To All My Grandchildren: Lessons in Indonesian Cooking

Moer than a cookbook, this culinary delight was written to preserve a great chef's traditional family recipes and stories of her childhood for her far-flung grandchildren. Author Leonie Samuel-Hool recounts stories of a vanished society and legends of the gods and goddesses that protect and sometimes make mischief in Indonesian homes, fields and foods. Illustrations and maps show the scenes of the tales. The delicious recipes are explicitly presented.

The life and background of Leonie Samuel-Hool are as unusual as her cookbook. She was born of prosperous Javanese and Chinese parents on April 6, 1924 in Depok, Indonesia. (Depok was then a small Christian community in a Moslem country, its residents mostly decendents of freed slaves of a Dutch East Indies Company official.) Her mother, father and grandmother were all famous cooks and by the time Leonie was seventeen, she had opened her first restaurant. A year earlier, she had married a Dutch soldier whom her father brought home from the church where he was a deacon. A child was born but Leonie's husband was called away by the Dutch Army to fight in another part of the world.

The Japanese invasion during World War II brought turmoil to the country, as did the early stages of Indonesian independence that followed. At one point, she and her family were herded as Christians into a barricade where other Indonesians intended to kill them. At the last minute, they were rescued by a team of United Nations representatives passing through.

In 1948, Indonesia expelled all those of Dutch citizenship and Leonie sailed to Holland to rejoin her husband. Four more children were born but prejudice continued, as both she and her children were taunted as "coffee beans" by their fair-skinned neighbors. When an opportunity arose for the family to emigrate to this country, she was thrilled.

Under sponsorship of an Episcopal church in San Rafael, California, they arrived in December of 1959. Though speaking little English, with few possessions and less money, they managed on the $250 a month salary her husband earned. Six months later, to supplement the small income, Leonie went to work as a nurse's aide in a convalescent hospital. In time, her husband drifted away, leaving Leonie the task of raising five children. A divorce followed, as did more hospital work. Several years later she married officer Sherman Hool of the San Rafael Police Department, whom she had met while working in the hospital. In 1968, with Sergeant Hool's encouragement, she opened The Rice Table, a now thriving restaurant and introduced a new cuisine to Marin County and San Francisco residents. In 1974 she applied for and was granted American citizenship.