Muslim Culinary Heritage

Proofreading this book was hard. I kept losing focus - and getting hungry.

The descriptions of food, ingredients and the chefs who made them kept returning me to my younger days and the nasi kandar I knew as a child in Penang: white rice, half a hard-boiled egg, and a chicken leg or breast, slathered with a spicy brown gravy that had the texture of sawdust.

But the flavours, the aroma, the spice, and the heat! I remember being hooked on it, and eagerly awaiting my father's return from work and the spicy package he'd bring home for himself and those in the family who could take the heat.

From the book: "Classic" nasi kandar which resembles my
childhood memories of it

I haven't had anything like it since arriving in KL about two decades ago. I don't know if it's still there...

Right, the book.

Usually, chefs write cookbooks, while academics write papers. It's perhaps the first time I've seen an academic write a (sort of) cookbook. Not credible? Not if the academic also cooks the food she writes about.

Wazir Jahan Karim, economic anthropologist, Distunguished Fellow and Founder of the Academy of Socio-economic Research and Analysis (ASERA) and Life Fellow of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge, is also a Jawi Peranakan, one of the many Indian Muslim communities along the Straits of Malacca.

Heir to her mother's culinary repertoire, Wazir Jahan is also said to host really great dinner parties. It was during one such dinner that a guest, impressed by the food and table setting, suggested that she write and publish something about both.

Pictures from the book: murtabak maker (left) and guy with
sup kambing and roti Benggali

She has delved into the historical, cultural and societal aspects of her family's cuisine and, perhaps, found more than she needed. The result is Feasts of Penang: Muslim Culinary Heritage.

Her book, which took almost a year to finish, was based on favourite hereditary foods from Penang's oldest families. "There are many anecdotes in the book which trace the history and origin of these Muslim heritage foods within families and how they were invariably linked to the spice trade in Southeast Asia from as early as the 14th century," she told the New Straits Times.

From the book, also an old favourite: fried fish roe - delicious, but not healthy

Penang's 18th- and 19th-century Jawi Peranakan and Jawi Pekan communities were mostly English-educated. The women were leaders and educators who also did charity work. Using their unique culinary alchemy, they brought crowds to charity bazaars.

From her impressive CV and bits and pieces from this book, it looks like the author is keeping that tradition going.

She stresses that the book is "not a text on the 'anthropology of food' or 'history of food'", but "a narrative and personal search into Malay and other sub-cultures of Muslim cookery in Penang and to a lesser extent, the northwestern states of Peninsular Malaysia" that "tries to capture, through memory and anecdotes, the kind of plural Muslim culture of food which has emerged in this region."

It's also a huge book, loaded with facts about the Straits Muslim communities and their cuisine - the better to sate hungry minds and whip up appetites for the food itself. The author's own memories of food, family, community and heritage, along with an occasional dash of humour, add a personal touch.

Famished types will salivate at pictures of some of the dishes inside. The cuisine is divided into several categories, including herbs and spices, breads and breakfasts, rice, nasi kandar (so good, it seems, that it has its own category), cakes and puddings, and bridal table spreads.

From simple starters and cakes to complicated stews and curries, there is enough in the book to keep one occupied - whether one really want to try his hand at the recipes, or to reminisce wistfully on a weekend afternoon.

Feasts of Penang: Muslim Culinary Heritage is available at all major bookstores. The book is jointly sponsored by Think City Sdn Bhd, ASERA and the Al-Bukhary Foundation.

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Feasts of Penang

Muslim Culinary Heritage

Wazir Jahan Karim
Nurilkarim Razha (culinary editor)
Rashidah Begum Fazal Mohamed (editor)

MPH Group Publishing
307 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-879-8

Buy from Kinokuniya | MPHOnline.com

News: Inferno in Hell's Kitchen As Farm-Lit Takes Off

Eight of the worst sentences in Dan Brown's Inferno will chagrin those who were hoping he'd dial down his signature tell-not-show style. But that's what sells millions, so why fix something that ain't broken?

While we're on the subject of 'bad' writing: Have some absurd quotes from Guy Fieri's book. ..."Fierifying".


Meanwhile:

• Josh Ozersky's take on food writing/criticism can also apply to book reviews. Plus, bacon and grilling tips.
  
  Update: A rebuttal of Ozersky's suggestion that restaurant critics serve a more selfish agenda. "[Restaurant] critics, at least the serious ones, try not to pal around too much with chefs they might review," says Joshua David Stein, writer and editor of and contributor to all sorts of publications. "They aren’t the chef’s friend. They aren’t the chef’s enemy. They are the reader’s advocate."
• Four kinds of author appearances, defined. Not every author wants to do a 'reading'.
• Young adult novels are getting more sophisticated - and reaching more adults.
• Goodbye, chick-lit; hello, farm-lit - where "a roll in the hay" can take place in real hay. Hey, hey, hay.
• Book-hoarding behaviour now has a name: "tsundoku". Too close to 'tsundere' for comfort.

...What the heck did I just call this update?

Lit And The Law Of The Jungle

Lots have been said about the review system on Amazon. It's not perfect, and next to no monitoring means all sorts of interesting input- (OMGZ, EA Poe's "The Raven" repurposed into a review of Tuscan Whole Milk!

But takedowns of products, driven by outrage or money, happen just as often. Maybe more often. More odious is the hiring of faceless online mercenaries in the effort. The bile in your veins must be really thick for you to do that.

As a reviewer, I have a personal beef with those who use feedback platforms in such a manner. Flooding a product's feedback section with lazy, lying, ill-informed 'reviews' - without even a look at the actual product - is destructive, unproductive and grossly unjust.

On top of it all, they're unconvincing and, in a way, taints what honest reviewers are doing.

I got a copy of the book to see if it was that bad. The one-star 'reviews' of it? All bull.

It is not an awful book, though I wouldn't call it great.

It is not a "far-left ultra-liberal" socialist manifesto. (What.)

It does not disrespect the Boston bombing victims. (What the heck?)

I've proofed even more error-ridden stuff.

The neurosurgeon in the book should sue for libel.

And would anyone with half a brain know if he was insulted?

And isn't it odd that some of the Amazon 'reviewers' five-starred almost the same things?

Only one error stood out after a casual pass: a name in a story appears to have two spellings. Several pieces feel rushed, written for its own sake with no apparent denouement. And several stories need better paragraphing - except maybe one.

I'm not defending the book or the publishers as much as I'm venting my spleen against the practice. I have made my feelings known about Amazon's feedback/review 'system', as well as 'reviewers' who think the number of posts on Tripadvisor, etc translate into power and authority. Unregulated feedback/review platforms are like mosquito-breeding swamps that need to be drained.

News: MPH Warehouse Sale, Grammar, And Dan Brown's Inferno

MPH Distributors is having its annual blowout sale from 21 to 26 May, 8am to 6pm at its premises at 5, Jalan Bersatu, Section 13/4, 46200 Petaling Jaya. Come one, come all, and avoid all that post-GE13 unpleasantness.

And glad to see that Fixi is doing well.


Elsewhere:

• "...it haunted my office for a decade in the form of a file cabinet labelled "DAB" – the Damned Africa Book. Into that cabinet I stuffed notes, clippings, photographs, character sketches, plot ideas, anything that struck me as relevant to the huge novel I wished I could write. I did not believe I would ever be writer enough to do it. So the files grew fat, in proportion to my angst about the undertaking." Barbara Kingsolver talks about that "Damned Africa Book", The Poisonwood Bible.
• "Tourism is down in Florence by 10%, and if this new book does well, we will get that 10% back." Eugenio Giani, head of the city council of Florence, Italy, is apparently banking on Dan Brown's latest book, Inferno, to set the city's tourism industry ablaze. Never thought of Brown as a tourist site resuscitator.
  
  Speaking of Dan Brown: seems the translators working on Inferno had a taste of Hell because the publisher(s) wanted to keep a lid on the book before its simultaneous worldwide release. It's just one of some crazy ways publishers enforce a code of silence.
  
  Before I forget: here's twenty of St Dan's worst sentences, just in case you're wondering what to expect in Inferno - thank you, Daily Telegraph. After all, dude sells millions. Maybe half of that are editors and English teachers looking for case studies.
• Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City, became a victim of a hacker who posted excerpts of her new novel online. Someone suggested (forgot who) that Bushnell use the hacking as publicity for said book but, hey, we can't all be like Paulo Coelho.
  
  Bushnell's case, however, is nothing compared to the angry reactions to how Charlaine Harris ended the Sookie Stackhouse saga. Death threats and suicide threats over the ending of a book? SRSLY?
• The art of translation, examined via the response to Haruki Murakami's latest.
• How different is book-signing in the digital age, and are signed e-books just as much relics as signed hardcopies? (the short answer is "yes", I think). Also: a brief history of the pantelegraph.
• How John Scalzi packs for a three-week book tour. Even then, he admits he's no expert. Mary Robinette Kowal can pack as many days worth of clothing into a carry-on as I can, and still — unfathomably — have space for a ball gown."
• Dude's writing about comics, but he brings up a good question: Will fretting over production details mean that professionals in publishing - editors, writers, book-makers, etc - will enjoy reading less?
• The Guardian asks, "Is good grammar still important?" Comedian and author Charlie Higson spars with Daily Mail columnist and sketchwriter Quentin Letts over whether the grammar Nazis have had their day. Maybe some rules need not be adhered to, but here are some grammar rules 'everyone' should follow. Or not.
  
  Recent news about the ancient Egyptian pyramids makes the case for some flexibility in language. Thanks to their precise engineering, the expansion and contraction of the limestone blocks due to temperature changes led to the outsides cracking and eventually crumbling. Without room for improvisation, language may end up the same.
• 'Discarded lines' from Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistable". Sounds like parody because ♪ the writer sounds irascible, yeah yeah... ♫
• This 7-minute, research-based workout plan leaves you with almost no excuse not to exercise. And here's a handy guide on storing your favourite foods. What to keep on the shelf, fridge or freezer. Not exactly book-related, but handy.

Kampung Boey Abroad

Last January, I received an e-mail that began thus:

my name is boey, and a friend referred me to your blog, where i ninjaed this address.

i'm best known for my works on foam cups since they went viral 4 years ago, and ive amassed quite a following on my blog that i update 6 times a week, and i am actively promoting the book now, especially so in asia, because it is rather disheartening that my artwork is better known in other parts of the world, but hardly at all back home.

I ignored all the typos in the e-mail for some reason and looked at the attachments. It was good, like a rough version of Lat's Kampung Boy, but I had a feeling we wouldn't be able to publish it for him.

I replied, and then forwarded the e-mail to the distributors' office upstairs. He had to self-publish in the end, but at least they would help him bring his book into the local market - if they agreed to.

I don't think anybody saw what came next.

A year later, the book has gone for five reprints - with 10,000 copies sold or in circulation; made the best-seller lists of major bookstores; and landed the author spots on TV, radio and the papers, in print and online.

All of that happened because a) he made a good product and believed in it and b) kept knocking on doors. We just so happened to be around and ready to give him a break.

Perhaps it was for the best that he self-published it. Otherwise I would've been the one doing his author's note and wouldn't have let him call himself "handsome", even if many readers think so.

I'd like to think that this was a modest success story. As with all success stories, it's the protagonist who sets things in motion with the first step.

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When he was a kid...

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 13 May 2013

Childhood stories. Most people wrote theirs; fewer have drawn theirs. But one thousand words is not easy to write, and a picture does not have to be too detailed to tell a good story.

Boey Cheeming's collection of hand-drawn childhood stories, When I Was A Kid, is an example of how simple lines and words are all you need to tell a tale.

Years back, I came across what looks like the blog of a young lady's (mis)adventures in life and love, comprising mostly of simple single-frame comics.

The artwork in Boey's collection is not much different. His avatar is easier to draw, however, and though his collection has more text, his roughly drawn figures fill in when words fail.

One should note that he's not afraid to speak or draw his mind. Nor is he inclined towards political correctness. Despite being advised to choke back the F-word numerous times during his book tours in Southeast Asia, one or two managed to slip past - without incident, I should add.

And some wouldn't like what he had in mind for his mom in her old age, though I personally saw one fan guffaw at it. His mom has read the book and is fine with it.

Okay, maybe she's not fine with everything

I guess there's a certain appeal in his honesty and irreverence, much of it all too apparent in his blog, where his own (mis)adventures continue online.

Even the non-graphic blog entries, all handwritten and scanned, are just as expressive. The handwriting, crossouts and assorted scribbles hints at a tendency to wear one's heart on a sleeve - or one's brain on a T-shirt.


Kampung Boey abroad
Malaysian by nationality, Boey went to school in Singapore before flying off to the States to do advertising at the Academy of Art University (AAU) in San Francisco.

He moved to computer animation, and eventually landed a job at Blizzard Entertainment(!) where he was an animator on projects such as Diablo II (!!) and Diablo III (!!!)

Before he found fame with his graphical autobiography, one of our country's crouching tiger/hidden dragon was known for gorgeous, intricate pieces painstakingly inked on styrofoam coffee cups with markers, from the first stroke to the last ("Wayward Boey comes home - for a short while", 02 August 2012).

He has since quit his job, and gone on a book tour, giving talks, meeting fans and signing copies of his book. He currently resides in Oakland, California and is working on his next book.


Poignant and punchy penstrokes
Though these are Boey's recollections, he promises that they will have you reminiscing about your childhood. Do you want to, though? It can be a tough question, and not just for those with difficult childhoods.

For most of us, when we were kids, childhood is a mixed bag, like Forrest Gump's "box o' choc'lutz" that should be partaken slowly and in small bites. Who knows what emotions a particular scene would evoke?

I've been to shops that looked like this

The sight of a well-drawn old-school Chinese-run sundry shop, for instance, returns the smell of dried goods, old rice and stale air to your nostrils. Then your eyes threaten to spill when you think of the days you badgered your parents for snacks or trinkets your adult self now recognises as unhealthy or frivolous indulgences - and feels awful for.

Other scenes from the author/artist's childhood seem familiar as well. Forced to do unsavoury chores? Yes, though burying dead birds is a breeze compared to whacking a trapped rat to death, which is harder than it sounds.

Fought with your younger sibling and got thrashed for it afterwards? Been there, done that. Felt your other talents were underappreciated because of your mediocre academic performance? So did I.

And hey, my grandma smoked too.

But it's not all about his parents or other people. Boey pokes fun at himself as well. In one chapter, he mimes kung-fu moves and gets teased by his mom. Another chapter sees his chubby tween self climb out of a pool with all the grace of a manatee. Getting chased and pecked by angry geese can be a harrowing experience for a kid, but he manages to make us laugh at that.

A friend who probably grew up a thousand miles away from any large body of water gawped incredulously when Boey told her that he used to believe that there were sharks in a swimming pool.

"I was a KID," Boey said defensively.

Weren't we all?

Boey calls his book a time-travel device and, in a way, it is. Combined with hindsight, a wry eye and the impious touch of his pen, he revisits his "mundane" growing-up years and manages to make it more interesting.

It's nice to think that, as he takes his trips back through time, the book becomes a prism through which he examines himself to see how much has changed since he was a kid and whether there's still room for improvement.

If it could do the same for those who read it, all the better.


When I Was A Kid is available at RM34.90 a copy and is available at all major bookstores. When I Was A Kid 2 is being Kickstarted.

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When I Was A Kid

written and published by Cheeming Boey (2010)
183 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-9849786-0-1

Shadows, Secrets and Starstone Spears

We wanted to get this out sometime last year, but one or two issues held it back. The art shift, for one.

Books one and two of The Jugra Chronicles

We couldn't get the illustrator for the first book to work on the second, but isn't the cover as lovely?

I've seen this kind of face before. Where, I wonder?

The long-awaited release of the second volume of The Jugra Chronicles begins three years after Miyah and village outcast Rigih rescue the former's younger brother from the clutches of a forest demon. Miyah, however, is seized by the demon instead and suffers a cruel curse.

Three years later, the denizens of Miyah's village, Tapoh, have largely moved on from the incident, though Rigih and Miyah's brother Bongsu remain the most affected by her disappearance. Especially the latter, who has been plagued by dreams and memories of things he doesn't remember experiencing.

An illustration from the book

One day, Malidi, younger daughter of the village chieftain and one of Miyah's friends, finds a bracelet of glass beads in the jungle. The item horrifies her sister and mother; they now believe that she, by picking it up, is under the spell of the penyamun, dreaded marauders who use black magic to ensnare their victims.

She is placed in confinement while a way to break the spell is devised. Like Miyah before her, she defies the wisdom of her elders and escapes, taking the beads with her. Then, she vanishes. Her disappearance leaves a cloud hanging over Tapoh, on top of rumours of a strange man-beast prowling the jungle with the penyamuns.

More potential trouble comes in the form of the Dutch and their interest in the natural resources of Borneo - a worry for the royal house of Tanjungputra.

Meanwhile, Bongsu's visions intensify, even as he struggles to forget his abduction and imprisonment by the forest demon. Heeding the advice of Nenek Kebaya, he seeks out Rigih, convinced that the time has come to find his sister and put the demon to rest.

It's not long before Rigih and Bongsu are joined by the young warrior Temaga and the headstrong Suru on their quest, which will take them to a hidden valley where the secrets of the man-beast, the dreaded forest demon and the Jugra bloodline, and the truth behind the penyamun will be revealed.

Who is Jugra, the legendary shaman and what are his connections with Rigih, Miyah, Bongsu, Nenek Kebayan, the demon, and the mysterious woman with the tattooed arms? Will they overcome the jungle's mortal and supernatural threats to find and rescue Miyah?


The second volume in The Jugra Chronicles, Rigih and the Witch of Moon Lake, will soon be available at all major bookstores.

Material for this series is by Tutu Dutta-Yean, whose repertoire includes fairy tale collections such as Timeless Tales of Malaysia, Eight Jewels of the Phoenix, Eight Fortunes of the Qilin, and Eight Treasures of the Dragon.

Art for this book is by prolific children's book illustrator Tan Vay Fern, whose vast body of work includes Hayley's Vegemania Garden and Hayley's Fruitastic Garden by Mohana Gill; The Zany Zebra, The Ugly Green Umbrella and The Xenophobic Xylophone by Wong Ching Hsia; and Dutta-Yean's Eight Treasures of the Dragon. Also, the cover for Wee Su May's Nine Little People Who Lived in a Chest.

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The Jugra Chronicles: Rigih and the Witch of Moon Lake

Tutu Dutta-Yean
illustrated by Tan Vay Fern

MPH Group Publishing
148 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-085-3

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Late News: Bestseller Figures, Rejection, And A Publishing Miracle

Last week's general elections was definitely eventful, but it seems a new circus is forming around the aftermath. So I dropped the ball on what's been happening in the book/publishing thing. On top of several planned articles and work.

• Another reality check for self-publishers.
• Rejection sucks. So take that rejection letter, shove it and carry on writing.
• How many copies makes a self-published book a bestseller? Some success stories share some figures.
• "...simply publishing e-books is already a thing of the past...". The Rumpus interviews writer Miracle Jones.
• Microsoft is thinking of buying Nook after the B&N division was sort of spun off from the main retail arm. If this sale goes through, TechCrunch thinks B&N and Amazon might as well stop competing over e-books.