The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator


Joakim Palmkvist - 2017
    When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on—except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime—and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.

The Art of the Restaurateur


Nicholas Lander - 2012
    In his first ever book, acclaimed Financial Times restaurant critic (and former restaurateur) Nicholas Lander reveals everything you ever wanted to know about the highs and lows of the restaurant business. Every story is fascinating, different, and has something to tell about the creation of a successful restaurant, from finding the right location to deciding what kind of food to serve. Engaging, erudite and packed with insights, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in food – especially, of course, anyone who's ever dreamed of opening a restaurant.

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.

Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India


Madhur Jaffrey - 2005
    Madhur (meaning "sweet as honey") Jaffrey grew up in a large family compound where her grandfather often presided over dinners at which forty or more members of his extended family would savor together the wonderfully flavorful dishes that were forever imprinted on Madhur's palate. Climbing mango trees in the orchard, armed with a mixture of salt, pepper, ground chilies, and roasted cumin; picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint and tucked into freshly fried "poori"s; sampling the heady flavors in the lunch boxes of Muslim friends; sneaking tastes of exotic street fare—these are the food memories Madhur Jaffrey draws on as a way of telling her story. Independent, sensitive, and ever curious, as a young girl she loved uncovering her family's many-layered history, and she was deeply affected by their personal trials and by the devastating consequences of Partition, which ripped their world apart. "Climbing the Mango Trees" is both an enormously appealing account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power of food to evoke memory. And, at the end, this treasure of a book contains a secret ingredient—more than thirty family recipes recovered from Madhur's childhood, which she now shares with us.

Vanderbilt's Biltmore


Robert Wernick - 2012
    But ambition quickly took wing. The house swelled to 225 rooms and became - until 2012 when it was topped by the home of a billionaire in Mumbai, India – the world’s largest residence ever built for a private citizen. Here’s the story of the house that Vanderbilt built - from the gardens by Frederick Law Olmsted to the John Singer Sargent portraits that adorn its walls.

Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City


Katie Parla - 2016
    Each is a mirror of its city’s culture, history, and geography. But cucina romana is the country’s greatest standout.  Tasting Rome provides a complete picture of a place that many love, but few know completely. In sharing Rome’s celebrated dishes, street food innovations, and forgotten recipes, journalist Katie Parla and photographer Kristina Gill capture its unique character and reveal its truly evolved food culture—a culmination of 2000 years of history. Their recipes acknowledge the foundations of Roman cuisine and demonstrate how it has transitioned to the variations found today. You’ll delight in the expected classics (cacio e pepe, pollo alla romana, fiore di zucca); the fascinating but largely undocumented Sephardic Jewish cuisine (hraimi  con couscous, brodo di pesce, pizzarelle); the authentic and tasty offal (guanciale, simmenthal di coda, insalata di nervitti); and so much more.   Studded with narrative features that capture the city’s history and gorgeous photography that highlights both the food and its hidden city, you’ll feel immediately inspired to start tasting Rome in your own kitchen.

The Grail: A Year Ambling & Shambling Through an Oregon Vineyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wild World


Brian Doyle - 2006
    

Things Can Only Get Feta: Two Journalists and Their Crazy Dog Living Through the Greek Crisis


Marjory McGinn - 2013
    A perfect plan, except for one thing - Greece is deep in economic crisis. And if fiscal failure can't overturn the couple's escapade in rural Greece, perhaps macabre local customs, a scorpion invasion, zero dog-tolerance, health scares, and touchy expats will. This is a humorous and insightful journey through one of the last unspoilt regions of Greece. It is full of encounters with warm-hearted, often eccentric, Greeks who show that this troubled country still has heroes, if not euros. In a hillside village in the Mani, the locals share their lives, their laughter and their stories and help chart the couple's own passage back to happiness. They even find a place in their hearts for their Greek nemesis - the local pungent goat cheese. Things really can only get feta!

Slice Harvester: A Memoir in Pizza


Colin Atrophy Hagendorf - 2015
    It has visited us in our dorm rooms and apartments, sometimes before we’d even unpacked or painted. It has nourished us during our jobs, consoled us during break-ups, and celebrated our triumphs right alongside us.In August 2009, Colin Hagendorf set out to review every regular slice of pizza in Manhattan, and his blog, Slice Harvester, was born. Two years and nearly 400 slices later, he’d been featured in TheWall Street Journal, the Daily News (New York), and on radio shows all over the country. Suddenly, this self-proclaimed punk who was barely making a living doing burrito delivery and selling handmade zines had a following. But at the same time Colin was stepping up his game for the masses (grabbing slices with Phoebe Cates and her teenage daughter, reviewing kosher pizza so you don’t have to), his personal life was falling apart.A problem drinker and chronic bad boyfriend, he started out using the blog as a way to escape—the hangovers, the midnight arguments, the hangovers again—until finally realizing that by taking steps to reach a goal day by day, he’d actually put himself in a place to finally take control of his life for good. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Sli...

Spain: A History


Malveena McKendrick - 2016
    Discoverer of a New World, it became the greatest power on earth and created a Golden Age of culture quite breathtaking in the quality of its achievement. Within 150 years, Spain was in a state of decay and fast being left behind by more progressive European nations. Here, from award-winning historian Malveena McKendrick, is the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the Spanish empire.

The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.


Jennifer Baggett - 2010
    Three friends, each on the brink of a quarter-life crisis, make a pact to quit their high pressure New York City media jobs and leave behind their friends, boyfriends, and everything familiar to embark on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world in The Lost Girls.

Feast: Recipes and Stories from a Canadian Road Trip: A Cookbook


Lindsay Anderson - 2017
    Five months. One car. Ten provinces. Three territories. Seven islands. Eight ferries. Two flights. One 48-hour train ride. And only one call to CAA. The result: over 100 incredible Canadian recipes from coast to coast and the Great White North. In the midst of a camping trip in Squamish, British Columbia, Lindsay Anderson and Dana VanVeller decided that the summer of 2013 might be the right time for an adventure. And they knew what they wanted that adventure to be: a road trip across the entire country, with the purpose of writing about Canada's food, culture, and wealth of compelling characters and their stories. 37,000 kilometres later, and toting a "Best Culinary Travel Blog" award from Saveur magazine, Lindsay and Dana have brought together stories, photographs and recipes from across Canada in Feast: Recipes and Stories from a Canadian Road Trip. The authors write about their experiences of trying whale blubber in Nunavut, tying a GoPro to a fishing line in Newfoundland to get a shot of the Atlantic Ocean's "cod highway," and much more. More than 80 contributors--including farmers, grandmothers, First Nations elders, and acclaimed chefs--have shared over 90 of their most beloved regional recipes, with Lindsay and Dana contributing some of their own favourites too. You'll find recipes for all courses from Barley Pancakes, Yukon Cinnamon Buns, and Bannock to Spot Prawn Ceviche, Bison Sausage Rolls, Haida Gwaii Halibut and Maritime Lobster Rolls; and also recipes for preserves, pickles and sauces, and a whole chapter devoted to drinks.Feast is a stunning representation of the diversity and complexity of Canada through its many favourite foods. The combination of Lindsay and Dana's capitivating journey with easy-to-follow recipes makes the book just as pleasurable to read as it is to cook from.

Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto


Victoria Abbott Riccardi - 2003
    She arrived in Kyoto, a city she had dreamed about but never seen, with two bags, an open-ended plane ticket, and the ability to speak only sushi-bar Japanese. She left a year later, having learned the language, the art of kaiseki, and what was truly important to her. Through special introductions and personal favors, Victoria was able to attend one of Kyoto’s most prestigious tea schools, where this ago-old Japanese art has been preserved for generations and where she was taken under the wing of an American expatriate who became her mentor in the highly choreographed rituals of this extraordinary culinary discipline. During her year in Kyoto, Victoria explored the mysterious and rarefied world of tea kaiseki, living a life inaccessible to most foreigners. She also discovered the beguiling realm of modern-day Japanese food—the restaurants, specialty shops, and supermarkets. She participated in many fast-disappearing culinary customs, including making mochi (chewy rice cakes) by hand, a beloved family ritual barely surviving in a mechanized age. She celebrated the annual cleansing rites of New Year’s, donning an elaborate kimono and obi for a thirty-four-course extravaganza. She includes twenty-five recipes for favorite dishes she encountered, such as Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl, Japanese Beef and Vegetable Hotpot, and Green-Tea Cooked Salmon Over Rice. Untangling My Chopsticks is a sumptuous journey into the tastes, traditions, and exotic undercurrents of Japan. It is also a coming-of-age tale steeped in history and ancient customs, a thoughtful meditation on life, love, and learning in another land.

A House in Sicily


Daphne Phelps - 1999
    This memoir tells their story, and hers.It begins in 1947 when, thirty-four years old and war-weary, a modest Englishwoman arrived in Taormina with little Italian, less money, and a plan to sell the property she had unexpectedly inherited. Instead, she fell in love, not just with the airy quarters of the golden stone house on a hillside but also with a community and its way of life. To save Casa Cuseni from certain demolition, Daphne converted her enchanting inheritance into the wondrous pensione that for nearly half a century she has run with the blessing of every Taorminan from the local silk-shirted godfather, Don Ciccio, to Concetta Genio, her steadfast cook, housekeeper, and friend. "A loving portrait ... of a vanishing way of life." -- New York Times Book Review"The often humorous clash of cultures ... [and] the stories of the ordinary Sicilian men and women who populate the pages that make this book, and this place, so special,... so thoroughly alive." -- Chicago Tribune

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go


Susan Van Allen - 2009
    Go along with writer Susan Van Allen on a femme-friendly ride up and down the boot, to explore this extraordinarily enchanting country where Venus (Vixen Goddess of Love and Beauty) and The Madonna (Nurturing Mother of Compassion) reign side-by-side. With humor, passion, and practical details, this uniquely anecdotal guidebook will enrich your Italian days.Enjoy masterpieces of art that glorify womanly curves, join a cooking class taught by revered grandmas, shop for ceramics, ski in the Dolomites, or paint a Tuscan landscape. Make your vacation a string of Golden Days, by pairing your experience with the very best restaurant nearby, so sensual pleasures harmonize and you simply bask in the glow of bell’Italia.Whatever your mood or budget, whether it’s your first or your twenty-first visit, with 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go, Italy opens her heart to you.