cover image You Really Haven't Been There Until You've Eaten the Food: An International Odyssey with More Than 130 Recipes

You Really Haven't Been There Until You've Eaten the Food: An International Odyssey with More Than 130 Recipes

Keith Famie. Clarkson N Potter Publishers, $32.5 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-609-61092-3

Survivor contestant, chef and Food Network contributor Famie (Keith Famie's Adventures in Cooking) brings together his love of food, travel and adventure in his latest offering. As much a travelogue as a recipe book, Famie's volume vividly brings to life the familiar and novel places he visits through the local food and the people he encounters. From Kenya, he offers the robust Maharagwe Ya Nasi (Swahili for Beans in Coconut Sauce) and a description of the Masai blood-letting ceremony; and from the Miami Cuban community of Little Havana, he presents the Argentinean-inspired Chimichurri Sauce while reminiscing about his host's hospitality (""a cuba libre tastes best when made by a liberated Cuban""). Together, the writing and the photographs conjure up colorful, vibrant portraits of people and places. Each chapter of the travelogue, which begins in Africa and trips through Canada, the South Pacific and Michigan (where he goes mushroom hunting), just to name a few places, is illustrated by both anecdotes and recipes. Many of the dishes call for ingredients indigenous to the locale, but Famie is always careful to locate an email source or suggest an alternative; he also provides an extended resource guide and glossary. Throughout the book, it is Famie's love of cooking and treking that shines through. Liberally sprinkled with black-and-white photos as well as a center section of color photos, and distinguished by lively descriptive prose, this book may help readers feel as if they've traveled the world without leaving the kitchen.