Casa Luna Cooking Class - III

She emitted happiness and a self-satisfaction which did not border on self-congratulation; she had an impish Australian humour which did not take anything too seriously, and was constantly starting sentences with the exclamation "Hey" (followed in invisible punctuation by a comma, not an exclamation mark) as if she had just thought of something and was genuinely interested in sharing the novelty with her great new friends. What a contrast from her book, which is full of gush like this:

"He slowly edged the ring off his elegant finger and placed it in the palm of my hand. I examined the stone, marlling at its silent power nad the craftsmanship in the setting. The gold held a rosy tinge and the creamy opaque stone was an organic oval shape. It looked as if it had been poured into the giant claws of its setting and seemed almost to breathe with life, a heart beating with molten love.

I slid the ring onto my finger and gazed at it as if it were a crystal ball. At that moment, I closed the final pages of the book that spanned twenty-five years of happiness and sadness, of growing pains and childhood antics. My new life had begun. Five years later Ketut and I were married."

She was an ambassador for Bali, and particularly the natural health and beauty giving qualities of its foods and tonics, but was capable of criticism of her home and her adopted people where warranted.