EVITA’S KOSSIE SIKELELA

Evita Bezuidenhout wins Gourmand Award.

Evita Bezuidenhout’s cookbook, Evita’s Kossie Sikelela, has been named the South African winner of the Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards 2010. Her very first cookbook won in the category Best Easy Recipes Book and over 40,000 copies have been sold since its release in March 2010.

This qualifies Mrs Bezuidenhout’s book for the next round in which its peers from all other countries compete for the Gourmand Best In The World award. The award ceremony takes place in Paris (France – not Parys in the Free State, Evita hastens to add) on March 3, 2011, on the first day of the Paris Cookbook Fair.

Evita, who is no stranger to fame and the limelight, says: “I am thrilled and delighted at this news and pay a special tribute to Linda Vicquery who did most of the work, while I picked up most of the weight! Best in South Africa is better than best in the world!”

Publisher Frederik de Jager says: “The delight of having to do with Tannie Evita is like standing in the crowd and cheering her along the red carpet. She is glamour and generosity personified and makes magic of everything she touches. And her partner in this book Linda Vicquery is as bounteous in the arts of cooking and drawing as she is in her love of life. Eating one’s way through this entire book couldn’t give greater pleasure than seeing the two of them thus honoured.”

Author royalties from the sale of this book, matched by the publishers, go to the Darling Trust, founded by Pieter-Dirk Uys to serve the community of Darling in the Western Cape through art and culture, education and health. Visit www.thedarlingtrust.org

The book is also available in Afrikaans as Evita Se Kossie Sikelela. (Review to follow)