The first animal Alan Knight rescued was a sloth bear in India named Raju, but it didn't stop there. He has spent the last 25 years saving threatened animals from all over the world, including several critically endangered species in Indonesia. Alan Knight was born and brought up in Romford, Essex, in the east of London, UK. From the start, the young boy loved animals from his very first pet cat Pandy and his Golden Retriever puppy Kim. Alan bred butterflies for releasehis boyhood dream was working on a butterfly farmand he was always rescuing animals and bringing them home.

American writer Vivienne Kruger first visited Bali on a weeklong overland trip from Jakarta in 1993. For five years, starting in 1999, she wrote travel articles for Bali & Beyond magazine. In 2006, with her column Food of the Gods, Vivienne officially launched her career as a food writer for the Bali Advertiser. Vivienne has been shuttling between Darwin and Kuta, Ubud and Lovina for most of the past 13 years. Considered a leading authority on the culinary arts of Bali, Vivienne's book Balinese Food: The Traditional Cuisine and Food Culture of Bali was published by Tuttle in April 2014. With the rapidly growing interest in culinary topics, particularly the traditional foods around the Indonesian archipelago, this book will be a welcome addition to food and travel aficionados. Kruger recently spoke to travel contributor Bill Dalton on writing about Bali cuisine. Excerpts

What inspired you to go into food writing?

I started out writing articles about a prominent Balinese restaurateur, Ni Wayan Murni, the owner of Murni's Warung in Ubud. While researching her fabulous restaurant and the foods on her menu, my interest took an unexpected turn into traditional Balinese cookingand I just kept going!