Dining with Dragons

Book excerpt: Dining With Dragons is the fascinating and humourous story of leading Asian food writer and chef, Carol Selva Rajah, and her journey from war-torn Malaysia to culinary success, both in Australia and the globe. The book carries forward the story of a family in transition from the late 19th Century, spanning three generations and their lives as it is lived in Srilanka, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, the US and finally Australia. Stories unfold across a mix of cultures, religions and continents, driven by the characters, their food, and the eating and cooking of it. The book focuses on women, the dragons who surrounded Carol, their lives in Asia through one hundred and twenty years of war, turmoil and independence and their transition to the west in the dying light of colonialism in Asia. The Japanese invade Malaya plunging the country into four long, lean years as Malayans are brought to their knees with fear, hunger and illness, then forced into a war with Mao-inspired Communists who want the British out. Carol goes to university in Singapore, travels to Canada and the United States, and finally to Australia, when Malaysian Independence brings a new set of rules to Malaya. Food becomes Carol's career in Sydney where she settles with her children and her husband and ultimately goes on to become a culinary success... Each chapter of the book ends with a recipe or a menu pertinent to the chapter. All are original recipes, one in the hand-writing of her orphaned mother Sara, who vowed never to enter a kitchen again, and another in the handwriting of her Auntie Siok. This is a book that inspires one that with trust, nothing is impossible.