Booklist Review
African cooking comprises many traditions from all across the vast continent. Stow has cooked for some of the thousands of people who trek to Africa's game reserves to view the continent's unique wildlife. Her cooking combines the best of African and imported ingredients to ensure that travelers learn about new foods without giving up all familiar tastes. Her take on breakfast in the bush includes not only eggs fried on a shovel over an open fire, but also Ethiopian honey bread and sweet potato pancakes. She includes foods from all over the continent: Moroccan preserved lemons, Ghanaian green bananas, Zimbabwean sausage, and South Africa's famous meat pie, bobotie. On the other hand, Stow's basil and Parmesan bread and orange and lemon poppy-seed cake cater to less adventuresome eaters on safari. Jan Baldwin's photographs not only render the food appetizing, they capture the continent's rich colors and the vitality of the people who call Africa home. --Mark Knoblauch
Library Journal Review
In this unusual and thoroughly entertaining book, Stow, Roald Dahl's former private chef (and author of Recipes from Gypsy House, detailing that period in her life), and photographer Baldwin provide a vivid portrait of their stay at an African safari reserve, from "Wake-Up, Rise and Shine" to "Dinner Under the Camel Thorn Trees." When Stow first took over the kitchen at a game preserve in South Africa, she found that most such establishments were serving European-style food. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of the cooks working with her, she developed a repertoire of traditional and modern African dishes, such as Bresaola-Style Venison and Roast Vegetable Pizzas with Harissa (cooked in an oven made from "a vacated termite mound"). Beautiful photographs of African nightcapes, people, and Stow's food illustrate the text. Highly recommended. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
