It was fortuitous timing that allowed us to catch up with Christine Manfield and meet her bookcase. She had just flown in from the Grand Canyon and was about to fly out to Tokyo in the next week. And then there is everything else in between – hosting trips to India and another book on the horizon. Christine’s bookcase reflects her life – extensive, vibrant and overflowing with adventures. Christine greeted us with a Himalayan black tea to lead us through her journey with books.

Christine’s collection of cookbooks is overwhelming as they take over and encompass a full wall in her office. 
The other half of my cookbooks are downstairs in storage. I have so many go to cookbooks but at the moment but I am reading Naomi Duguid’s Burma: Rivers of Flavour. She is a gorgeous Canadian writer and I am going to be in Burma next year.

For the last 12 years I have been reading Indian authors while putting together my book, Tasting India. My all time favourite is The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh – it is a compelling contemporary story that seems part fable, part reality – the lines are blurred. Through his writing I discovered a region of India I had never heard of, the Sundarban Islands in the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of Kolkata and became so absorbed in the story, it sparked an interest in wanting to go there some day, despite the apparent hardships of survival in such an isolated part of the world. It’s a tightly woven story is packed with adventure, politics, environmentalist ideals and remarkable insights about India, as are all his books. 

William Dalrymple is a Scottish writer based in Delhi for the last 20 years, he was here for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. I first met William years ago in India and then also at the Sri Lanka Literary Festival. We became friends with our India connection. His book, Return of the King: The Battle for Afghanistan is about the first English war in Afghanistan in the 1800s. He was just finishing the book when I was last in India and I got him to do a reading from the book around the campfire on one of my trips. It’s a fascinating story – the arguments are still the same and it is 250 years later.  I absolutely loved Nine Lives and City of Djinns -they are my other two favourites of his.

Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers is heartbreaking. It’s about slum life in Mumbai – aspirational stories that come out of a meager existence. It’s like Slumdog Millionaire but on steroids. It’s a very compelling and riveting story and there is this a whole sense of hope but it is a different context how we think of it. In India you have let go of so much stuff when you are there and for the people who can’t get rid of the shit are the ones that don’t like it.

I am halfway through The One Foot Journey  by Richard Morais– it is a culinary story about an Indian family in France.  A father and son pitted against a crabby old French woman in the French countryside. It is eloquent and beautifully written. 

And of course, Anne Summers The Misogyny Factor, the topic of the moment. The arguments have not shifted much and we are still fighting for the same basic rights and the understanding and principles of equality that she wrote about in Damned Whores and God’s Police. I studied her in college and now she is a friend. She also spoke recently at the Sydney Writers’ Festival – the argument is interesting around the way the language around Julia Gillard to use as an example –  like her or not but the way she has been vilified  is not on. The book is about overcoming a sexist and misogynist way of thinking –  what we have to do to get true equality – inclusion, participation and respect. 

I tend to give novels and fiction away because I don’t have the room and then there is a list of books to be read. I get quite a few books given to me. Julia, my publisher slides me books fairly regularly to read. Margie, my partner gives me books and if all else fails she will give me a book. The last book she gave me was Designing with Black, she also gave me Ben Shrewy Origin for Christmas, which is beautiful.  He is the hot chef of Australia at the moment and is at Melbourne restaurant, Attica.

John Wood was an executive at Microsoft and went on holidays to Cambodia about 12 years ago and it’s the most inspiring story. He saw the desperate need for schools so he quit his job and started a program called Room to Read  – building schools and has now built 1800 in the Asia region educating girls. I have been a contributor and an ambassador for them the last three years. They do an annual fundraiser in Australia every February which, I have also been involved with. The book Creating Room to Read was about it how all came about. 

I wasn’t a big reader as a child – I left school when I was 15 and then went back school to get HSC and then my teachers degree and then I was ready. It was good political time in Adelaide and there was great stuff coming out – women writers and that was what I focused on and got me interested. I studied literature and was teaching literary skills – the development of language using visual arts and alternative ways of learning. Travel then inspired me to become a chef. 

If I am reading a book that I am not getting into I put it down and sometimes I don’t go back to it but I tend to be fairly tenacious – I’ll stick at it. I read mostly when I am travelling and when I’m here it’s mostly reference books for work and anything to do with writing or what I am producing. 

At Universal we were always looking for innovative ways to have dinner. Last year we came up with the idea of  literary dinners – every month we would invite an author who has just published or about to and we would  invite them to talk and we created a menu or an evening around  whatever their was focus was. We had Charlotte Wood who did a food book from a suburban housewife’s perspective. We had Judith Lucy and Kaz Cooke together, which was hysterical. We also did Daryl Dellora, who is a screenwriter and he also wrote an authorized biography of Michael Kirby, I also asked Michael to come along. That was a fantastic one too. 

I met Michael after I was interviewed years ago and I was asked who would I like to sit next to on a plane – I chose Michael Kirby because there had been a lot of press at the time about gay rights and the legalities and I said the stories would go on for days. He was chuffed and got his secretary to contact me – we had lunch and it’s gone on from there.

About Christine

Christine Manfield, a chef and former restaurateur (Universal and Paramount in Sydney, East @ West, London) is a perfectionist inspired by strong flavours, a creative spirit whose generosity and mentoring skills have inspired young chefs, an avid gastronomic traveller and a writer whose internationally awarded books have spiced up the lives of keen cooks from Melbourne to Mumbai and Manhattan.

To date she has published eight acclaimed and award- winning books with Lantern Penguin Books Australia: Stir, Spice, Christine Manfield Originals, Christine Manfield Desserts, Fire – A World of Flavour, Lantern Cookery Classics, Fire & Spice and Tasting India.

Christine hosts regular gastronomic luxury travel adventures to exotic destinations like India, North Africa and South East Asia.

Leigh Russell and Kathy Luu chatted with Christine on the  11 June  2013.  Images by Kathy Luu

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