We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time


José Andrés - 2018
    MIRANDA, JR. The true story of how a group of chefs fed hundreds of thousands of hungry Americans after Hurricane Maria and touched the hearts of many more Chef José Andrés arrived in Puerto Rico four days after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island. The economy was destroyed and for most people there was no clean water, no food, no power, no gas, and no way to communicate with the outside world. Andrés addressed the humanitarian crisis the only way he knew how: by feeding people, one hot meal at a time. From serving sancocho with his friend José Enrique at Enrique’s ravaged restaurant in San Juan to eventually cooking 100,000 meals a day at more than a dozen kitchens across the island, Andrés and his team fed hundreds of thousands of people, including with massive paellas made to serve thousands of people alone.. At the same time, they also confronted a crisis with deep roots, as well as the broken and wasteful system that helps keep some of the biggest charities and NGOs in business. Based on Andrés’s insider’s take as well as on meetings, messages, and conversations he had while in Puerto Rico, We Fed an Island movingly describes how a network of community kitchens activated real change and tells an extraordinary story of hope in the face of disasters both natural and man-made, offering suggestions for how to address a crisis like this in the future. Beyond that, a portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to the Chef Relief Network of World Central Kitchen for efforts in Puerto Rico and beyond.

The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation


David Kamp - 2006
    Kamp, a writer and editor for GQ and Vanity Fair, chronicles the amazing transformation from the overcooked vegetables and scary gelatin salads of yore to the current heyday of free-range chickens, extra-virgin olive oil, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and that breed of human known as the foodie.

Twelve Recipes


Cal Peternell - 2014
    Based on the life-altering course of instruction he prepared and honed through many phone calls with his son, Twelve Recipes is the ultimate introduction to the kitchen. Peternell focuses on the core foods and dishes that comprise a successful home cook’s arsenal, each building skill upon skill—from toast, eggs, and beans, to vinaigrettes, pasta with tomato, and rice, to vegetables, soup, meats, and cake.Twelve Recipes will help home cooks develop a core repertoire of skills and increase their culinary confidence. Peternell tells you what basic ingredients and tools you need for a particular recipe, and then adds variations to expand your understanding. Each tip, instruction, and recipe connects with others to weave into a larger story that illuminates the connection between food and life. A deeply personal book, it was written by the chef alone and it glows with warmth and humor as he mulls over such mundane items as toast and rice to offer surprising new insights about foods that only seem exceedingly ordinary. It’s a book you’re as likely to keep by your bedside as your stovetop. With Peternell as your guide, the journey is pure pleasure and the destination is delicious.Twelve Recipes features gorgeous color photos and inset illustrations by Peternell’s wife and sons (all artists), and forewords by celebrated chef Alice Waters and New York Times columnist and bestselling author Michael Pollan.

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain


Pen Vogler - 2020
    Covering such topics as fish and chips, roast beef, avocados, tripe, fish knives and the surprising origins of breakfast, Scoff reveals how in Britain we have become experts at using eating habits to make judgements about social background.Bringing together evidence from cookbooks, literature, artworks and social records from 1066 to the present, Vogler traces the changing fortunes of the food we encounter today, and unpicks the aspirations and prejudices of the people who have shaped our cuisine for better or worse.

The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavour


Jenny Linford - 2018
    From the patience and dedication of many food producers in fields and storehouses around the world to the rapid reactions required of any home cook at the hob, this book allows us to better understand our culinary lives.

Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food


Jeffrey M. Pilcher - 2012
    But the contemporary struggle between globalization and national sovereignty to determine the meaning of Mexican food is far from new. In fact, Mexican food was the product of globalization from the very beginning -- the Spanish conquest -- when European and Native American influences blended to forge the mestizo or mixed culture of Mexico. The historic struggle between globalization and the nation continued in the nineteenth century, as Mexicans searching for a national cuisine were torn between nostalgic "Creole" Hispanic dishes of the past and French haute cuisine, the global food of the day. Indigenous foods, by contrast, were considered strictly d class . Yet another version of Mexican food was created in the U.S. Southwest by Mexican American cooks, including the "Chili Queens" of San Antonio and tamale vendors of Los Angeles. When Mexican American dishes were appropriated by the fast food industry and carried around the world, Mexican elites rediscovered the indigenous roots of their national cuisine among the ancient Aztecs and the Maya. Even this Nueva Cocina Mexicana was a transnational phenomenon, called "New Southwestern" by chefs in the United States. Rivalries within this present-day gourmet movement recalled the nineteenth-century struggles between Creole, Native, and French foods. Planet Taco also seeks to recover the history of people who have been ignored in the struggles to define authentic Mexican, especially those who are marginal to both nations: Indians and Mexican Americans.

My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)


Luisa Weiss - 2012
    The Julie/Julia Project. In the early days of food blogs, these were the pioneers whose warmth and recipes turned their creators’ kitchens into beloved web destinations. Luisa Weiss was working in New York when she decided to cook her way through her massive recipe collection. The Wednesday Chef, the cooking blog she launched to document her adventures, charmed readers around the world. But Luisa never stopped longing to return to her childhood home in Berlin. A food memoir with recipes, My Berlin Kitchen deliciously chronicles how she finally took the plunge and went across the ocean in search of happiness—only to find love waiting where she least expected it.

Lucky Peach: Issue 1


Chris Ying - 2011
    It is a creation of David Chang, the James Beard Award–winning chef behind the Momofuku restaurants in New York, Momofuku cookbook cowriter Peter Meehan, and Zero Point Zero Productions—producers of the Travel Channel’s Emmy Award–winning Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.The result of this collaboration is a mélange of travelogue, essays, art, photography, and rants in a full-color, meticulously designed format. Recipes will defy the tired ingredients-and-numbered-steps formula. They’ll be laid out sensibly, inspired by the thought process that went into developing them.Each issue will focus on a theme (Issue One’s theme is “Ramen”), with contributions from Harold McGee, Ruth Reichl, John T. Edge, Todd Kliman and a cavalcade of other writers and artists. The reader will meander through arguments about the superiority of yellow alkaline noodles over Italian egg pasta; a taxonomy of ramen-package characters; an eating tour of Japan helmed by an over-stuffed and nauseated, but nevertheless intrepid, David Chang; and a booze-fueled rant on mediocrity in American cuisine with chefs Chang, Bourdain, and Wylie Dufresne set in the Spanish Basque country.The aim of Lucky Peach is to give a platform to a brand of food writing that began with unorthodox authors like Bourdain, resulting in a publication that appeals to diehard foodies as well as fans of good writing and art in general.

A Meal Observed


Andrew Todhunter - 2004
    As Todhunter describes it, Taillevent’s highly orchestrated kitchen is “less an atelier than a gun deck on a ship of war, a place of shouts and fire.”On the other side of the kitchen’s double doors, in the warm light of the nineteenth-century dining room, the American couple surrenders to the sensual pleasure of a beautifully wrought and meticulously served dinner—from the amuse-bouche (a warm cheese puff to “amuse the mouth”) and the crème de cresson soup, with its sunken treasure of lobster tomalley, to the crowning glory of the fantaisie. In the spirit of A.J. Liebling’s Between Meals, Todhunter layers mouthwatering descriptions of French dishes and their preparation with reflections on his American childhood (when food, like sex and money, was not to be discussed at the table), dips into culinary history and philosophy, and entertains with asides on everything from olive oil and chestnuts to the science of viniculture and the chemistry of chocolate. Between courses, Todhunter brings us back to the sanctum of the kitchen itself, where he has probing conversations with chef de cuisine Philippe Legendre and pastry chef Gilles Bajolle, both major figures in the French culinary pantheon, and their assistants. Through these great chefs and their impeccably trained brigade we gain a unique glimpse into the heart of French cuisine and the love of fine food. Is cooking more an art, a craft, or a science? Are great chefs born or made? Why are there so few women chefs in France? What is the greatest danger for a chef at the top of his game? How is a new dish developed? What is the future of haute cuisine in France and in the world at large? When we cook for others, for love or for money, what do we give of ourselves?As richly satisfying as the five-hour meal it describes, A Meal Observed is a delightful paean to the French and French cuisine, and to the universal love of the table. Bon appétit!

The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide


Mary Lou Heiss - 2007
    In this sweeping tour through the world of tea, veteran tea traders Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss chronicle tea's influence across the globe and provide a complete reference for choosing, drinking, and enjoying this beverage.The Story of Tea begins with a journey along the tea trail, from the lush forests of China, where tea cultivation first flourished, to the Buddhist temples of Japan, to the vast tea gardens of India, and beyond. Offering an insider'­s view of all aspects of tea trade, the Heisses examine Camellia sinensis, the tea bush, and show how subtle differences in territory and production contribute to the diversity of color, flavor, and quality in brewed tea. They profile more than thirty essential tea varietals, provide an in depth guide to tasting and brewing, and survey the customs and crafts associated with tea. Sharing the latest research, they discuss tea's health benefits and developments in organic production and fair trade practices. Finally, they present ten sweet and savory recipes, including Savory Chinese Marbled Eggs and Green Tea Pot de Crâme, and resources for purchasing fine tea.Vividly illustrated throughout, The Story of Tea is an engrossing tribute to the illustrious, invigorating, and elusive leaf that has sustained and inspired people for more than two thousand years.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China


Fuchsia Dunlop - 2008
    How can something she has eaten readily in China seem grotesque in England? The question lingers over this "autobiographical food-and-travel classic" (Publishers Weekly).

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement


Jane Ziegelman - 2010
    97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine


Benjamin Wallace - 2008
    Was it truly entombed in a Paris cellar for two hundred years? Or did it come from a secret Nazi bunker? Or from the moldy basement of a devilishly brilliant con artist? As Benjamin Wallace unravels the mystery, we meet a gallery of intriguing players—from the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women to the obsessive wine collector who discovered the bottle. Suspenseful and thrillingly strange, this is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries.

Made Whole: More Than 145 Anti-lnflammatory Keto-Paleo Recipes to Nourish You from the Inside Out


Cristina Curp - 2018
     Made Whole is a comprehensive cookbook and resource guide that combines the Paleo approach with the low-carb/ketogenic diet, using only whole, natural, unprocessed ingredients. Cristina includes all the tools you need to be successful on a ketogenic diet, along with advice and how-tos for using the keto template to eat intuitively and develop a personalized nutrition plan based on your unique needs. Each recipe is free of grain, gluten, sugar, and dairy, along with nuts, starches, nightshades, and alcohol—making this a perfect cookbook for those following keto, Paleo, low-carb, AIP, or allergen-free diets. Cristina’s eclectic and mouthwatering recipes draw inspiration from international cuisines to keep cooking fun and exciting. You will feel like a gourmet chef with easy-to-make meals prepared from accessible ingredients that you can find at your local grocer using just the one master list that she provides in the book! Made Whole is a user-friendly guide to cooking beautiful food, eating well, and enjoying every last bite, while reaching your health and fitness goals. Sample recipes include: • Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies • Turkey Falafel with Tzatziki Sauce  • Spaghetti and Meatballs with Roasted Beet Marinara   • Toasted Coconut Salmon • Savory Flax Waffles   • and many more! Made Whole will teach you that healthy food doesn’t have to fit into a certain label, box, or idea of what it should be. Once you begin to forget about what you can’t eat and embrace the wonderful and delicious things you can eat, you will find freedom and pleasure in fueling your body with the most exceptional sustenance that nature has to offer.

Reading between the Wines


Terry Theise - 2010
    What constitutes beauty in wine, and how do we appreciate it? What role does wine play in a soulful, sensual life? Can wines of place survive in a world of globalized styles and 100-point scoring systems? In his highly approachable style, Theise describes how wine can be a portal to aesthetic, emotional, even mystical experience—and he frankly asserts that these experiences are most likely to be inspired by wines from artisan producers. Along the way, Theise tells us a little about how he got where he is today, explores the meaning of wine in the lives of vintners he has known, and praises particular grape varieties. Reading between the Wines is a passionate tribute to wine—and to what it can say to us once we learn to listen.