-ee" or
shouting distance.) Speaking of forecasts, what happens elsewhere
on the Equator? click
here for our weather-travel planner. |
| On
the publishing front, Robert and Morrison are featured in the
Brisbane (Australia) Courier Mail, by Karen Milliner,
and The News Christchurch (New Zealand) by Kate Fischer.
read
more Robert's piece on the remote, mountainous nation of
Laos runs in the September, '03 issue of Good Taste magazine
with accompanying photos by Morrison.
Good Taste is Australia's largest circulation food magazine,
with one million readership. |
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| And
on the book front, La Cuisine de Thaïlande is the
just-released French translation of Robert's original, available
through Soline. But how does an American, living in Australia,
write a Swiss cookbook? Authenticity! In a case of coals to
Newcastle, Robert's book Fondue is now available in Switzerland
as Fondues aus aller Welt, and Fondues au tour du
Monde for the French-speaking cantons. That makes a total
of three separate French-language editions! Fondue is
also published in Dutch, and recently reprinted in the UK as
Simple & Delicious Fondue from Apple Press. As Morrison
quipped during the original test-marketing of one recipe: "That's
not a fondue; it's a fondon't." |
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| Finally,
nuptial congratulations and best wishes to Eve Rasmussen and Marek
Gilbert, married on August 16 in Vallejo California, USA. Proud parents
Susan and Glenn Rasmussen have joined us on two tours so far, the
first to Thailand in Nov. 2002 when Susan trekked to virtually every
silk tailor in Bangkok and environs looking for a wedding bodice and
frock for young Eve. And the results: "The US seamstress who
did the alterations on her silk dress commented on the excellent quality
of the Thai tailoring." |
Happy
Holidays!
Robert and Morrison |
| NOTE:
For those joining us in March on our Globetrotting Gourmet® Vietnam
regional food lovers' tour, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala
Lumpur (in that order) are the most convenient Asian hubs for travel
onward. If you visit Cambodia after our tour, Bangkok is the best
option. For more
travel advice |
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