What are your food-related reads these days?

[emilyr]

I just got Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky that pulls together the works of WPA writers who spent their assignments traveling around the country writing about how Americans ate everywhere. The project shut down in the '40s because of WWII, so the pieces never got collected. I'm really looking forward to reading essays by '30s writers like Eudora Welty and Zora Neale Hurston.

[pedie]

Has anyone read The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister?  I just finished it and found it lovely.  This is how I want to eat and cook and LIVE.  I cannot imagine reading this book without becoming ravenous!

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I read it when it first came out and at first I thought it would be too predictable but it really drew me in. As I read I began to find myself reading slower and savoring the words. This author writes so beautifully. Yes, she awakens your senses but she also invites you to pay attention...to life around you, to what you touch, to scents, to sights. The basic story is about a restaurant owner, Lillian, who offers cooking lessons on the Monday evenings when her restaurant is closed. Chapters focus on the 8 diverse students, who they were entering the class and how the class changes their lives. The story lines of the students are familiar and develop predictably but what is so engaging is her prose as she conveys their stories. I love to cook and I anticipated recipes for the dishes the class prepares. But there are no recipes. The students learn to "pay attention" to the ingredients as they create their dishes. It made me want to run into the kitchen and start cooking!!

[chezcherie]

just finished the cheese chronicles by liz thorpe. seriously considered licking some of the pages, and immediately purchased several hundred dollars worth of cheese. as soon as i finished it, i started again with the first chapter. just LOVED it. delicious writing on a fascinating subject. i wanna meet her. hell, i wanna BE her! brava.

[Julianne_Reddin]

It was my birthday recently so I've just finished a glut of foodie reading including a Pierre Gagnaire retrospective (beautiful coffee table book) and the Le Gavroche recipe book.

I also got, quite randomly 'Barring Some Unforeseen Accident' by Jackson Tippett McCrae whch is a surreal comedy romp (for want of a better phrase) about a writer who is invited to a small town in the Southern States to compile a cookery book for members of the town's junior league - not a cookery book persay but it includes the recipes contributed by said ladies and is more about small town infighting and scandal - nevertheless pretty enjoyable - anyone else read this?

[anthonylee86]

I just recently read Hungry Monkey by eGulleter Matthew Amster Burton (mamster). It was a very good read full of lots of comedy. I joined eGullet because of his book and have really enjoyed my time here so far. I now have a huge reading list from both this thread and the cookbook thread.

[aliaseater]

I'm about halfway through The Artist's Palate by Frank Fedele.

This is a visually stunning book featuring many previously unpublished photos of artists involved (ranging from van Gogh to Pollock) with amusing anecdotes about the foods they liked to eat and recipes for the same. Honestly, though, it's more interesting for the insight into the artist's lives than it is for the (mostly) mundane recipes.

Note also that there are quite a few typos/factual errors (ie. misidentifying John Cale as John Cage, placing Kevin Shikami in Atlanta on his QV page and in Chicago on his recipe page) that I found in just the first 75 pages.

Go for the art, graze the food.

[Special K]

I just got French Feasts, by Stephane Reynaud. I love this book! It's so much fun! It's almost like a scrapbook, with all kinds of interesting little drawings, personality profiles, etc., plus recipes, of course - and gorgeous photography. I'm limiting myself to only a few pages a day, because I don't want it to end. Now all of Reynaud's other books are on my wish list.

[heidih]

I just started Marlena de Blasi's "Lady in the Palazzo" about their move to Umbria. As with her 1000 Days in Venice, and 1000 Days in Tuscany, I am falling for the vivid descriptions of the simple food which is presented with care and passion.

[Tom Gengo]

On Food & Cooking by Harold McGee. It is excercising my distant memory of Biochem and Organic Chem. Very interesting for the understanding of why certain foods go so well together by looking @ the chemistry.

[MrSpiffy]

I'm not exactly new to cooking, but I wanted to learn to cook a nicer, better, more professional meal. So I grabbed what the culinary students read. On Cooking: A Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals. Very interesting read, particularly for the newbie who doesn't mind some technical reading.

[chezcherie]

just finished a jewel of a book by deborah madison (who has written many vegetarian cookbooks). what we eat when we eat alone

parts of this reminded me of the current "hall of shame" thread where folks are confessing their shameful secret food loves. there are great little snippets of overhead conversations, tales of various folks' eating habits when family/spouses are away, and some recipes. i just really enjoyed this book, and appreciated that in this age of publishing cutbacks, it seemed like a lovely idea that might never have found its niche. but it did.

another one i recently enjoyed was My linkin late winter we ate pears. read it on the plane enroute to italy, and just realized that i lent it to a fellow traveler on that trip, and i need to get it back. that's a good indicator, as with lots of books, after i've read them, i'll happily give them away or donate them. but this one i'll re-read.

[Darienne]

The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession by Adam Leith Gollner...fascinating stories of fruits I have never heard of. Had no idea that there were so many different fruits in the world. This is the one food-oriented non-cookbook I am reading.

I love reading cookbooks. I have a good number that I have not managed to read through from one end to another. And I borrow cookbooks from our two local libraries to thumb through them and read the stories about the food. I do love a cookbook with stories.

Another thing I do is to read cookbooks from one end to the other to my DH on our long trips across the USA. That's a good way to assimilate the necessary information in a new field of endeavor for me. I have read to Ed the entirety of Andrew Garrison Shotts, Making Artisan Chocolates, my first real chocolate book, Michael Recchuiti Chocolate Obsession and Peter Greweling, Chocolates and Confections and that is one HUGE book. He likes to listen and I learn by reading.

[heidih]

I ordered National Geographic's 500 Food Journeys of a Lifetime and have thumbed through it. Not entranced. I think all the wonderful food blogs we have access to have made this kind of book less exciting.

[andiesenji]

I'm reading "Cheesemonger A Life on the Wedge" by Gordon Edgar.

So far I have read about two-thirds of the book and I have found it to be extremely entertaining

It is well written and grabs the interest of the reader from the very first paragraph, something I have not found to always be present in books by other authors writing about similar subjects.

His workplace is the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in San Francisco, "the Bay Area's largest independent natural foods store and the country's largest retail worker-owned cooperative."

The way he describes the store makes me want to load my van and drive up to the city ASAP. He also describes cheeses that I have not tried and am looking to order. I also plan to revisit a few old "friends" that I haven't purchased for some time, simply because his writing has reminded me how much I like them.

One senses early on that the author knows and loves his subject. He explains that he had to learn to enjoy cheese because he had grown up with the mundane supermarket American cheeses readily available to the homemaker.

His background as a punk rocker does seem a bit odd for someone venturing into the food business but he explains the rationale and it is easily believable. And admirable.

I've recommended this book to my daughter, who lives in the Bay Area and gets into San Francisco to shop fairly often. She is planning to visit the store and is also going to read the book.

I have no hesitation in recommending it

[fairfranco]

I'm currently reading The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lobovitz over breakfast each morning. To read it without food would leave me drooling!

I'm sure many have already read and mentioned it on here. Very entertaining read about Paris, it's delights, it's frustrations, amusingly written but like his blog great descriptions of the delightful food and produce available around Paris and some lovely recipes. Would have been nice to have had some of his picture's to go with it that capture the mood and food so perfectly on the blog but he's gone with a more basic text only book for this.

I'm also reading the Italian cookery class by Katie Caldesi which I got for Christmas. A fantastic thick book of Italian recipe's from each region with good explanations on technique, what to use (ie, different yeasts+ flours etc for baking) and pictures that make you want to reproduce each one. I've only so far baked a couple of loaves of bread from it though which is pretty shameful given the amount of time I've had it!

[lancastermike]

Appetite City by William Grimes. Very enjoyable history of restaurants in NYC by the former food critic for the NY Times

[emilyr]

Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner.

[chezcherie]

I'm reading "Cheesemonger A Life on the Wedge" by Gordon Edgar.

So far I have read about two-thirds of the book and I have found it to be extremely entertaining

It is well written and grabs the interest of the reader from the very first paragraph, something I have not found to always be present in books by other authors writing about similar subjects.

His workplace is the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in San Francisco, "the Bay Area's largest independent natural foods store and the country's largest retail worker-owned cooperative."

The way he describes the store makes me want to load my van and drive up to the city ASAP. He also describes cheeses that I have not tried and am looking to order. I also plan to revisit a few old "friends" that I haven't purchased for some time, simply because his writing has reminded me how much I like them.

One senses early on that the author knows and loves his subject. He explains that he had to learn to enjoy cheese because he had grown up with the mundane supermarket American cheeses readily available to the homemaker.

His background as a punk rocker does seem a bit odd for someone venturing into the food business but he explains the rationale and it is easily believable. And admirable.

I've recommended this book to my daughter, who lives in the Bay Area and gets into San Francisco to shop fairly often. She is planning to visit the store and is also going to read the book.

I have no hesitation in recommending it

i just finished this, and passed it along to my former punker son. one of my favorite lines, not cheese related, was something to the effect of "lots of punk rockers are nice people, pretending to be mean. many hippies are mean people, pretending to be nice." having had his scary-looking friends around our home for many years, i can certainly vouch for the punk-rock side of the equation!

i, too, want to zip up and eat cheese at the counter with the author. road trip, andiesenji??

[andiesenji]

I'm reading "Cheesemonger A Life on the Wedge" by Gordon Edgar.

So far I have read about two-thirds of the book and I have found it to be extremely entertaining

(snip)

i just finished this, and passed it along to my former punker son. one of my favorite lines, not cheese related, was something to the effect of "lots of punk rockers are nice people, pretending to be mean. many hippies are mean people, pretending to be nice." having had his scary-looking friends around our home for many years, i can certainly vouch for the punk-rock side of the equation!

i, too, want to zip up and eat cheese at the counter with the author. road trip, andiesenji??

It just happens that early tomorrow morning I am leaving for a road trip to New Mexico but I will spend Saturday night in the Phoenix area because at my age I am not so good at driving straight through.

While in Phoenix I am going to visit a cheese shop that has been recommended by a friend (not on this forum), Petit Fromage is the name and supposedly it is the first true "Cheese shop" in Arizona.

I'm looking forward to it.

My daughter read the book and is planning a trip into the city to visit Cheesemonger's place of employment.

Being a Berkeley grad, she is certainly in sympathy with his views.

She has also passed it on to her son (age 17 today) who likes autobiographies by people with unusual and interesting occupations, especially when food writing comes into the mix.

I wish more people would read the book and join the discussion.

I have downloaded some more food books, some cheese related, to my Kindle for reading during my time away from home.

I have some audio books for the drive but sadly, none of the foodie books I wanted are available in that format.

I'm taking my mac and have wireless so will be able to keep in touch.

[Darienne]

I wish more people would read the book and join the discussion.

OK. You are on. I'll get it with I.L.L. and then get back.

Safe driving.

[anm]

I am reading "My life in food" by Judith Jones .Nice read ...

[suzilightning]

just finished a jewel of a book by deborah madison (who has written many vegetarian cookbooks). what we eat when we eat alone

i also have just finished this book and took a few recipes from it. also just finished were Judith Jones book and Appetite City by Grimes.

the current crop are Death by Pad Thai - i love collections and this is a good one, Will Write for Food - up next, A Thousand Years over a hot Stove and am about halfway through Louisa Edwards second On the Steamy Side. if you like hot, steamy, sex filled romances check out Louisa's writing. all are restaurant/chef related with some recipes at the end.

[MT-Tarragon]

I'm re-reading The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry. While dealing primarily with farming, it's the first book that really got me thinking about food and where it comes from and how it could be better. It was written in the seventies, and I read it year ago, but I am still amazed how relevant he is and how much what he says is echoed by other, more modern authors.

[jpr54_]

I recently purchased best Food Writing 2000-2009 series of books.

I am enjoying reading the items from articles and books.

joanne

does eGullet still have the reading list?

now that i think about it i am not sure wheather the books were on here or chowhound----

Edited March 12, 2010 by jpr54_ (log)

[Special K]

"lots of punk rockers are nice people, pretending to be mean. many hippies are mean people, pretending to be nice."

Truer words were never spoken. I sure learned this when I went to culinary school about five years ago! Prepared me nicely for the job I ended up in - volunteering full time in an inner city high school.