Michael Booth

British Travel Press Awards - Hooray!

Huzzah, Hurrah and Hooray! Eat, Pray, Eat has been nominated for a massively prestigious and sexy British Travel Press Award - in the category of 'Narrative Travel Book of the Year'.

Here's a list of last year's winners - some pretty impressive names up there, I see. This year's nominees list isn't up yet, but will be on Monday (if I am not on it I will feel a tad foolish, I have to say).

It's wrong to boast, but this is my blog so I'll burnish my escutcheon as much as I blimmin' well please.

Did I already say, 'Hooray!'?

 

Mail on Sunday review of Eat, Pray, Eat

I've just been sent a lovely, effusive review of my new book, Eat, Pray, Eat, which apparently appeared in the Mail on Sunday this weekend by critic Simon Griffith - called me 'hilarious' and 'thought provoking', which is something I plan to bring up the next time my children respond with stony faced moans to my jokes.

Thanks Uncle Simon!*

Also, apparently Metro called it 'eminently readable'. Not sure what that means. That it uses words?

It's not online for some reason, but I will try to figure a way to get the PDF up so that my mum and other fans can read it (well, really just my mum actually).

And if you are already getting anxious that you are missing the wonderful reviews for my book which are avalanching in, do not fret, I plan not only to keep you up-to-date with any more which come in, but also to repeat the good bits for the rest of my life as a blogger. 

(*That's a joke. He's a distant cousin.)

Guild of Food Writers Award - A win, would you believe?

On Thursday night Lissen and I trundled along to the Design Museum in Shad Thames for the annual Guild of Food Writers awards, along with most of the country's leading food writers and journalists (including the legendary Margeurite Patten, and TV stars such as Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Rick Stein). 

I'd been nominated for the Kate Whiteman award for work in food and travel (for Sushi and Beyond), but having been nominated for things in the past and endured the bitter pill of hearing some other guy's name being read out (on one occasion it was Jeremy Clarkson's, which was especially galling as you might imagine), I had successfully convinced myself I had absolutely no chance of winning.

Even as the host read out the names of the nominees, I was preparing to pull a dignified face, which I think is why I am still in a bit of a state of shock two days later having actually won the thing.

 (Look, I won for writing, not taking photographs, ok?)

A huge thank you, then, to all the judges who voted for me and to all those who congratulated me afterwards, not least the inestimable Shirley Booth (no relation), a world renowned expert in Japanese cuisine and a most generous soul indeed. Thanks are due too to my publisher Dan Franklin at Random House and my sadly soon-to-be ex-agent, Camilla Hornby at Curtis Brown (only 'soon to be ex- because she is leaving to be a mum for a bit), for supporting me so unstintingly over these last few years.

I now plan to change my name officially by Deed Poll to Award Winning Writer Michael Booth.

You think I'm joking...

Guild of Food Writers nomination

I am deeply chuffed to hear that Sushi and Beyond has been nominated for a deeply prestigious Guild of Food Writers award.

(Get 'em while their hot, they're lovely!)

It is up for the Kate Whiteman award for work concerning food and travel, against The Hungry Cyclist by Tom Kevill Davies, which I haven't read but will do so immediately, and, oddly, an episode of BBC Radio 4's Food Programme about Iceland produced by my friend Dan Saladino.

The gentlemanly thing would be to say something like, 'It's enough just to be nominated, may the best man win, I'm just looking forward to a nice evening.'

So let's pretend that's what I said.

Foodtripper reviews Sushi and Beyond

The wonderful food and travel site Foodtripper has an effusively complimentary review (my favourite type, coincidentally) of Sushi and Beyond.

If you don't already have a copy in each of your toilets, then this ought to persuade you.

The lovely Guardian

The loveliest of reviews in the Guardian today, made all the more gratifying by the fact that it comes from Rory Maclean. What a nice birthday present!

The Times

Hello, 

If you are coming from my piece in the Times this week, welcome. Have a look around, make yourselves at home, but please remember to use a coaster and close the fridge when you've been rummaging around.

If you are on your way to the Times, here's a handy link.

Sunday Times and Independent on Sunday

The relentless Peter and Katie-style media onslaught to promote Sushi and Beyond continued this weekend with two - count 'em - features in the national press. In case you missed them (how could you! Tsk), here are links to the Indy story and the Sunday Times piece.

The latter gave me a chilling insight into those weird little comments that Timesonline allows readers to add at the bottom of articles. Actually, some of them were quite pertinent and interesting, but those first two... nurse!

The former focusses on my experiences dining at the exclusive, members only restaurant Mibu, in Ginza. A seismic moment in my life as an eater.

(This is me looking exceptionally awkward with Mr and Mrs Ishida. So awkward, in fact, that I think I might send it here.) 

Irish Times Review

I don't know what I've done to get into the Irish Times' good books, but here is yet another nice review of something I've done - this time the new book. 

That it comes from someone who appears to be a bit of an old Japan hand, is all the more gratifying. He didn't seem to approve of the description of my children's experiences however, but then I always suspected that the kid stuff would divide critics a bit...

Sushi and Beyond - in all good bookshops (and some bad ones, I'm not proud)

Another frabjus day, caloo calay! Today sees the formal publication of my new book, 'Sushi and Beyond, What the Japanese Know About Cooking'. Doubtless  you will have arranged your own street party, but in case you haven't you could always celebrate by, oh, I don't know, perhaps buying a dozen or so.

(People often ask me, what was the most delicious thing I tasted in our time in Japan - well, here it is. A relatively humble dashi-based soup, made with three different types of dried fish, and with crispy, deep-fried gyoza flaoting in it, which I tasted on an amazing food crawl in Osaka with two Japanese friends. Oh man, it tasted good - ultra-umami).

It is the perfect gift for anyone from reading age upwards (and let's not discount the illiterate - just because they can't read, doesn't mean we should deny them the pleasure of looking at the cover and my lovely jacket photo).

Very pleased, proud and nervous, as always, but Japanese food is a subject I feel deeply evangelical about so, mostly just excited.

Timesonline have asked me to write a ten best Japanese foods piece for them and I am finding it really difficult to narrow the amazing panoply of Japanese cuisine down to just ten dishes, but if I can explain a little to their 21m readers about just how varied, beautiful, delicious and healthy most Japanese food is, then it will be worth it. And if just one per cent of them buy it then... does anyone have a number for Learjet?

More coverage is promised in the Sunday Times travel section and Independent on Sunday magazine on June 7, Esquire magazine in the June and August issues, Condé Nast Traveller, some time in the autumn and a few others to boot.

BBC World have been in touch and want to interview me, as has the food show Market Kitchen, which is great.