"Mai Kana"! Sa Levu Na Loloma!

My fabulous, gorgeous, wonderful, amazing Best Friend Forever from High School, ROBERT OLIVER, is back in Fiji and has just had his Pacific Cookbook published.

Although I'll talk more about this later, for now here's a review:

News Release

Oceania Sustainable Tourism Alliance
Auckland, New Zealand
December 3, 2008

NEW COOK BOOK INITIATIVE AIMS AT PACIFIC PALATES

A new initiative designed to boost rural prosperity in the Pacific Islands by creating increased demand for locally grown foods is being supported by the Oceania Sustainable Tourism Alliance (OSTA).

Meeting in Auckland, often dubbed "the largest Polynesian city in the world", the alliance incorporated the innovative farmer-to-table "Mai Kana" project into its menu of community-benefit tourism programs.

"It is a fabulously stimulating cookbook which introduces jaded palates to many delicacies kept by islanders for themselves - but for us development folk "Mai Kana" is a guide to providing rural farmers with steady incomes while boosting local offerings at tourist tables," said Lelei LeLaulu of the Oceania Sustainable Tourism Alliance (www.oceaniatourismalliance.net).

"Mai Kana" is the brainchild of passionate Pacific people, Dr. Tracy Berno, former head of the tourism and hospitality program at the University of the South Pacific and Fiji-raised Robert Oliver, a Caribbean/US-based Chef best known for the development of high profile tropical restaurants and food program development in the South Pacific, the USA and the Caribbean.

The first step in Oceania is to publish the high quality cookbook, "MAI KANA PACIFIC: The food and flavors of Fiji and the South Pacific" with Shiri, a talented photographer and book/graphic designer based in Fiji.

"It will be more than just a cookbook," explained Robert Oliver, "Through our shared passion for the peoples, cultures and foods of the South Pacific, we will create a book that sets the standard for the region. We are aiming to improve the high quality of fresh, healthy food offered to the South Pacific's tourism markets. There will be some traditional recipes and some not-so-traditional recipes, but they will all use local ingredients.

"The book will not only provide an informative source on traditional and contemporary cuisines of the Pacific, but it also presents an opportunity to contribute to, and invest in, the sustainable development of the region," said co-author, Dr. Tracy Berno of Lincoln University in New Zealand. "It's about connecting tourism to agriculture, farmers to hotels and getting more tourism dollars to stay in the local island economies."

"Mai Kana Pacific" is underpinned by a philosophy of sustainable tourism, sustainable agriculture and sustainable cuisine," said Rex Horoi, executive director of the regional NGO, Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International (FSPI), a founding partner of the Oceania Sustainable Tourism Alliance (OSTA).

"The OSTA approach includes education as well as the reviving and enhancing of island cultures and "Mai Kana" is about raising the awareness of Pacific foods as part of the tourism product," said Steve Noakes, a founding partner of the Oceania tourism alliance. "Mai Kana also supports an education and training component for agricultural producers as well as hotel chefs and hospitality/catering educators on the supply and use of local products in the tourism sector," added Noakes who this month received Ecotourism Australia's inaugural Ecotourism Medal.

"Global tourism drives history's greatest voluntary shift of wealth from rich to poor, and we see the Mai Kana initiative as an innovative approach to improving the livelihoods of people throughout the Pacific which relies so heavily on the tourism industry for its economic pulse," asserted LeLaulu who is also a founding director of the World Tourism Forum for Peace and Sustainable Development.

A unique regional Pacific Islands public and private sector alliance, OSTA aims to use the region's largest and fastest growing industry, tourism, to benefit communities. Founding partners of the tourism alliance are the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International (www.fspi.org.fj), Victoria University of Melbourne, Counterpart International, and Pacific Asia Travel Ltd.