Book picks similar to
Miss Ella of Commander's Palace by Ella Brennan
new-orleans
biography
nola
nonfiction
Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes
Colette Rossant - 1999
From the moment she arrives at her grandparents' belle époque mansion by the Nile, the five-year-old Colette finds companionship and comfort among the other "outsiders" in her home away from home -- the cooks and servants in the kitchen. The chef, Ahmet, lets Colette taste the ful; she learns how to make sambusaks for her new friends; and she shops for semits and other treats in the Khan-al-Khalili market. Colette is beginning to understand how her family's culture is linked to the kitchen...and soon she will claim Egypt's food, landscape, and people as her own. Apricots on the Nile is a loving testament to Colette's adopted homeland. With dozens of original recipes and family photographs, Colette's coming-of-age memoir is a splendid exploration of old Cairo in all its flavor, variety, and wide-eyed wonder.
My New Orleans, Gone Away
Peter M. Wolf - 2013
Wolf, a member of one of New Orleans's oldest Jewish families, recreates the sights, sounds, tastes and simultaneously provides an insider's look at this fabled city, so damaged and changing in the wake of Katrina. Reflecting the yearnings and anxieties of a generation that came of age after World War II, this is the iconic journey of a restless man who leaves the hometown he loves to discover the world and in so doing, to find himself.Wolf recalls his idyllic though anxious southern childhood, the emotional remoteness of his nighttime-loving parents that leaves him with a tenuous sense of security. He turns to his neighborhood and school buddies, to the embracing warmth of his family's African-American housekeeper, and to the weekends he spends with his adoring grandparents at their home in Pass Christian on the gulf coast of Mississippi.During undergraduate years at Yale, the author's close friends come to include Calvin Trillin, the humorist-to-be; Henry Geldzahler, the future celebrated art historian; and Gerald Jonas, who would become a writer for The New Yorker magazine. Each from a more traditional Jewish family, through exposure to these important people in his life, Wolf becomes acutely aware of his city's inflexibly stratified religious and racial structure.After a year of medical school at Columbia, and continuing his journey of self-discovery, as he briefly works for his father's cotton brokerage, Wolf reveals the last vestiges of the cotton business in the south. In spite of a spicy love affair, his residence in the French Quarter, and growing prominence in his community, unwilling to remain in New Orleans, Wolf returns to the east to earn a doctorat and become an architectural historian, a profession in which he earns great distinction.Written with humor and telling detail, My New Orleans offers direct and memorable insight into a lost period of America's evolution, turbulence and possibilities as unique and to-be-longed-for as the city of Wolf's memory.
Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits
Reese Witherspoon - 2018
We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside, we're strong and fiery.Reese's Southern heritage informs her whole life, and she loves sharing the joys of Southern living with practically everyone she meets. She takes the South wherever she goes with bluegrass, big holiday parties, and plenty of Dorothea's fried chicken. It's reflected in how she entertains, decorates her home, and makes holidays special for her kids - not to mention how she talks, dances, and does her hair (in this audiobook, you will learn Reese's fail-proof, only slightly insane hot-roller technique). Reese loves sharing Dorothea's most delicious recipes as well as her favorite Southern traditions, from midnight barn parties to backyard bridal showers, magical Christmas mornings to rollicking honky-tonks.It's easy to bring a little bit of Reese's world into your home, no matter where you live. After all, there's a Southern side to every place in the world, right?
The Bread and the Knife: A Life in 26 Bites
Dawn Drzal - 2018
F. K. Fisher in The Gastronomical Me, food is more than a metaphor in The Bread and the Knife. It is the organizing principle of an existence. Starting with "A Is for Al Dente," the loosely linked chapters evoke an alphabet of food memories that recount a woman’s emotional growth from the challenges of youth to professional accomplishment, marriage, and divorce. Betrayal is embodied in an overripe melon, her awakening in a Béarnaise sauce. Passion fruit juice portends the end of a first marriage, while tarte Tatin offers redemption. Each letter serves up a surprising variation on the struggle for self-knowledge, the joy and pain of familial and romantic love, and food’s astonishing ability to connect us with both the living and the dead. Ranging from her grandmother's suburban kitchen to an elegant New York restaurant, a longhouse in Borneo, and a palace in Rajasthan, The Bread and the Knife charts the vicissitudes of a woman forced to swallow some hard truths about herself while discovering that the universe can dispense surprising second chances.
Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography - From Deep Purple to Black Country Communion
Glenn Hughes - 2010
Starting with the Midlands beat combo Finders Keepers in the 1960s, he formed acclaimed funk-rock band Trapeze in the early 70s before joining Deep Purple at their commercial peak. Flying the world in Starship 1, the band's own Boeing 720 jet, Hughes enthusiastically embraced the rock superstar's lifestyle while playing on three Purple albums, including the classic Burn. When the band split in 1976 Hughes embarked on a breakneck run of solo albums, collaborations and even a brief, chaotic spell fronting Black Sabbath. All of this was accompanied by cocaine psychosis, crack addiction and other excesses, before Hughes survived a clean-up-or-die crisis, and embarked on a reinvigorated solo career enriched by a survivor's wisdom. In his autobiography, Hughes talks us through this whirlwind of a life with unflinching honesty and good humour, taking us right up to date with his triumphant re-emergence in current supergroup Black Country Communion. "I had a constant fascination with the darkside. It is another world, bordering on insanity, and demonic possession, or what I thought was my own Soul Bending personal nirvana. Its good to be back in the middle of the boat, instead of hanging on for dear life in the last life boat." - Glenn Hughes, April 2011
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Julie Powell - 2005
She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crépes, she realizes there’s more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia’s stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver. And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life’s ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.
Life From Scratch
Melissa Ford - 2010
And so is her kitchen.Divorced, heartbroken and living in a lonely New York apartment with a tiny kitchen, Rachel Goldman realizes she doesn't even know how to cook the simplest meal for herself. Can learning to fry an egg help her understand where her life went wrong? She dives into the culinary basics. Then she launches a blog to vent her misery about life, love and her goal of an unburnt casserole. To her amazement, the blog's a hit. She becomes a minor celebrity. Next, a sexy Spaniard enters her life. Will her souffles stop falling? Will she finally forget about the husband she still loves? And how can she explain to her readers that she still hasn't learned how to cook up a happy life from scratch?
A Rip in Heaven
Jeanine Cummins - 2004
It was covered by Court TV and profiled on the Ricki Lake Show. Now, here is the intimate memoir of a shocking crime and its aftermath...one family's immediate and unforgettable story of what victims can suffer long after they should be safe.
Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream
Tung Nguyen - 2021
This serendipitous meeting evolved into a decades-long partnership, one that eventually turned strangers into family and a tiny, no-frills eatery into one of the most lauded restaurants in the country.Tung's fierce practicality often clashed with Kathy's free-spirited nature, but over time, they found a harmony in their contrasts—a harmony embodied in the restaurant's signature mango and peppercorns sauce.• IMPORTANT, UNIVERSAL STORY: An inspiring memoir peppered with recipes, it is a riveting read that will appeal to fans of Roy Choi, Ed Lee, Ruth Reichl, and Kwame Onwuachi.• TIMELY TOPIC: This real-life American dream is a welcome reminder of our country's longstanding tradition of welcoming refugees and immigrants. This book adds a touchpoint to that larger conversation, resonating beyond the bookshelf.• INVENTIVE COOKBOOK: This book is taking genre-bending a step further, focusing on the story first and foremost with 20 complementary recipes. Perfect for:• Fans of culinary nonfiction• Fans of Ruth Reichl, Roy Choi, Kwame Onwuachi, and Anya Von Bremzen• Home cooks who are interested in Asian food and cooking
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.
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools: Tuck into a Slice of Andalucían Life
Victoria Twead - 2009
They have no idea of the culture shock in store. No idea they'll become reluctant chicken farmers and own the most dangerous cockerel in Spain. No idea they'll help capture a vulture or be rescued by a mule. Will they stay, or return to the relative sanity of England?Includes Spanish recipes donated by the village ladies and a link to FREE accompanying photo book.The Telegraph-- "a colourful glimpse of Andalucían life. And a psychopathic chicken or two...charming...funny"
When the Meadowlark Sings: The Story of a Montana Family
Nedra Sterry - 2003
Prize-winning novelist Cai Emmons praises Sterry by saying she really knows how to tell a story. Sterry grew up in a succession of isolated one-room schools in northern and central Montana, where her mother, a teacher, eked out a living. A must read for anyone who loves Montana and its rich history.
Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography
Laurie Woolever - 2021
His impact was outsized and his legacy has only grown since his death.Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain’s life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s longtime assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony’s orbit—from members of his kitchen crews to his writing, publishing, and television partners, to his daughter and his closest friends—in order to piece together a remarkably full, vivid, and nuanced vision of Tony’s life and work. From his childhood and teenage days, to his early years in New York, through the genesis of his game-changing memoir Kitchen Confidential to his emergence as a writing and television personality, and in the words of friends and colleagues including Eric Ripert, José Andrés, Nigella Lawson, and W. Kamau Bell, as well as family members including his brother and his late mother, we see the many sides of Tony—his motivations, his ambivalence, his vulnerability, his blind spots, and his brilliance.Unparalleled in scope and deeply intimate in its execution, with a treasure trove of photos from Tony's life, Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography is a testament to the life of a remarkable man in the words of the people who shared his world.
God and Mr. Gomez
Jack Clifford Smith - 1974
The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.
Bob Warden's Slow Food Fast
Bob Warden - 2009
With this smart cookbook, readers learn Bob's secret to making rich, creamy Vanilla Bean Cheesecake in just 25 minutes. He's even got a recipe for Most Excellent Macaroni and Cheese that tastes just like it was oven baked — but takes only six minutes in the pressure cooker! In all, this cookbook contains 117 time-saving ways for readers to treat loved ones to the goodness of home-cooked food and still have time to sit down and enjoy it with them. Enhanced with over 50 full-page color photos, Smyth sewn binding, and plenty of tips from Bob, this cookbook is a must-have for pressure cooker novices and pros alike.