Bangladeshi culinary artiste Alpana Habib's first cookbook 'Alpana's Cooking' was bestowed with the "Best First Cookbook'' award of 2018 in the 24th Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2019, held in Macao recently. First introduced in 1995 at Frankfurt Book Fair, Gourmand Awards are known as the Oscars in gastronomy.

Hundreds of publishers, authors, chefs and journalists are taking part in this event being held at Macao International Book Fair organised by the Institute of Culture of Macao. The fair continues till July 7, 2019 at the Venetian Congress Center.

'Alpana's Cooking', published last year, is a compilation of 250 of her most popular recipes. The book is bilingual, making all the recipes accessible to both Bengali and English speakers all over the world. From traditional Bengali dishes like bharta and shukto, to a regal kachchi biriyani or a Thai salad, or an American carrot cake, this cookbook has it all and then some.