Caption: Celebrity chef and television host, Robert Oliver presented a copy of his prize-winning new book on Samoan cuisine to the Acting Prime Minister, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
The celebrity chef and television host, Robert Oliver – who grew up in Fiji and is visiting Suva – has presented a copy of his prize-winning new book on Samoan cuisine to the Acting Prime Minister, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
The book, Mea’ai Samoa: Recipes from the Heart of Polynesia, recently won the prestigious Gourmand Award for the World’s Best TV Chef Cookbook. It is the second time Robert Oliver has carried away a Gourmand prize, having first won the top award for World’s Best Cookbook in 2010 for Mea’Kai, his celebrated volume on Pacific cuisine which spawned a television program of the same name. No other author has ever won a Gourmand prize twice.
The photographs for the lavishly illustrated Mea’ai Samoa were taken by the Fijian photographer, Shiri Ram, who also took the pictures for Mea’kai.
Robert Oliver is in Fiji filming the second series of Mea’Kai, which is seen on local television and throughout the region. He is a New Zealander but was raised in Fiji and Samoa as a child and attended Suva Grammar School. His distinguished career includes developing restaurants in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Sydney. And he’s credited with drawing global attention to Pacific cooking for the first time through his books and television programs.
MINFO