I am Clare Richards, both author and publisher of tropical cuisine: cooking in clare’s kitchen.  As you will read in these pages, I have been a passionate explorer of the world of food for a long time (my whole life to be truthful).  My father told a story of walking into the kitchen to find me, no more than 18 months old, sitting up on the kitchen table tucking into a sour pickled cucumber with a screwed up expression on my face.  He took away the pickled cucumber, at which point I started bellowing until he gave it back, and I happily continued eating away, complete with the scrumpled face.

Clare & carambola tree © Catseye Productions 2009-2010

My adventures in food and love for good, fresh, flavoursome food and eating local seasonal produce eventually lead me to write this cookbook.  When I first moved to northern Australia, it was the old pearling town of Broome in the Kimberley, Western Australia that became my new home. I sought to find current cookbooks that could guide me in my process of culinary discovery of the foods of north Australia, but could find very little.  Instead, I relied on word of mouth recipes from local work mates to get me started in my tropical cooking.  When I later moved to Cairns, I found the same dilemma.  What grows best here in my herb and veggie garden, and how do I use it once I’ve got it growing?  If I buy a particular fruit or vegetable at the markets, what will I do with it?  I could not find a comprehensive contemporary tropical cookbook to guide me.  So I came to write the book that I was looking for.

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