Another reason to love gazpacho<br/>

Manuela Requena's Sangria is not a cookbook in the conventional sense. There are recipes, of hearty Spanish fare, but they come after a vibrant and forcefully seasoned love story

Manuela Requena's Sangria is not a cookbook in the conventional sense. There are recipes, of hearty Spanish fare, but they come after a vibrant and forcefully seasoned love storyu00a0

Strikingly good looking and articulate Manuela Requena can turn you into a Spanish food fanatic within minutes. With her enthusiastic descriptions of family lunches in Madrid and of her mom whom, she lovingly describes as "queen of the kitchen", she serves up authenticity in abundance in her debut novella, Sangria.

The gazpacho's there and so is the paella, but Sangria is not a cookbook in the conventional sense. The recipes, of hearty Spanish fare, come after a vibrant and forcefully seasoned love story set in Australia, where Manuela herself has relocated. "There are elements of Manuela in Rose, the protagonist," she gamely concedes.u00a0

What her smile hides is the devastation she felt when she lost her sense of taste and smell to a nasty flu. "I couldn't even smell the toast burning in my kitchen! I would cook but I had no idea what I made smelled or tasted like. I relied on my little son to take me through those difficult days but I never stopped cooking," she says.

It was during those dark days that the idea of the book began to simmer. And as suddenly as they had vanished, her sense of smell and taste returned.

"After three months, I got faint aromas from my cooking pot and I was ecstatic. My doctor had advised penicillin shots but I stuck with honey and warm water and the faith that I would be well soon," she says.u00a0

In Sangria, instead of honey and water and faith, it's the gypsy Isabel who brings back the magic in Rose's life.

"My mom was the gypsy in my life," says Manuela, crediting her culinary craft to her mom'su00a0 advice that she continue to work with vegetables, herbs and spices.u00a0

Manuela's recipes are not for exotic or fancy food but for simple yet sassy stuff like a refreshing cucumber and pomegranate salad and a satisfying eggplant and cheese bake. Excited about the connection between Spanish and Indian cuisines ("both use legumes, capsicum, peppercorns, garlic and chillies in abundance"), Manuela has many stories to share about her India visits. "On my first trip, I ate at all the dhabas on the Delhi-Manali route and I was fine; the second time I ate at fancy hotels and I was sick," she ruefully admits.

This is her third visit u2013 to promote her first book and to mull on her next, which could well be on South Indian recipes. "Folks in Australia think Indian food is butter chicken, dal and raita. They will be as excited as I was when I discovered the chutneys and mango curries in kitchens in Trivandrum, and the idlis and sambar sauce deep south," she gushes. But her love for marketplaces and matrons' kitchens won't ever tempt her into starting a restaurant, she says firmly. That leaves us with no option but to cadge an invitation to Brisbane to stuff ourselves with bizcocho, her scrumptious vanilla cake, and sangria!