The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food


Jennifer 8. Lee - 2008
    New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese), Jennifer 8 Lee, traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.

Salad Samurai: 100 Cutting-Edge, Ultra-Hearty, Easy-to-Make Salads You Don't Have to Be Vegan to Love


Terry Hope Romero - 2014
    Go beyond the pale of iceberg lettuce with recipes for indulgent salads of plant-based proteins, vibrant veggies, and zesty dressings.

Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes


Peter Meehan - 2015
      Your friends and lovers will marvel as you show off your culinary worldliness, whipping up meals with fish-sauce-splattered panache and all the soy-soaked, ginger-scalliony goodness you could ever want—all for dinner tonight.

Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line


Michael Gibney - 2014
    . . . In this urgent and unique book, chef Michael Gibney uses twenty-four hours to animate the intricate camaraderie and culinary choreography in an upscale New York restaurant kitchen. Here readers will find all the details, in rapid-fire succession, of what it takes to deliver an exceptional plate of food—the journey to excellence by way of exhaustion. Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider’s perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the hard work and dedication around which chefs have built their careers. In a kitchen where the highest standards are upheld and one misstep can result in disaster, Sous Chef conjures a greater appreciation for the thought, care, and focus that go into creating memorable and delicious fare. With grit, wit, and remarkable prose, Michael Gibney renders a beautiful and raw account of this demanding and sometimes overlooked profession, offering a nuanced perspective on the craft and art of food and service.

What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets


Peter Menzel - 2006
    Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these compulsively readable personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet. This compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.

Nourished: A Memoir of Food, Faith & Enduring Love (with Recipes)


Lia Huber - 2017
    Nourished invites readers on Huber's world-roaming search to find the necessary ingredients to nurture all three. She begins her quest with an Anthony Bourdain moment in a Guatemalan village: she's slipping fresh vegetables into a communal pot of soup she's cooking up for chronically undernourished children. Village grannies look on disapprovingly... until the kids come back for more. From there, Huber takes readers to the Greek island of Corfu, where she learns the joys of simple food and the power of unconditional love; to a Costa Rican jungle house (by way of an 8,000-mile road trip), where she finds hope and healing; and finally to California's wine country, where she steps into the person she was meant to be and discovers her calling to nourish others.

Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes


Shoba Narayan - 2003
    Monsoon Diary is populated with characters like Raju, the milkman who named his cows after his wives; the iron-man who daily set up shop in Narayan's front yard, picking up red-hot coals with his bare hands; her mercurial grandparents and inventive parents. Narayan illumines Indian customs while commenting on American culture from the vantage point of the sympathetic outsider. Her characters, like Narayan herself, have a thing or two to say about cooking and about life.In this creative and intimate work, Narayan's considerable vegetarian cooking talents are matched by stories as varied as Indian spices--at times pungent, mellow, piquant, and sweet. Tantalizing recipes for potato masala, dosa, and coconut chutney, among others, emerge from Narayan's absorbing tales about food and the solemn and quirky customs that surround it.

Every Day Is Saturday: Recipes and Strategies for Easy Cooking, Every Day of the Week


Sarah Copeland - 2019
    Here is a delightful and inspiring resource—in a bright and beautiful jacketed package—for weeknight cooks, weekend dreamers, and working parents who want to put great meals at the centre of the table where their family gathers.

Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel


Heidi Swanson - 2015
    In this deeply personal collection drawn from her well-worn recipe journals, Heidi describes the fragrance of flatbreads hot off a Marrakech griddle, soba noodles and feather-light tempura in Tokyo, and the taste of wild-picked greens from the Puglian coast. Recipes such as Fennel Stew, Carrot & Sake Salad, Watermelon Radish Soup, Brown Butter Tortelli, and Saffron Tagine use healthy, whole foods ingredients and approachable techniques, and photographs taken in Morocco, Japan, Italy, France, and India, as well as back home in Heidi’s kitchen, reveal the places both near and far that inspire her warm, nourishing cooking.From the Hardcover edition.

EveryDayCook


Alton Brown - 2016
    It’s my first in a few years because I’ve been a little busy with TV stuff and interwebs stuff and live stage show stuff. Sure, I’ve been cooking, but it’s been mostly to feed myself and people in my immediate vicinity—which is really what a cook is supposed to do, right? Well, one day I was sitting around trying to organize my recipes, and I realized that I should put them into a personal collection. One thing led to another, and here’s EveryDayCook. There’s still plenty of science and hopefully some humor in here (my agent says that’s my “wheelhouse”), but unlike in my other books, a lot of attention went into the photos, which were all taken on my iPhone (take that, Instagram) and are suitable for framing. As for the recipes, which are arranged by time of day, they’re pretty darned tasty. Highlights include:  • Morning: Buttermilk Lassi, Overnight Coconut Oats, Nitrous Pancakes • Coffee Break: Cold Brew Coffee, Lacquered Bacon, Seedy Date Bars• Noon: Smoky the Meat Loaf, Grilled Cheese Grilled Sandwich, “EnchiLasagna” or “Lasagnalada”• Afternoon: Green Grape Cobbler, Crispy Chickpeas, Savory Greek Yogurt Dip• Evening: Bad Day Bitter Martini, Mussels-O-Miso, Garam Masalmon Steaks• Anytime: The General’s Fried Chicken, Roasted Chile Salsa, Peach Punch Pops• Later: Cider House Fondue, Open Sesame Noodles, Chocapocalypse Cookie So let’s review: 101 recipes with mouthwatering photos, a plethora of useful insights on methods, tools, and ingredients all written by an “award-winning and influential educator and tastemaker.” That last part is from the PR office. Real people don’t talk like that.

Eat Clean, Play Dirty: Recipes for a Body and Life You Love by the Founders of Sakara Life


Danielle Duboise - 2019
      In their debut book, Eat Clean, Play Dirty, the duo delivers delicious recipes and reinvigorating rituals to achieve nutritional harmony, a way to nourish the body and feed the spirit simultaneously. It’s about saying yes to kale and to dessert; to early-morning asanas and late-night dancing. It’s about prioritizing health without making sacrifices.   Since delivering their first meals by bicycle in 2012, Whitney and Danielle have changed thousands of lives across the country and garnered a long list of celebrity devotees including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, and Oprah. With Eat Clean, Play Dirty, they have gathered the vibrant, delicious dishes that clients and fans crave and make it possible to recreate the Sakara magic in their own kitchens.   Changing the dialogue we have with our bodies and our plates, the cookbook empowers each of us to become our own chef and ultimate healer by using food as medicine. Each delicious recipe, from the Eat-the-Rainbow Wrap, Orgasmic Coconut Yogurt, Red Beet Burger, and the Everything Bagel with Garlic Schmear is designed to:  balance our bodyheal our gutflood our body with ample nutrientsshed excess weightreduce inflammationeliminate sugar cravingsbalance our hormones and moodgive us the tools to create a body we love living in Every recipe is backed by Sakara’s roots in nutritional science—honed over years of studying with doctors, scientists and healers of all kinds. Alongside the recipes, readers will learn about superfood ingredients from around the world, discover the phytonutrients needed for true vitality, unearth the secrets of the microbiome, and master tangible lifestyle tricks for balancing lifelong health with ultimate happiness. It’s Sakara’s signature blend of science, sexiness, irreverence, and light-filled intention. The ultimate wellness cookbook has arrived. Celebrate abundance. Say yes to body love. And don’t forget to break some rules.

Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!)


Amelia Morris - 2015
    It was also a revelation. Both delicious and damaged, it seemed a physical metaphor for the many curious and unexpected situations she's found herself in throughout her life, from her brief career as a six-year-old wrestler to her Brady Bunch-style family (minus the housekeeper and the familial harmony) to her ill-fated twenty-something job at the School of Rock in Los Angeles. As a way to bring order to chaos and in search of a more meaningful lifestyle, she finds herself more and more at home in the kitchen, where she begins to learn that even if the results of her culinary efforts fall well short of the standard set by glossy food magazines, they can still bring satisfaction (and sustenance) to her and her family and friends. Full of hilarious observations about food, family, unemployment, romance, and the extremes of modern L.A., and featuring recipes as basic as Toasted Cheerios and as advanced as gâteau de crêpes, Bon Appetempt is sure to resonate with anyone who has tried and failed, and been all the better for it.

The Model Bakery Cookbook: 75 Favorite Recipes from the Beloved Napa Valley Bakery


Sarah Mitchell Hansen - 2013
    And this book of sensational artisan baked goods makes clear why there are lines out the door! Featuring 75 recipes and 60 photos, it's as luscious to look at as their most-requested breads, classic desserts, and fresh pastries--all arrayed here--are to eat. Pain au Levain, Sticky Buns, Peach Streusel Pie, Ginger Molasses Cookies, and many more glorious recipes make this a mouthwatering read and a reference gem for lovers of bread and pastry, cakes and cookies, and, of course, the Model Bakery!

Cook with Me: 150 Recipes for the Home Cook: A Cookbook


Alex Guarnaschelli - 2020
    Now, with a daughter of her own, food and cooking mean even more to Alex--they are a way for her to share memories, such as shopping in Little Italy with her father for cured meats and aged cheeses, and tasting the recipes her mom would make from the cookbooks of the iconic authors she worked with.And, more than anything, cooking is what Alex and her daughter, Ava, most love to do together. In Cook with Me, Alex revives the recipes she grew up with, such as her mom's chicken with barbecue sauce and her dad's steamed pork dumplings, offers recipes for foods that she wishes she grew up with, such as comforting and cheesy baked ziti, and details dishes new to her repertoire, including sheet pan pork chops with spicy Brussels sprouts and a roasted sweet potato salad with honey and toasted pumpkin seeds. From meatballs two ways (are you a Godfather or a Goodfellas person?) to the blueberry crumble her mom made every summer, Alex shares recipes and insights that can come only from generations of collective experience. These recipes reflect the power that food has to bring people together and is a testament to the importance of sustaining traditions and creating new ones.

Notes from a Young Black Chef


Kwame Onwuachi - 2019
    In this memoir, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age. Growing up in the Bronx and Nigeria (where he was sent by his mother to "learn respect"), food was Onwuachi's great love. He launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars he made selling candy on the subway, and trained in the kitchens of some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the country. But the road to success is riddled with potholes. As a young chef, Onwuachi was forced to grapple with just how unwelcoming the world of fine dining can be for people of color, and his first restaurant, the culmination of years of planning, shuttered just months after opening. -Notes from a Young Black Chef is one man's pursuit of his passions, despite the odds.