The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Chefs to share their skills at BookFest Posted: 02 Sep 2011 05:03 AM PDT A group of renowned chefs will take you on a culinary journey, complete with tips and tricks. IT'S that time of the year again when BookFest@Malaysia, that massive book exposition organised annually by Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd, rolls out thousands of great book deals along with book-related events for book lovers over nine days. If you have been to the expo – which began on Aug 27 – for the entire week and have had your fill of books, then tomorrow, the expo's second last, will be a great opportunity to check out what's literally cooking on Cook-Out Day. As you enter the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre's Hall 5 between the children's section and the Popular Pavilion, you will find The Stage where a potpourri of flavours will sizzle from woks and pots the entire day as an assortment of chefs take turns to share their fine cooking skills with you. Kicking off the cook out in the morning will be chef Justin Hor Chee Keong with a taste of Cantonese cuisine cooking; he will share the many varieties of Cantonese cooking techniques such as frying, stewing, deep frying, boiling, braising and so on. Malay food lovers will have two Malay chefs, Kamariah Jamaludin and former Café Dania owner and author of a debut cookbook, Memorable Recipes For Malay Occasions, Marina Mustafa will share Malay food recipes that they learnt in their mothers' kitchens. Marina co-hosted Dari Dapur Marina with veteran actress Azean Irdawaty on Astro Awani in January 2010 for eight episodes and she was also a part of the reality cooking show Ideal Celebrity Chef for seven episodes, aired on TV3 in June 2010. She was also selected as one of BBC TV London's Cooking Series guest cooks on Malaysian cuisine. Nonya food lovers will be in for a treat with two experts, chef Ricky Ng and Debbie Teoh, sharing their know-how on delectable and intricate Nonya recipes. Chef Ricky Ng – who was born into a Nonya family in Taiping, Perak, and has authored seven cookbooks – picked up valuable tips on Nonya cooking and kuih-making from his grandmother, mother and aunties, who were all experts in their type of cuisine. Having worked in numerous restaurants all over Europe, Ng won "The Best Chef of Europe" award in 1992. He is also skilful in baking as well as Thai, Malay and Indian cuisine and Western fine dining. The versatile all-rounder even knows Chinese cuisine from different provinces of China, local hawker food and a whole lot more. Teoh is also a true bred Nonya who hails from Malacca. Her father is a Baba from Malacca and mother, a Nonya from Penang. Her forte is both northern and southern Nonya cuisine, and she is a Nonya food consultant for Tourism Malaysia. For fish lovers, Chef Leong will show you the way to master the art of fish cooking – one of the hardest ingredients to deal with since delicate fish is so easy to overcook – while Ong Jin Teong will show off Penang's heritage food through his cooking demo. If breads, biscuits, pastries, desserts and Malay traditional kuih are up your alley, chef Zubaidah Che Pa is the one you want to see. She's had more than a decades' experience in conducting baking courses and will be presenting a baking demonstration of biscuits. A professional baker, chef Elisabeth Siahaja – who presented 50 different types of breads in her book, Magic Bread House – will knead some dough to show you how she magically conjures fulfilling breads for you and your family. Cook-Out Day at Bookfest@Malaysia 2011 is on tomorrow from 11am until 8.45pm at The Stage@Hall 5 at the KLCC. Star Publications (M) Bhd is a BookFest@Malaysia 2011 media partner. BookFest@Malaysia 2011 began on Aug 27 and will continue daily (10am-10pm) until this Sunday at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Admission is with purchase of the BookFest catalogue (which comes with an extra, separate edition for entrance into this year's new Lifestyle Pavilion) at RM2.50 per entry or RM10 for multiple entries over the nine days. Catalogues are available at all Popular and Harris bookstore outlets and at the BookFest entrance. Entrance is free for students 18 years old and below and for senior citizens aged 60 and above. For more information, visit bookfestmalaysia.com. |
| Posted: 02 Sep 2011 03:37 AM PDT Alex Van Helsing: Voice of the Undead Author: Jason Henderson Publisher: HarperTeen, 304 pages ALEX Van Helsing finally belongs somewhere. It just happens to be an underground organisation that secretly hunts and kills vampires. Voice Of The Undead is Jason Henderson's second novel in the Alex Van Helsing series. The first, Vampire Rising, published last year, was an interesting twist on an old tale, but a slow read. Voice Of The Undead is a more action-packed story, and the characters are more fully developed. In the first book, Alex enrolled at the prestigious all-boys Glenarvon Academy near Lake Geneva, Switzerland, only to find himself fending off an attack by a fanged woman. He also noticed that he gets a strange static in his head that warns him when vampires are near. Because of this ability, the 14-year-old is recruited by the Polidorium organisation, in which his English teacher is a high-ranking officer, to become a vampire hunter. In Voice Of The Undead, Alex attends school during the day and spends his nights searching Lake Geneva for the magic-protected Scholomance, an ancient vampire school. During one of these missions, he burns down Glenarvon Academy, which is forced to relocate to an all-girls academy down the road. Meanwhile, the Polidorium want Alex to track down a vampire named Ultravox. The Alex Van Helsing series is tapping into the market of books for young adult boys, and does so successfully. The novels are engaging and suspenseful, without relying on a central love story. Henderson also cleverly alludes to many old horror stories, from Frankenstein to the tale of the girl with the green ribbon around her neck. He slowly creates new paranormal characters, and he does so smoothly. Alex's close friends, who aren't especially gifted, keep the story accessible to all readers. Just as Harry Potter needs Hermione and Ron, Alex needs his friends Minhi, Paul and Sid. But where is Lord Voldemort? One could argue that it's the vampire Elle, who seems to constantly taunt Alex, but readers know almost nothing about her. Yet. Here's hoping more will be revealed in the next book. – AP |
| Posted: 02 Sep 2011 03:35 AM PDT The Weekend Author: Bernhard Schlink Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 215 pages WHEN I read the English translation of German author Bernhard Schlink's The Reader in 1997, I was very moved by it. Its simple storyline (young boy falls in love with a much older woman who turns out to have been a Nazi during World War II) coupled with Schlink's exploration of the guilt of the German people over the atrocities and casualties of war turned The Reader into a tour de force on the psychological make-up of a nation. Then, 13 years later, Schlink produced The Weekend, which has been touted as the sequel to The Reader. However, it's far from being a direct sequel – none of the protagonists from The Reader make an appearance in The Weekend, for instance. However, both personal and national guilt as well as Schlink's trademark style of raising difficult societial questions stemming from Germany's history do link the two novels. The Weekend tells the story of a group of long-time friends who meet in a run-down country villa; one of the group, Jörg, a former member of the Baader-Meinhof gang (aka the Red Army Faction), has spent the past 24 years in prison for committing several murders and causing unrest. In the opening paragraphs of the novel, Christiane, Jörg's older sister, greets her brother as he is finally released from the prison he has called home for the past two decades. Even in this opening chapter, Schlink does not make it easy for his readers. With gloomy and rainy day images, intertwined with Christiane's double fear of her brother's murderous capabilities and of losing him once more (both physically and emotionally), and Jörg's maladjusted behaviour due to his years in prison, Schlink sets the tone for his novel – The Weekend will not an easy read and the moral/social/political/psychological layers explored does not make for leisurely reading. Schlink cleverly depicts each character with just enough personal details and background information to place them within the group and link them to their common past without making any one character the main protagonist. He wanted real life historical events to drive the novel, and by limiting the focus on each character, the author has achieved his goal of making the events of the post-1945 and the Baader-Meinhof years the main stars of the narrative. As Jörg was the one who was incarcerated, the rest of the characters circulate around him, trying to decipher his thoughts and rationale behind his actions all those years ago. But, though he is the guest of honour of the weekend, Jörg wants nothing more than to hide away from his friends and contemplate the path his life has taken. While it would be have been an easy thing for him to do to make the novel more mainstream, kudos to Schlink for not taking the predictable route of having Jörg plead for redemption. Instead of having him admit to his past mistakes, he has Jörg stubbornly refuse to admit that his time with the Baader-Meinhof gang and the murders he committed and the social unrest he helped to cause were wrong. In Jörg's eyes, what he did in the late 1970s he did for the greater good of his group's principles and beliefs. It is this controversial, stubborn belief system maintained by Jörg that makes Schlink an author to reckon with and The Weekend a compelling read. Admittedly, The Weekend lacks the emotional punch that was available in spades in The Reader. I also found parts of The Weekend to be draggy – if the text had been edited more, the novel would have had a much tighter air of paranoia that I believe Schlink would have wanted to get across. I put this down to the German losing its original meaning in the translation process. I think it is timely that a novel such as The Weekend with its theme of guilt, redemption, social disturbances and political murders is released at this point, as the world's current socio/political/religious beliefs are not so far removed from what was happening post-1945. The Weekend is not a mainstream novel for the general public, but for those who are interested in history and current affairs, this is a novel that should be read. |
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