Recipes from the Hearth features the favourite recipes of 36 of South Africa's most-loved celebrities. With a recipe for peri peri prawns from Basetsana Kumalo, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu's 'Tutu chicken', this title is an ideal gift this Christmas. The cookbook was commissioned by Business Against Crime Western Cape to capture the public's heart by capturing their stomachs. The design of the cookbook is crisp and clear. Each icon is given three double-page spreads in which they outline their lives and their successes, and why they love the particular recipe they have chosen. Not only does the reader come away with a sense of homely values, but he or she gets closer to the icons that are featured in the cookbook. Recipes from the Hearth is a celebration of family values, and in some cases nostalgia. This cookbook was also commissioned as a means to raise funds for the non-profit organisation, Business Against Crime Western Cape. Their vision is of a "safe and secure South Africa", through co-operation between business, government and the citizens of South Africa. As Dr Annelie Rabie, CEO of Business Against Crime Western Cape, emphasises "the organisation is entirely dependant on donations and contributions for its success". Recipes from the Hearth is the perfect gift, released just in time for Christmas, to be given away to friends and family. Not only does it feature a number of South African icons and their favourite family recipes in a creative design, but its sales will also contribute to the national fight against crime. This one will capture many hearts and stomachs.

The author brings together in Delicious travel a collection of her culinary wanderings through some of the most remote and unchartered parts of South Africa - places we thought we knew - in different and completely unexpected ways. The author has an eye and ear for the idiosyncratic and the quirky, in her quest for great cuisine, she uncovers the eccentricities of the people who live - and cook - in the countryside. 'Great cuisine' isn't necessarily haute cuisine, but rather the ingredients, chefs and places, all conspiring to make an experience memorable. It rediscovers bits of history and paints vivid pictures of people and their stories as it traces culinary treasures down hidden paths. This is intelligent travel with a twist! We learn how to make mealiepap pie in Victoria West, and conversely, the most sublime of seared tuna with a tantalising Far East-flavoured topping in a remote Eastern Cape town. We discover how, just outside De Rust, Jans Rautenbach, the godfather of Afrikaans film, got to sport a cathedral window in his house; how the breeding of Arabian horses on a stud farm influences the cuisine in the area and what really happens at a Karoo cattle auction when everyone buys jerepigo in support of church coffers. We discover how Mpumalanga's Robbers' Pass got its name; how the creative writing process imposes on cooking; and we find out why writer/artist Braam Kruger is more famous for his perfect fish and chips than for his art and possibly most importantly, how to mix the perfect Bloody Mary or Martini.