A very very belated happy 2007 to all. I can only apologize for not  
writing in my journal since the 10th of December. My excuse is that I still  
cook a lot, and give numerous dinner parties. The latest one was on  
22 January. I haven't had a chance yet to say anything here, even  
about this very succesful occasion, until today. It was a kind of  
rehearsal for a sit-down lunch I'll be cooking for members of Asia  
House in London (http://www.asiahouse.org) on 27 March 2007. This  
lunch for 40 people will be preceded by my talk on Curry - in fact  
the title of the event is 'CURRY AND PROSECCO', the prosecco being  
donated by my wine producer friend in the Veneto, Gianluca Bisol  
(http://www.bisol.it). As soon as the Asia House Programme for March  
and April comes out I will post the Curry Talk programme on this  
website also. I'll be donating 10 copies of my book "New Wave Asian"  
for sale on 27 March by Asia House. And as the talk is partly based  
on my contribution to a new book called 'Curry', published by Dorling  
Kindersley, this book will be also on sale there. I am only one of  
the contributors to 'Curry', the others being David Thompson on Thai  
Curry; Corinne Trang on the curry dishes of Laos, Cambodia and  
Vietnam; Vivek Singh, of the Cinnamon Club in London, on the curries  
of North India; Das Sreedharan on South India; Mahmood Akbar on  
Pakistan; Roopa Gulati on the 'Outposts', including curry in Britain;  
and Yasuko Fukuoka, who has written a short chapter on Japanese  
curries. I find all the Indian and Thai recipes by all these top  
restaurant chefs are incredibly good, while the other three writers,  
who are not chefs, are also very readable and their recipes, too, are  
very good. I should not be shy to say that my part of the writing,  
which includes recipes from Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, the  
Philippines and Indonesia, is as good as the others!

For the lunch at Asia House on 27 March I will include a  
recipe or two from Myanmar and the Philippines, but naturally I'll cook  
more Indonesian dishes. After all, as I've said in this website of  
mine, (see About Me), I remain true to my original purpose when I  
wrote my first cookery book: my mission is to show everybody in the  
west how to cook Indonesian food properly. I will write more about  
this forthcoming lunch at Asia House in the next few days.

Now, still on the subject of Asia House, I would like to post here an  
announcement about the Yan Kit So Memorial Award. Do read this, and  
send your comments or questions if you wish - especially if you are  
setting out to write a cookery book for the first time. The bursary  
you can win from Asia House is indeed quite generous!