After highly successful outings with her first two books, Sharon Lurie, aka the Kosher Butcher’s Wife, decided that it was time to make it official and combine the influences of her culinary heritage as both a kosher cook and a proud South African. As she says, South African cuisine is as deliciously diverse as its inhabitants, from the many indigenous peoples to the waves of immigrants and settlers who have made the southern part of Africa their home. In A Taste of South Africa with the Kosher Butcher’s Wife, Sharon Lurie takes you on an adventure through South Africa’s diverse and iconic dishes, but with traditional Jewish culinary twists. The mouth-watering recipes often include non-dairy options. And don’t think because Sharon is the Kosher Butcher’s Wife that she only thinks about meat dishes; there are ideas from starters to sweets with everything in between. An in her inimitable style, Sharon will keep you laughing along the way.

Written in a humorous, fun style, Cooking with the Kosher Butcher’s Wife is like no other cookery book. It will keep eager meat lovers entertained as they try out Sharon Lurie’s delicious recipes. After 30 years of experimenting, creating and improvising, Sharon finally dispels the old myth that, because cooking with kosher meat means eating only from the forequarter, meals are limited to tough, dry and boring meat! She proves that kosher meat is of the highest grade and quality, and by means of notes and tips, and tried-and-tested recipes, helps the reader prepare mouth-watering beef dishes, as well as wonderful lamb, veal and poultry fare. Other recipes include marinades, soups, deli delights, side dishes, vegetables and unforgettable desserts. All the recipes in Cooking with the Kosher Butcher’s Wife are also suitable for the lactose intolerant. With the many non-dairy substitutes available today, Sharon proves that non-dairy desserts can be just as delectable as their dairy counterparts.

Celebrating with the Kosher Butcher’s Wife can be described as ‘cooking throughout the Jewish year’. The Jewish calendar has many significant festivals and, inevitably, food plays a major role in the celebrations. Each chapter covers a different festival: Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Channukah, Purim, and Shabbat. Sharon Lurie brings a contemporary feel to traditional dishes, and the pages are infused with amusing anecdotes, delicious recipes and beautiful full-colour photographs.

Finding the perfect wine to complement a carefully prepared dish is often a hit and miss affair, but this handy guide aims to change that. Written in an accessible manner, it seeks to convey the basic principles that underpin a good wine and food match and to enable the reader to make an appropriate choice. The bulk of the book consists of an easy-to-use directory of dishes, from soups and salads, through main courses to cheese and dessert. Each dish is briefly explained and matched with a wine recommendation, based on the ingredients and cooking methods used. The introduction covers topics such as how to pair food and wine, likeness and contrast, the relevance of sauces, and cooking with wine. Wine styles and grape varieties are given in-depth coverage so that the reader can understand the essential characters that make particular wines good matches for specific foods. Established ‘rules’, such as ‘red wine with red meat’ and ‘white wine with fish’ are examined and the authors provide sound reasons for retaining, or rejecting, them. Packed with practical, useful information, The Food and Wine Pairing Guide is set to become an indispensible reference for anyone who takes an interest in what they eat and drink.

The armed struggle waged by the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), was the longest sustained insurgency in South African history. This book offers the first full account of the rebellion in its entirety, from its early days in the 1950s to the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South African president in 1994. Vast in scope, this story traverses every corner of South Africa and extends throughout southern Africa, where MK’s largest campaigns and heaviest engagements occurred, as well as to the solidarity networks that the rebellion mobilised around the world. Drawing principally from previously unpublished writings and testimonies by the men and women who fought the armed struggle, this book recreates the drama, heroism and tragedy of their experiences. It tells the story of leaders like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Joe Slovo and Chris Hani, whose reputations were forged in the crucible of the armed struggle, but it is also a tale of martyrs such as Looksmart Ngudle, Ashley Kriel and Phila Ndwandwe, as well as of MK cadres such as Leonard Nkosi and Glory Sedibe, who would ultimately turn against the ANC and collaborate with the state in hunting down their former comrades. Written in a fresh, immediate style, Umkhonto we Sizwe is an honest account of the armed struggle and a fascinating chronicle of events that changed South African history.

Kosher USA follows the fascinating journey of kosher food through the modern industrial food system. It recounts how iconic products such as Coca-Cola and Jell-O tried to become kosher; the contentious debates among rabbis over the incorporation of modern science into Jewish law; how Manischewitz wine became the first kosher product to win over non-Jewish consumers (principally African Americans); the techniques used by Orthodox rabbinical organizations to embed kosher requirements into food manufacturing; and the difficulties encountered by kosher meat and other kosher foods that fell outside the American culinary consensus. Kosher USA is filled with big personalities, rare archival finds, and surprising influences: the Atlanta rabbi Tobias Geffen, who made Coke kosher; the lay chemist and kosher-certification pioneer Abraham Goldstein; the kosher-meat magnate Harry Kassel; and the animal-rights advocate Temple Grandin, a strong supporter of shechita, or Jewish slaughtering practice. By exploring the complex encounter between ancient religious principles and modern industrial methods, Kosher USA adds a significant chapter to the story of Judaism's interaction with non-Jewish cultures and the history of modern Jewish American life as well as American foodways.

Land reform and the possibility of expropriation without compensation are among the most hotly debated topics in South Africa today, met with trepidation and fervour in equal measure. But these broader issues tend to obscure a more immediate reality: a severe housing crisis and a sharp increase in urban land occupations In Promised Land, Karl Kemp travels the country documenting the fallout of failing land reform, from the under-siege Philippi Horticultural Area deep in the heart of Cape Town’s ganglands to the burning mango groves of Tzaneen, from Johannesburg’s lawless Deep South to rural KwaZulu-Natal, where chiefs own vast tracts of land on behalf of their subjects. He visits farming communities beset by violent crime, and provides gripping, on-the-ground reporting of recent land invasions, with perspectives from all sides, including land activists, property owners and government officials. Kemp also looks at burning issues surrounding the land debate in South Africa – corruption, farm murders, illegal foreign labour, mechanisation and eviction – and reveals the views of those affected. Touching on the history of land conflict and conquest in each area, as well as detailing the current situation on the ground, Promised Land provides startling insights into the story of land conflict in South Africa.