The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection


Robert Farrar Capon - 1989
    In The Supper of the Lamb, Capon talks about festal and ferial cooking, emerging as an inspirational voice extolling the benefits and wonders of old-fashioned home cooking in a world of fast food and prepackaged cuisine. This edition includes the original recipes and a new Introduction by Deborah Madison, the founder of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco and author of several cookbooks.

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.

The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites


Libby H. O'Connell - 2014
    But American food, like its history, is a world of its own. This enticingly fresh book introduces modern listeners to lost American food traditions and leads them on a tantalizing culinary journey through the evolution of our vibrant cuisine and culture. Covering a hundred different foods from the Native American-era through today and featuring over a dozen recipes and photos, this fascinating history of American food will delight history buffs and food lovers alike.

If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska


Heather Lende - 2005
    There's no traffic light and no mail delivery; people can vanish without a trace and funerals are a community affair. Heather Lende posts both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper. If anyone knows the going-on in this close-knit town—from births to weddings to funerals—she does. Whether contemplating the mysterious death of eccentric Speedy Joe, who wore nothing but a red union suit and a hat he never took off, not even for a haircut; researching the details of a one-legged lady gold miner's adventurous life; worrying about her son's first goat-hunting expedition; observing the awe-inspiring Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival; or ice skating in the shadow of glacier-studded mountains, Lende's warmhearted style brings us inside her small-town life. We meet her husband, Chip, who owns the local lumber yard; their five children; and a colorful assortment of quirky friends and neighbors, including aging hippies, salty fishermen, native Tlingit Indians, and volunteer undertakers—as well as the moose, eagles, sea lions, and bears with whom they share this wild and perilous land. Like Bailey White's tales of Southern life or Garrison Keillor's reports from the Midwest, NPR commentator Heather Lende's take on her offbeat Alaskan hometown celebrates life in a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful place.

Edible Selby


Todd Selby - 2012
    He takes us behind the scenes with Noma chef René Redzepi in Copenhagen; to Tokyo to have a slice with pizza maker Susumu Kakinuma; and up a hilltop to dine at an inn without an innkeeper in Valdobbiadene. Each profile is accompanied by watercolor illustrations and a handwritten questionnaire, which includes a signature recipe. Reveling in the pleasures of a taco at the beach, foraging for wild herbs, and the art of the perfectly cured olive, Selby captures the food we love to eat and the people who passionately grow, cook, pour, and serve these incredible edibles every day.Praise for Edible Selby:“Todd Selby has turned his curious eye to the kitchens of some of the world’s most imaginative cooks, artisans, and foragers. Far too often, food and the people who produce it are hidden behind closed doors or lost in an industrial food system, so it’s heartening to see this book champion those who have nothing to hide. With Todd’s trademark good humor and disarmingly quirky style, Edible Selby is a pure celebration of the creativity and authenticity of the wonderful individuals who are bringing real food to the table.”- Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant“Todd Selby’s foray into the world of food is every bit as intriguing as his eccentric take on the world of interiors. Long live Signor Selby!”- Simon Doonan, Barneys New York creative ambassador“Edible Selby captures the energy and excitement of today's food world. This book is pure Selby.”- Thomas Keller, The French Laundry“Books On My Gifts List…Photographer Todd Selby’s scrapbook reportage on passionate cooks and famous chefs around the world. Messy, magnificent, inspiring.”—Food & Wine magazine“Exploring the world for food, that’s what Edible Selby is all about…and hopefully, you get really hungry when you read it.” —New York Daily News“Photographer Todd Selby has an uncanny eye for the beauty of the unconventional kitchen; in his second book, he features cooks, chefs, and other culinary creative types in their workspaces—complete with recipes and witty hand-drawn illustrations.” —Saveur“This is a book to read on the couch and leave there. Next you’ll want to go to the kitchen and get crazy and make a mess. You will let your hair down, and the meal will be infused with life.” —TheKitchn.com

International Night: A Father and Daughter Cook Their Way Around the World *Including More than 250 Recipes*


Mark Kurlansky - 2014
    Their tradition of International Night has afforded Mark an opportunity to share with his daughter, Talia--and now the readers of International Night--the recipes, stories, and insights he's collected over more than thirty years of traveling the world writing about food, culture, and history, and his charming pen-and-ink drawings, which appear throughout the book.International Night is brimming with recipes for fifty-two special meals--appetizers, a main course, side dishes, and dessert for each--one for every week of the year. Some are old favorites from Mark's repertoire, and others gleaned from research. Always, they are his own version, drawn from techniques he learned as a professional chef and from many years of talking to chefs, producers, and household cooks around the world. Despite these insights, every recipe is designed to be carried out--easily--by any amateur chef, and they are designed to be completed with the assistance of children.Mark and Talia invite you and your family into their kitchen, outfitted with overflowing packets of exotic spices and aromas of delicacies from Tanzania and Kazakhstan to Cuba and Norway. From there, recipes and toothsome morsels of cultural and historical information will fill your bellies and your minds, and transport you to countries all around the world.

Letters to a Young Chef


Daniel Boulud - 2003
    A modern improviser with a classical foundation (a little rock 'n' roll and a lot of Mozart, he'd say), he speaks with the authority that comes from a lifetime of preparing, presenting, and thinking about food-an ancient calling with universal resonance. In Letters to a Young Chef, Boulud speaks not only of how to make a career as a chef in today's world, but also of why one should want to do so in the first place. As he himself puts it, it is "a tasty life." The love of food and the obsession with flavors, ingredients, and techniques are the chef's source of strength, helping the young chef to survive and flourish during the long years of apprenticeship and their necessary sacrifices. Part memoir, part advice book, part cookbook, part reverie, this delicious new book will delight and enlighten chefs of all kinds, from passionate amateurs to serious professionals.

Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Recipes from the Heart


Pauline Nguyen - 2007
    Pauline Nguyen's parents presented these recipes night after night at the highly successful Vietnamese restaurant The Red Lantern, and these were recipes which had been perfected and passed down over many years. The great majority of these recipes are easily achievable, utilising a relatively small range of ingredients; they include such delights as Pho Bo Tai Nam, a beef soup with sawtooth coriander and Vietnamese basil, or pork belly (Thit Ba Roi). All are presented here in a concise and accessible fashion. But recipes are not all that Secrets of the Red Lantern has to offer. This is more than a cookbook: it is a candid and often moving story of Pauline Nguyen's family, beginning with their dangerous escape from Vietnam during the war and their ultimate settling down in Australia. The love of food is something more than a professional necessity for this family: it helped to assuage their home sickness, and even reconciled differences within the family (these personal passages are quite as beguiling as the more practical cookery aspects of the book). Most of all, though, this is a feast of the most tantalising of foreign recipes, burnished with food and personal photography -- and it is the latter which conveys the very individual nature of the food so resplendently on offer here. --Barry Forshaw

Tokyo on Foot: Travels in the City's Most Colorful Neighborhoods


Florent Chavouet - 2009
    Each day he would set forth, with a pouch full of colored pencils and a sketchpad, to visit different neighborhoods. This stunning book records the city that he got to know during his adventures, a gritty, vibrant place, full of ordinary people going about their daily lives. Realistically rendered city views or posters of pop stars contrast with cartoon sketches of iconic objects or droll vignettes, like a housewife walking her pet pig and a Godzilla statue in a local park.With wit, a playful sense of humor, and the colored pencils of his kit, Florent Chavouet sets aside the question of urban ugliness or beauty and captures the Japanese essence of a great city.

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter


Steve Dublanica - 2008
    The remaining twenty percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths. WAITER RANT offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's really thrived."The other shoe finally drops. The front-of-the-house version of Kitchen Confidential; a painfully funny, excruciatingly true-life account of the waiter's life. As useful as it is entertaining. You will never look at your waiter the same way again�and will never tip less than 20%." --Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential"I really enjoyed WAITER RANT. The book is engaging and funny, a story told from my polar opposite perspective. I will now do my best to act better as a Chef -- and I dare say, I'll never be rude to a waiter again, as long as I live."--John DeLucie, Chef of The Waverly Inn

Balancing in Heels: My Journey to Health, Happiness, and Making it all Work


Kristin Cavallari - 2016
    

White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen


Walter Scheib - 2006
    . . . Hillary Clinton had charged this fiercely competitive, meticulously organized chef with bringing 'what's best about American food, wine, and entertaining to the White House.' His sophisticated contemporary food was generally considered some of the best ever served there."--Marian Burros, New York TimesWhite House ChefJoin Walter Scheib as he serves up a taste--in stories and recipes--of his eleven years as White House chef under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.Scheib takes readers along on his whirlwind adventure, from his challenging audition process right up until his controversial departure. He describes his approach to meals ranging from the intimate (rooftop parties and surprise birthday celebrations for the Clintons; Tex-Mex brunches for the Bushes) to his creative approach to bringing contemporary American cuisine to the "people's house" (including innovative ways to serve state dinners for up to seven hundred people and picnics and holiday menus for several thousand guests).Scheib goes beyond the kitchen and his job as chef. He shares what it is like to be part of President Clinton's motorcade (the "security bubble") and inside the White House during 9/11, revealing how he first evacuates his staff and then comes back to fix meals for hundreds of hungry security and rescue personnel. Staying cool under pressure also helps Scheib in other aspects of his job, such as withstanding the often-changing "temperature" of the White House and satisfying the culinary sensibilities of two very different first families.

Antoni in the Kitchen


Antoni Porowski - 2019
    With appealing vulnerability, he shows cooks of all levels how to become more confident and casual in the kitchen. The verve and naturalness of his approach earned raves from Food & Wine and Bon Appétit to GQ and the New York Times, which noted his dishes prove that “sometimes simple is anything but simplistic.” Some of the recipes in this book are weeknight healthyish meals, while others are perfect for off-the-cuff entertaining. Visual stunners, they’re often composed of fewer than five ingredients. Whether Bastardized Easy Ramen; Malaysian Chili Shrimp; Roasted Carrots with Carrot-Top Pesto; or Salty Lemon Squares, all are visual stunners and can be carried off with panache, even by beginners.

Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World


Rita Golden Gelman - 2010
    She sold all her possessions and became a nomad. She wrote a book about her ongoing journey and, in 2001, insisted on putting her personal e-mail address in the last chapter—against all advice. It turned out to be a fortuitous decision. She has met thousands of readers, stayed in their homes, and sat around kitchen tables sharing stories and food and laughter. In this essay collection, Gelman includes her own further adventures, as well as those of writers and readers telling tales of the shared humanity they experienced in their travels. The stories are funny and sad, poignant and tender, familiar and bizarre. They will make you laugh and cry and maybe even send you off on your own adventure. Also included are fabulous international recipes such as vegetarian dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), chiles en nogada (stuffed poblano chiles topped with a white cream sauce with walnuts and a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds), and ho mok (an extraordinary fish-coconut custard from Thailand). Happy reading—and bon appétit, selamat makan, buen provecho!

Whatchagot Stew: A Memoir of an Idaho Childhood, with Recipes and Commentaries


Patrick F. McManus - 1989
    "Read the memoir first . . . (or) you might select one of my mother's recipes and foolishly believe that because the recipe is included in a cookbook, it must be something to eat".--Pat McManus.