Bali: The Food Of My Island Home
Healthy Cooking Food Photography Culinary Reference Travel Memoir Indonesian Cuisine Southeast Asian Cooking Balinese Culture
Bali: The Food of My Island Home is the next-best thing to having a Balinese grandmother invite you into her kitchen. Janet De Neefe, the Australian-born founder of Ubud’s famous Casa Luna cooking school, distills 20 years of living, eating and teaching on the island into 160 recipes that move well beyond tourist-menu staples. Readers get the sate lilit that locals queue for at sunset, the fragrant bumbu bases that perfume family compounds, and the banana-leaf parcels of fish steamed in lemongrass and kemangi that most cookbooks never mention. Every dish is cross-referenced to its ceremonial or daily-life context, so you understand why lawar must be eaten the day it’s made and why pork is roasted only on auspicious days. The result is a cookbook that doubles as a cultural passport, letting home cooks recreate the island’s true edible heritage without hopping on a plane.
What makes this 2011 paperback especially collectible is the quality of the copy itself: tight, unmarked pages, no dog-ears, no previous-owner inscriptions, and stored in a smoke-free home—exactly the condition serious food bibliophiles hunt for. Inside, lush on-location photography by Bali-based photographers shows emerald rice terraces, early-morning market stalls piled with torch ginger and fresh turmeric, and step-by-step shots of hand-tying ketupat pouches. These images turn the book into a coffee-table-worthy visual journey while still lying flat for kitchen use thanks to its flexible perfect binding. If you’re building a Southeast-Asian culinary library, this edition gives you both reference authority and shelf appeal.
Beyond recipes, De Neefe weaves memoir snippets—her first taste of babi guling at a roadside warung, learning to pound spice pastes in a village compound—so each chapter reads like a love letter to the island. Nutritional notes highlight the probiotic benefits of fermented sambal matah and the antioxidant punch of fresh turmeric jamu, aligning the book with today’s wellness-focused food culture. Whether you’re a young adult planning a gap-year trip, a home cook hunting gluten-free tropical flavors, or a chef refining authentic Balian menus, this copy delivers an unspoiled, ready-to-use gateway to one of the world’s most captivating cuisines.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.
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