What food-related books are you reading? (2004 - 2015)

[chow guy]

I'm reading an autographed copy Calvin Trillins' " Feeding a Yen", in very small sections because I want to savor this tiny tome a little longer. I love his style.

[Squeat Mungry]

"Feeding a Yen", Calvin Trillin.  Easy, short read, almost finished.  Kind of sad because Alice disappears 2/3 into the book (she died)

Hey, I'm reading this right now, too! Lots of fun. Thanks for spoiling the ending. (Just kidding -- he mentions it in the dedication. )

Cheers,

Squeat

[Kevin72]

I am reading Becoming a Chef (reading it all) and Culinary Artistry (skimming and reading).  They are both written by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page.  Both are great books.  They are not really cookbooks.  They do contain really good information about flavor combinations, etc.

If you enjoy Page and Dornenburg, check out thisQ & A they did last fall.

Culinary Artistry is great and a wonderful sourcebook. Becoming a Chef is good also; I'd be interested to see the revised edition with new chefs added in but haven't run across it yet. They had a completely new book out The New American chef which I also was intrigued by but seems to have disappeared altogether.

[Chef Shogun]

Jacques Pepin, The Complete Technique.

[Carolyn Tillie]

I'm like many folks in that I'm reading a number of books at once. For fiction, I've been reading The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. You have to have read Dante's Inferno to really enjoy it, but I chuckled when I came across this food-related section:

Fields stood up, beaming. "Oh, gentlemen, I shall throw a Dante supper to put the Saturday Club to shame. May the mutton be as tender as Longfellow's verse! And may the Moet sparkle like Holmes's wit, and the carving knives be as sharp as Lowell's satire!"

Three cheers were given to Fields.

For non-fiction I am reading K2 - the Story of the Savage Mountain by Jim Curran.

My latest foodie book is

The Hungry Soul - Eating and the Perfecting of our Nature by Leon R. Klass, M.D. a fascinating philosophical exploration of man's need to consume. The opening paragraph:

According to a very old story, well known to most readers, a woman and a man once took a fancy to a most unusual fruit. It grew on no ordinary tree, and their eating of it had no ordinary consequences: Indeed, it opened their eyes and made permanent the whole human difference. They had sought this tree not only because they thought its fruit would be good for food but also because they imagined it would make them wise. Though the consequences of their eating were both less and more than they had bargained for, though it gave them psychic indigestion, and though true wisdom eluded them, we have it on the highest authority that they in some sense succeeded: "Now th eman is become like one of us, knowing good and bad." God Almighty knew that the world was arranged so as to contain deep connections among human eating, human freedom, and human moral self-consciousness. It is these connections that we here seek to discover. We, too, seek wisdom through eating; eating is the manifest theme of this inquiry.

Pretty cool, huh?

[daniellewiley]

I'm reading The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I love it. And I'm very excited that I live so close to Lola.

Other food books I've read recently:

On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis - an excellent book by a cookbook author and cooking school teacher. It's is about her adventures living in Normandy, and has wonderful recipes.

Wife of the Chef by Courtney Febbroriello. I didn't love this book, because I just didn't love her writing style, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain of course. Loved it of course.

The Bobby Gold Stories also by Tony Bourdain - I read it on the plane to California. Great fun summer reading.

[bloviatrix]

I'm reading The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I love it. And I'm very excited that I live so close to Lola.

Danielle, Michael Ruhlman participated in a fabulous Q&A last year. If you like the book, you'll love seeing him in the "eg hot seat."

Edit:typo.

Edited August 31, 2004 by bloviatrix (log)

[daniellewiley]

I'm reading The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I love it. And I'm very excited that I live so close to Lola.

Danielle, Michael Ruhlman participated in a fabulous Q&A last year. If you like the book, the love seeing him in the "eg hot seat."

Thanks! That's on my list to read. (None of us mentioned all the hours spent here, reading blogs and Q&As!!!)

He will also be a speaker at next year's Greenbriar Food Writer's Symposium. I am scrimping and saving to try and go. Big dream of mine.

[bloviatrix]

I just finished going through The Berry Bible by Janie Hibler. I took it out of the library and it is nearing it's due date.

Otherwise, I've been reading lots of fiction. The Jane Austen Book Club has lots of food references. Henning Mankell's The White Lioness does not.

[suzilightning]

carolyn - that sounds like one to go on my list, thanks!

am finishing up the last of my reading for three months(except for that tied to my real job) since we start the migrating hawk count tomorrow and i'm ususally too beat to even read

a coworker suggested peg bracken's A Window over the Sink. she remembered it as more of a mayhew man or jason and rachel experience and yes, she does redo her kitchen, but all of the chapters are really food related to her life in hawaii and in the lower 48 west and midwest growing up. as well as growing up in a more innocent and swet time and i laughed my ass off through most of this book...

[Mulcahy]

Just finished The Apprentice by Jacques Pepin.

Recently also finished Apricots on The Nile and Return to Paris by Colette Rossant, which I loved.

Am currently working on The Gotham Bar & Grill Cookbook which is really excellent. Presents very interesting ways to think about both flavor and presentation.

Edited to add egullet e-cookbooks links.

Edited August 31, 2004 by Mulcahy (log)

[jgarner53]

I'm currently reading Harold McGee's On Food & Cooking. I normally have two books going at once, or a book and a magazine, particularly if one is cumbersome and difficult to lug around for lunchtime reading.

Others recently read:

I'm Just Here for the Food, Alton Brown (now signed )

The Art of Cooking, MFK Fisher (loved all of it)

It Must Have Been Something I Ate, Jeffrey Steingarten

Cookwise, Shirley Corriher, though I had to return it to the library before I finished

Up next:

How to Bake, Nick Malgieri (my textbook for pastry school)

Cookwise, gonna buy it AND finish it!

I'm Just Here for More Food, Alton Brown's baking book

I've also recently been perusing Baking Illustrated, Baking with Julia, and, of course, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I spied The Tummy Trilogies at Borders last week (picking up How to Cook Everything for a non-foodie, non-cook friend). Since I loved Tepper Isn't Going Out, I should have just picked it up. Instead, it will probably go into the same Amazon order with my other stuff after labor day.

Non-cooking books - Is there such a thing? Actually, I just started Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss, subtitled as "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," as my lunchtime tome.

Yes, I'm a geek.

Sorry, don't know how to make the Amazon link to enrich the coffers of eGullet.

[Carrot Top]

Aliza Green's Starting with Ingredients. A tome. 1055 pages. A very good book for recipe-lovers, good recipes, good concepts, commonsensical and far from dull in terms of range of recipe types and specifics. All cultures invited, so to speak.

Aguecheek's Beef, Belch's Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections by Robert Applebaum. Looking at literary history through the eye of food. Or looking at food through the eye of literary history. Or something like that. Some fascinating stuff, but please make sure to play your "Learn to Speak Academese" tapes before you decide to approach. I, personally, ended up skimming the book.

Fierce Pajamas, An Anthology of Humor Writing from the New Yorker, edited by David Remick and Henry Finder. My favorite story in the collection so far is "Dusk in Fierce Pajamas" by E.B. White (from which the collection took its name, of course), a spoof where he becomes part of the pages of a glossy magazine he's looking at, with all the socialites and celebrities of the day lounging around him with their martinis and what-not's, all so very terribly elegant while at the same time seeming just a slightly bit off-balance and well . . .just wierd, because that's how he writes it without batting an eye to let you know he's doing so. I adore this book, so much that I only want to read it in small bits to savor each bite.

[suzilightning]

thank you for resurrecting this thread, Carrot Top!!

Food wise i TRIED to read Insatiable by Gael Greene but all the talk about who she was sleeping with got old after a while.

Through the ARC (advanced readers copy - uncorrected drafts) i have almost finished A Pig in Provence: Good food and simple pleasures in the South of France by Georgeanne Brennan. i love the flow of the story of adapting to the area - long before Peter Mayle. Another one from this program is Daniel Rogov's Rogues, Writers and Whores. since the chapters are so small it is in my workout bag for reading on the treadmill and bike.

rambling through Kemp's United States of Arugula. i say rambling since i really don't want it to end but am savoring the writing.

From Interlibrary Loan i just received Psyche A. Williams-Forsori's Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food and Power. i am looking forward to this book about the "gospel bird" and how it impacted slaves and black women.

other than that i am finishing up a biography of Edwina Mountbatten and have several light romances i am rereading.

[rooy1960]

i always have multiple books going at once (food related or otherwise). every room in my house is littered with books and magazines. food books currently being read:

les halles cookbook- anthony bourdain ( hilarious as all get out)

miriam's kitchen- elizabeth ehrlich ( lovely memoirs of jewish family traditons)

the fine art of cooking- philadelphia art museum (circa 1989)

as for my cookbook reading style, i skim first and then go back and read every word.

my two favorite things: cooking and reading....

[Toasted]

I just finished White House Chef by Walter Scheib and Andrew Friedman. Great book. Facinating to learn about how they do the big State dinners. Lot's of inside info about the running of the White House as well. Now I'm reading Sound Bites by Elex Kappanos. Kind of a quirky book about what Elex ate while touring the world with his band, Franz Ferdinad. This is a quick read. Short chapters, some interesting, some not. I very much recommend Climbing The Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey. Great recipes and stories.

[scottie]

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.

I like to jump around in it, reading a bit here on there while on the train. Always makes me smile.

Also, the latest issues of Gourmet and Food & Wine.

[phlawless]

What I'm reading now:

The Oldways Table--just got it in the mail yesterday

Fannie Farmer Baking Book--just discovered it really, love the pie section

The New Spanish Table--everything I've made out of it so far is fantastic

[TarteTatin]

Goose Fat & Garlic

Omnivore's Dilemma

Ruth Reichl's Paris

[enurmi]

Culinary Artistry by Dorenberg and Page, for the third time...

Gear for Your Kitchen by Brown, second time

and Working the Plate by Styler...

and those are just the food books.

Firstly, I hope I did the links right... took me long enough.

Secondly, is it a sign of addiction that I take CA and WtP with me every time I go on vacation? I NEED them, goshdarnit!

[rconnelly]

"The Man Who Ate Everything" & "60 Years of Writing - Gourmet"

Just finished "For Alice" - ah what a love story

[kristin_71]

Cooked by Jeff Henderson. Really, really good.

Belly of Paris this is of course a classic and well worth reading, but I try not to read it on an empty stomach because I get hungry.

I recently finished the audio of Garlic and Sapphires. It was a great way to kill time at work.

Cookbook wise I am reading and starting to try the recipes in Happy in the Kitchen. I love this cookbook, it is fantastic.

Edited March 16, 2007 by kristin_71 (log)

[iharrison]

Tough Cookies: Tales of Obsession, Toil and Tenacity from Britain's Culinary Heavyweights by Simon Wright

Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass by Natalie MacLean

I highly recommend both.

[Nancy HM]

I work in a public library, and we have bound issues of Gourmet going back to the '60s. I'm reading all Laurie Colwin's articles. *sigh* I love her writing - both her fiction and non-fiction has such a voice. Such a loss.

[JAZ]

Candyfreak by Steve Almond (subtitled "A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America"). Part history, part reminiscence, and lots of chocolate. This could have been a rather ordinary tribute to candy, but the author is such a good writer, it's one of those books I want to read over and over. For instance, this is his description of watching marshmallow bunnies being enrobed in chocolate:

They rode the conveyor belt three astride, looking nonchalant in profile, as curtains of milk chocolate washed down onto their white fleshy pelts and enveloped them and seeped off to reveal the dimensions of their bodies in a lustrous brown. Saborin [his guide] was saying something or other, involving, I think, starch. I was watching the bunnies.