Cookbook Watch

“Entertaining Asian Style” (Periplus; $29.95) was conceived by authors Lisa Kim-Tribolati and Martyne Kupciunas while they lived in Singapore. The homes photographed as party settings are renovated Peranakan shop houses (Peranakans are descendants of Chinese-Malay marriages) on Emerald Hill Road. Party themes, menus and recipes are as international as Singapore’s inhabitants, but far from being out of touch, the book fits Southern California’s lifestyle, climate, cultural diversity and taste in food. Dishes such as sesame-style salmon tartare, mushroom satay, cilantro crab cakes and lychee mousse with sweet raspberry sauce could just as well have come from fusion restaurants on this side of the Pacific. There are also easy recipes for traditional Singaporean dishes such as Hainanese chicken rice, popiah (spring rolls) and chicken satay with peanut sauce. Photographed by Peter Mealin, the book is handsome enough for a coffee table, but it stresses party giving with imagination rather than extravagance. You might even wind up stenciling your own napkins, as the authors did.