Besides including many classic dishes from the archipelago and street-food recipes and lots of general information and tips on ingredients and techniques, it also includes some of her "new wave" versions, and the story of her life, from growing up in Sumatra, life in Indonesia under the Japanese, as refugees in their own country after World War 2, to life in London where she currently lives.
She and her husband Roger are working on The Oxford Companion to Southeast Asian Food.
• Several high-profile international chefs have new coffee-table cookbooks out in time for Christmas.
The focus these days is on provenance of ingredients, or growing or catching or finding something superb and treating it simply, and a mix between a sort of inverted snobbery and well-heeled nostalgia.
Many include moody photographs of old cutlery, the fashionable prop for stylish cookbooks in the past few years.
One of the most luscious is Australian chef and food writer Maggie Beer's Maggie's Kitchen (Penguin, hbk, $65).
I'm a fan of her (mostly) simple, seasonal food with interesting spices and flavours - verjuice (the unfermented juice of unripe grapes) is a traditional European ingredient she revived, as is vino cotto (made from the grape must) both of which have a sweet-sour flavour.
There are also versions of classics - Boston baked beans, macaroni cheese, as well as tagines, pastas, and a simple cauliflower dish with toasted breadcrumbs, anchovies and a sprinkling of thyme, parsley and Pecorino.
• Rick Stein's fans will enjoy Coast to Coast: Food from the land and sea inspired by travels across the world (BBC, hbk, $65).
It's a whistle-stop world tour, although the "Australia and New Zealand" section is Australian rather than this side of the Tasman, but one recipe for a Spanish method of cooking shellfish does call for clams or pipis.
• British chef Gordon Ramsay has yet another book out, Cooking for Friends, (HarperCollins, hbk, $55), also with an emphasis on fresh, local produce.
With several restaurants, more than 14 books to his name and 19 television series one has to doubt that he does it all himself - in fact the title page reveals in small print that the food is by Mark Sarjeant and the text by Emily Quah.
• More genuine is Irish television chef Richard Corrigan, who is perhaps not so much a household name here, but his book, The clatter of forks and spoons (4th Estate, hbk, $60) is stylishly produced with muted photos taken in misty Ireland (although his restaurant, Bentley's Seafood Bar and Grill, is in London).
Another chef who declares himself fanatical about the provenance of his ingredients and simple cooking, he milks the nostalgia theme with Irish-inspired recipes - eel cider and mussel stew, ham with nettle and potato mash and cabbage, as well as more international flavours like steamed sole with crab, coconut, apple and lemongrass.
There's a list of his suppliers in the back.
• One who bucks the trend - or leads it (she first featured photographs of old cutlery years ago and is still doing so) - is Australian Donna Hay.
Now a parent, she's no slow-food fan and her latest book is No time to cook: Fresh & easy recipes for a fast forward world (4th Estate, pbk, $50).
It may include assembled dishes, one-dish meals and things you can cook ahead, but don't expect preparing them to take no time.
• Likewise Faking it: How to cook delicious food without really trying (Delicious, ABC, pbk, $50 by Valli Little may rely heavily on deli ingredients like green peppercorns or chermoula paste, but the title is somewhat misleading.
Both are for the metrosexual who likes to dabble in the kitchen.
• Australian mothers Kim McCosker and Rachael Bermingham have started a trend with their "4 Ingredients" cookbooks.
Now Australian Women's Weekly is in the game with Just Four Ingredients (ACP, pbk, $20) - easy, maybe, but not always quick.
However, they do cover a range of food from snacks to barbecues and desserts.
• Despite the recipes for everything from carpaccio to meatballs, risotto to scallops with lemon and olive oil, Tessa Kiros' Venezia: Food and dreams (Murdoch Books, hbk, $65) is more about the fantasy and longing for the idea of Venice than a cookbook.
Like her other books, Piri piri starfish and Apples for Jam, it is beautifully produced with numerous moody photographs that evoke wistful yearnings and even feelings of inadequacy.
However, I did wonder how precious you can get about food, with the likes of "[The Venetians] seemed to prefer directing, for the millionth time, a tourist to the 14th bridge, rather than be asked if they use white or black pepper with the clams. But I wanted the details of that garlic, hand-slivered by the grandmother. . ."!
