Book Intro: The Hundred-Foot Journey, Richard Morais

I decided I was going to start out easy with this new blog - after all I am still reading Harry Potter. Yet that doesn't mean I want to skimp out on what content I want to read myself and post about.

I don't know how I stumbled across this book, I know that a long while back I had bought The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais when I was out at a local book store in Portland. I never read it though, let's just call it bad timing. Never buy more books when you're about ready to move out of an apartment. Because I'm pretty sure that I had packed this book into the Goodwill donation box by mistake. 

Now that the movie came out recently in theaters (no I haven't seen it yet!) it reminded me of how I had purchased this book so long ago and not been able to find it. 

So lo and behold I bought this book on my Kindle in about thirty seconds - and thus far have been devouring it in the past hour.

The best thing too is how this book will introduce the wonderful style of Indian cooking in my household. I can already imagine some of the dishes I'm going to cook up for us this coming week!

Here's a short synopsis from Amazon on The Hundred-Foot Journey for those of you that would also like to read this book now. At the end I also plan on publishing my own review per completion of this novel.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

By

Richard Morais

"That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along once a generation. He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist." And so begins the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life’s journey in Richard Morais’s charming novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey. Lively and brimming with the colors, flavors, and scents of the kitchen, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a succulent treat about family, nationality, and the mysteries of good taste.
Born above his grandfather’s modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumière, a small village in the French Alps.
The boisterous Haji family takes Lumière by storm. They open an inexpensive Indian restaurant opposite an esteemed French relais—that of the famous chef Madame Mallory—and infuse the sleepy town with the spices of India, transforming the lives of its eccentric villagers and infuriating their celebrated neighbor. Only after Madame Mallory wages culinary war with the immigrant family, does she finally agree to mentor young Hassan, leading him to Paris, the launch of his own restaurant, and a slew of new adventures.
The Hundred-Foot Journey is about how the hundred-foot distance between a new Indian kitchen and a traditional French one can represent the gulf between different cultures and desires. A testament to the inevitability of destiny, this is a fable for the ages—charming, endearing, and compulsively readable.