Everyone's raving about the food and the format and how he's "reinvented Pacific Island cooking for the global market", and "made Aunty's cooking into a gourmet's delight.", and loving the stories of his adventures in the islands that he's included, and his snippets of history and culture.
HRH Princess Pilolevu of Tonga has even said "Reading this book is like going on holiday." which was very nice of her, wasn't it!
Sincerely, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, Robert's the very best BBF I've ever had. Back then, growing up in Fiji, we were just so wild together. I've always been this crazy-arse stupidly-adventurous soul with just the right amount of Aspergers to make me dangerously careless about public opinion and personal safety, and, looking back on my entire life, I've realised Robert is the only friend I've ever had who was always with me all the way. Yup, this beautiful boy with a face like an Angel and an air of golden innocence, baulked at nothing! NOTHING! Not EVER!
And never once did he ever say "Are you mad?" whenever I suggested we attempt something outrageously stupid and dangerous, like ... no, no, I won't tell. Knowing what we got up to would probably give his lovely mother a post-reactive stress disorder. I'll save those stories until I can afford myself the "deniability" of a thinly-disguised, secretly-autobiographical novel about growing up in Fiji.
Yup, my friend Robert; together we could do anything. Totally fearless! Totally Bonnie and Clyde! And we did incredibly stupid things constantly and laughed uproariously the whole time! Oh man, he was funny! Best quipster EVER! No, wait, that honour would have to go to Ian Jackson! But Robert wasn't that far behind!
One particularly special memory: we'd been out nightclubbing together at the Boom Boom Room at Beachcomber in Deuba and were walking home along the beach.
This beach!
The one we always called Buru Lutu Beach
even though it wasn't it's real name.
Only, in this story, it's at night!
Visualise it. Nighttime! Long golden beach next to a thick jungle. Full moon. Lapping waves. Two teenagers in tight evening wear, carrying platform shoes, hobbling along the sand, talking, laughing, singing ...
... but then we got to the headland - Shark's Fin - and discovered the tide was fully in with waves crashing high against the cliffs. No other way to get home except a long haul back the entire beach and a cut-through at the river. "Stuff it. Let's do this." I said and darling Robert didn't baulk for a second, "Yeah! Makes sense!"
The rocks were very sharp so we had to strap on the wooden-soled platform shoes. And thus - you have to visualise us - there we were, full moon above, clinging onto the cliff-face, inching our way along in tight movement-restricting evening-wear and impossibly-high platform shoes, trying to find toeholds on the rocks and in the cliff-face, one misstep sending us down ... well, maybe not to our deaths but certainly to a serious wounding ... clinging tight when the waves crashed around us ...
... and then - and it's this that makes this moment so very special in my memory - while clinging perilously to the rocks, Robert and I began to sing "Under the Boardwalk"! Yup, it's the fact we sang together under those circumstances that turns this into a Golden Moment with an Honoured Place in My Memory ... and needless to say we did it in really good harmony, with me going low and Robert going high!, and we sooo rocked it!
Yup, other folk in my life may - MAY! - have rounded that headland with me that night, but there was only Robert who'd have sung while doing it!
Nice, huh! A sincerely special memory of a very special person.
So how can you NOT be part of his latest big adventure. Me'a Kai. Buy Robert's book and put it in pride of place in your kitchen or on your coffee table. And you can even try his recipes.
Here's where you can pick it up if it's not in a bookshop near you.
I'm just so proud of him, my gorgeous darling honeybunny, and hope this ride takes him all the way to the top! Go, Rupati-levu, you sincerely champion human-being you!
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