SHREVEPORT, La., Sept. 9 Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, set out on her life-finding mission with a book contract in her pocket. When Sofia Brandon slammed the door on her executive job for a shampoo giant in Italy, she was just living. She had no notion that what she was living was an adventure--or that she should write about it.
Advertisement
But life took this Louisiana-raised girl and her endearing drawls all around the world. At 32, Sofia was diagnosed with a long list of spooky conditions. Determined not to depend on pills, she set out to heal herself by changing how she ate. When she met an Australian drummer at an ashram in India, Sofia fit her life into a backpack and set out for the land of kangaroos. She landed in a solar-powered cabin on an organic farm in the "rainbow region," a hippie / spiritual wonderland in the Australian subtropics. After learning of the python that lived in the roof and meeting her first leech, Sofia discovered the joys of trying to grow vegetables during a record rainy season and of mopping kitchen floors in a spiritual commune. From Australia, her adventures continued to Thailand, the Middle East and Provence, where she house-sat a chateau for the winter and wrote The Adventure Cookbook.
Advertisement
An adventure book that's also a cookbook
Through all the James-Bond-like changes in exotic locales, Sofia Brandon's journey is one into healthy living, complete with tips for drama-free digestion and clean food recipes adapted from the cuisine of Provence. In Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes injected recipes into her story. In The Provence Cookbook, Patricia Wells introduced recipes with short anecdotes. Sofia Brandon takes the interplay between travel book and cookbook all the way. It's an explosive marriage. The steady build-up of five-star reviews on Amazon shows that even men warm up to Sofia's blend of humor, exotic adventure and "lessons" in healthy eating. Those who take the book to the kitchen rave about Sofia's simple, light, addictive recipes: food you love that loves you back.
The Adventure Cookbook, by Sofia Brandon
Publisher: Playful Books
Distributor: Ingram
ISBN: 978-0980596601 ($12.95)
www.lifeinprovence.com/thebook
Interviews and review copies: [email protected]
"Delightful, funny, inspiring..." "Smiling ear to ear..." "Kept me home on a Saturday..." "From the heart..." "A journey into freedom..."
SOURCE Playful Books
