Melissa Muller – författare

For millennia, Sicily has been a global crossroads, its cuisine marked by the different conquering groups drawn to its natural riches, from the Greeks and Arabs to the Normans and Spanish. The food is in essence Italian, but accented with exotic Mediterranean touches: pesto punched up with capers, gelato made with pistachios, pasta laced with saffron, and a penchant for sweet-and-sour preparations like caponata and strong flavors like wild fennel and oregano. Sicily tells the wonderful histories behind the classic dishes but also shows how contemporary chefs and home cooks are reinvigorating recipes in modern ways. The product of years of careful research, Sicily gives a tour of the land s culinary treasures, from the couscous of Lo Capo and the vines of Mt. Etna to the sea salt of Trapani and the black pigs of Mirto. The book gives foolproof instructions for all the cardinal dishes such as Arancini, Pasta with Sardines, and Swordfish Involtini, but there are also plenty of delicious contemporary recipes, such as Eggplant Parmigiana in a Glass, Butternut Squash Caponata, and Cannoli Millefoglie.Complete with travel notes and addresses to plan a trip, Sicily is sure to enchant readers everywhere.

Alice Herz-Sommer was born in 1903 in Prague, the Prague of the Hapsburgs and of Franz Kafka, a family friend. Musically very gifted, by her mid-teens Alice was one of the best-known pianists in Prague. But as the Nazis swept across Europe her comfortable, bourgeois world began to crumble around her, as anti-Jewish feeling not only intensified but was legitimised. In 1942, Alice's mother was deported. Desperately unhappy, she resolved to learn Chopin's 24 Etudes - the most technically demanding piano pieces she knew - and the complex but beautiful music saved her sanity. A year later, she, too - together with her husband and their six-year-old son - was deported to a concentration camp. But even in Theresienstadt, music was her salvation and in the course of more than a hundred concerts she gave her fellow-prisoners hope in a world of pain and death. This is her remarkable story, but it is also the story of a mother's struggle to create a happy childhood for her beloved only son in the midst of atrocity and barbarism. Of 15,000 children sent to the camp, Raphael was one of the 130 who survived. Today, Alice Herz-Sommer lives in London and she still plays the piano every day.