New This Month: Surfing the Menu by Curtis Stone and Ben O’Donoghue

You don’t have to have seen the television series or be Australian to understand the delights of Surfing the Menu (Key Porter Books), a book by the co-hosts of a FoodTV hit show. A decade after Jamie Oliver wowed the world with his “Naked” presence, Curtis Stone and Ben O’Donoghue bring a similar fresh-faced hunkiness into their kitchens. In the book -- as in the series -- there is a travelogue element to the project. Together they explore Australia -- the kitchens and the backroads -- and combine it with their own experiences as professional chefs in order to bring us a book that is every inch worthy of all the attention it’s been getting.

In so many ways, Surfing the Menu is like a loveletter to Australia, a country most of the world longs to visit, but about which most of us really know very little.

If this material looks familiar, it’s because the book was published in Australia and the UK a few years ago. However this new one from Key Porter is the first published for the North American market.