The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love


Kristin Kimball - 2010
    But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she interviewed a dynamic young farmer, her world changed. Kristin knew nothing about growing vegetables, let alone raising pigs and cattle and driving horses. But on an impulse, smitten, if not yet in love, she shed her city self and moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start a new farm with him. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of their first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through the following harvest season—complete with their wedding in the loft of the barn. Kimball and her husband had a plan: to grow everything needed to feed a community. It was an ambitious idea, a bit romantic, and it worked. Every Friday evening, all year round, a hundred people travel to Essex Farm to pick up their weekly share of the "whole diet"—beef, pork, chicken, milk, eggs, maple syrup, grains, flours, dried beans, herbs, fruits, and forty different vegetables—produced by the farm. The work is done by draft horses instead of tractors, and the fertility comes from compost. Kimball’s vivid descriptions of landscape, food, cooking—and marriage—are irresistible. "As much as you transform the land by farming," she writes, "farming transforms you." In her old life, Kimball would stay out until four a.m., wear heels, and carry a handbag. Now she wakes up at four, wears Carhartts, and carries a pocket knife. At Essex Farm, she discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work, learns that good food is at the center of a good life, falls deeply in love, and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man, a small town, and a beautiful piece of land

Dinner: A Love Story: It All Begins at the Family Table


Jenny Rosenstrach - 2012
    Even when they work long days. Even when their kids' schedules pull them in eighteen different directions. They are not superhuman. They are not from another planet.With simple strategies and common sense, Jenny figured out how to break down dinner—the food, the timing, the anxiety, from prep to cleanup—so that her family could enjoy good food, time to unwind, and simply be together.Using the same straight-up, inspiring voice that readers of her award-winning blog, Dinner: A Love Story, have come to count on, Jenny never judges and never preaches. Every meal she dishes up is a real meal, one that has been cooked and eaten and enjoyed at least a half dozen times by someone in Jenny's house. With inspiration and game plans for any home cook at any level, Dinner: A Love Story is as much for the novice who doesn't know where to start as it is for the gourmand who doesn't know how to start over when she finds herself feeding an intractable toddler or for the person who never thought about home-cooked meals until he or she became a parent. This book is, in fact, for anyone interested in learning how to make a meal to be shared with someone they love, and about how so many good, happy things happen when we do.

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.

French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters


Karen Le Billon - 2012
    But she didn't expect to be lectured for slipping her fussing toddler a snack, or to be forbidden from packing her older daughter a school lunch. Karen is intrigued by the fact that French children happily eat everything—from beets to broccoli, from salad to spinach—while French obesity rates are a fraction of what they are in North America.Karen soon begins to see the wisdom in the "food rules" that the French use to foster healthy eating habits and good manners in babies and children. Some of the rules call into question both our eating habits and our parenting styles. Other rules evoke commonsense habits that we used to share but have somehow forgotten. Taken together, the rules suggest that we need to dramatically rethink the way we feed children, at home and at school.Combining personal anecdotes with practical tips and appetizing recipes—including Zucchini and Spinach Puree and Bouillabaisse (Fish Soup) for Babies—French Kids Eat Everything is a humorous, provocative look at families, food, and children that is filled with inspiration and advice that every parent can use.

Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing


Jennifer Weiner - 2016
    In her first foray into nonfiction, she takes the raw stuff of her personal life and spins into a collection of essays on modern womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Tina Fey, Fran Lebowitz, and Nora Ephron.Jennifer grew up as an outsider in her picturesque Connecticut hometown (“a Lane Bryant outtake in an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot”) and at her Ivy League college, but finally found her people in newsrooms in central Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, and her voice as a novelist, activist, and New York Times columnist.No subject is off-limits in this intimate and honest essay collection: sex, weight, envy, money, her mom’s newfound lesbianism, and her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to modern childbirth to hearing her six-year-old daughter’s use of the f-word—fat­­—for the first time, Jennifer Weiner goes there, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.By turns hilarious and deeply touching, this collection shows that the woman behind treasured novels like Good in Bed and Best Friends Forever is every bit as winning, smart, and honest in real life as she is in her fiction.

Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans


Michelle Tam - 2013
     Nom Nom Paleo is a visual feast, crackling with humor and packed with stunningly photographed step-by-step recipes free of gluten, soy, and added sugar. Designed to inspire the whole family to chow down on healthy, home-cooked meals, this cookbook compiles over 100 foolproof recipes that demonstrate how fun and flavorful cooking with wholesome ingredients can be. And did we mention the cartoons?Nom Nom Paleo kicks off with a fresh introduction to Paleo eating, taking readers on a guided tour of author Michelle Tam's real-food strategies for stocking the kitchen, saving time, and maximizing flavors. Also, sprinkled throughout the book are enlightening features on feeding kids, packing nutritious lunches, boosting umami, and much more.But the heart of this book is Michelle's award-winning recipes, 50 percent of which are brand-new—even to diehard fans who own her bestselling iPad cookbook app. Readers can start by marrying their favorite ingredients with building blocks like Sriracha Mayonnaise, Louisiana Remoulade, and the infamous Magic Mushroom Powder. These basic recipes lay the foundation for many of the fabulous delights in the rest of the book including Eggplant & "Ricotta" Stacks, Crab Louie, and Devils on Horseback.There's something for everyone in this cookbook, from small bites like Apple Chips and Kabalagala (Ugandan plantain fritters) to family-sized platters of Coconut Pineapple Rice and Siu Yoke (crispy roast pork belly). Crave exotic spices? You won't be able to resist the fragrant aromas of Fast Pho or Mulligatawny Soup. In the mood for down-home comforts? Make some Yankee Pot Roast or Chicken Nuggets drizzled with Lemon Honey Sauce. When a quick weeknight meal is in order, Nom Nom Paleo can show you how to make Crispy Smashed Chicken or Whole-Roasted Branzini in less than 30 minutes. And for a cold treat on a hot day, nothing beats Mocha Popsicles or a two-minute Strawberry Banana Ice Cream.Healthy cooking doesn't mean sacrificing flavor. This book gives you "Paleo with personality," and will make you excited to play in the kitchen again.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us


Michael Moss - 2013
    They ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, almost none of which comes from salt shakers. It comes from processed food, an industry that hauls in $1 trillion in annual sales. In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how this happened. Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century--including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more--Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research. He goes inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the "bliss point" of sugary beverages or enhance the "mouth feel" of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing techniques taken straight from tobacco company playbooks to redirect concerns about the health risks of products. He talks to concerned executives who explain that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: the industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat.

A Year and Six Seconds: A Memoir of Stumbling from Heartbreak to Happiness


Isabel Gillies - 2011
    "A Year and Six Seconds" is the true story of "New York Times"-bestselling memoirist Gillies's vibrant yet bumbling efforts to pick herself up after her husband leaves her for another woman--and then of how she stumbles upon true love.

How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart


Pam Anderson - 2000
    Times have changed. Today we have an overwhelming array of ingredients and a fraction of the cooking time, but Anderson believes the secret to getting dinner on the table lies in the past. After a long day, who has the energy to look up a recipe and search for the right ingredients before ever starting to cook? To make dinner night after night, Anderson believes the first two steps--looking for a recipe, then scrambling for the exact ingredients--must be eliminated.  Understanding that most recipes are simply "variations on a theme," she innovatively teaches technique, ultimately eliminating the need for recipes.Once the technique or formula is mastered, Anderson encourages inexperienced as well as veteran cooks to spread their culinary wings.  For example, after learning to sear a steak, it's understood that the same method works for scallops, tuna, hamburger, swordfish, salmon, pork tenderloin, and more. You never need to look at a recipe again. Vary the look and flavor of these dishes with interchangeable pan sauces, salsas, relishes, and butters.Best of all, these recipes rise above the mundane Monday-through-Friday fare.  Imagine homemade ravioli and lasagna for weeknight supper, or from-scratch tomato sauce before the pasta water has even boiled.  Last-minute guests? Dress up simple tomato sauce with capers and olives or shrimp and red pepper flakes. Drizzle sautéed chicken breasts with a balsamic vinegar pan sauce. Anderson teaches you how to do it--without a recipe. Don't buy exotic ingredients and follow tedious instructions for making hors d'oeuvres. Forage through the pantry and refrigerator for quick appetizers. The ingredients are all there; the method is in your head. Master four simple potato dishes--a bake, a cake, a mash, and a roast--compatible with many meals. Learn how to make the five-minute dinner salad, easily changing its look and flavor depending on the season and occasion. Tuck a few dessert techniques in your back pocket and effortlessly turn any meal into a special occasion.There's real rhyme and reason to Pam's method at the beginning of every chapter: To dress greens, "Drizzle salad with oil, salt, and pepper, then toss until just slick. Sprinkle in some vinegar to give it a little kick." To make a frittata, "Cook eggs without stirring until set around the edges. Bake until puffy, then cut it into wedges." Each chapter also contains a helpful at-a-glance chart that highlights the key points of every technique, and a master recipe with enough variations to keep you going until you've learned how to cook without a book.

How I Learned to Cook: Culinary Educations from the World's Greatest Chefs


Kimberly Witherspoon - 2006
    Hilarious, touching, and always surprising, they cover everything from early adversity to career-making triumphs. How I Learned to Cook is an irresistible treat for cooks (and foodies) of all abilities, and includes stories by such culinary giants as Ferran Adria, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Gabrielle Hamilton, Suzanne Goin, Eric Ripert, and more...

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine


Elizabeth David - 1984
    Contains delightful explorations of food and cooking, among which are the collection's namesake essay and many other gems; with black-and-white photographs and illustrations.

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World


Matthew Goodman - 2013
    Also departing from New York that day—and heading in the opposite direction by train - was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland. Each woman was determined to outdo Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg and circle the globe in less than eighty days. The dramatic race that ensued would span twenty-eight thousand miles, captivate the nation, and change both competitors' lives forever. The two women were a study in contrasts. Nellie Bly was a scrappy, hard-driving, ambitious reporter from Pennsylvania coal country who sought out the most sensational news stories, often going undercover to expose social injustice. Genteel and elegant, Elizabeth Bisland had been born into an aristocratic Southern family, preferred novels and poetry to newspapers, and was widely referred to as the most beautiful woman in metropolitan journalism. Both women, though, were talented writers who had carved out successful careers in the hypercompetitive, male-dominated world of big-city newspapers. Eighty Days brings these trailblazing women to life as they race against time and each other, unaided and alone, ever aware that the slightest delay could mean the difference between victory and defeat. A vivid real-life re-creation of the race and its aftermath, from its frenzied start to the nail-biting dash at its finish, Eighty Days is history with the heart of a great adventure novel. Here's the journey that takes us behind the walls of Jules Verne's Amiens estate, into the back alleys of Hong Kong, onto the grounds of a Ceylon tea plantation, through storm-tossed ocean crossings and mountains blocked by snowdrifts twenty feet deep, and to many more unexpected and exotic locales from London to Yokohama. Along the way, we are treated to fascinating glimpses of everyday life in the late nineteenth century - an era of unprecedented technological advances, newly remade in the image of the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph. For Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland - two women ahead of their time in every sense of the word—were not only racing around the world. They were also racing through the very heart of the Victorian age.

Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life


Frances Mayes - 1998
    Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roofin the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany--and with it a lively engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention tolife in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden.Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons thathave become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, andof the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began. With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate and inviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life."

In Memory of Bread: A Memoir


Paul Graham - 2016
    Gone, too, were some of his favorite hobbies, including brewing beer with a buddy and gorging on his wife’s homemade breads. Struggling to understand why he and so many others had become allergic to wheat, barley, rye, oats, and other dietary staples, Graham researched the production of modern wheat and learned that not only has the grain been altered from ancestral varieties but it’s also commonly added to thousands of processed foods.      In writing that is effortless and engaging, Paul explores why incidence of the disease is on the rise while also grappling with an identity crisis—given that all his favorite pastimes involved wheat in some form. His honest, unflinching, and at times humorous journey towards health and acceptance makes an inspiring read.

Redefining Success: Still Making Mistakes


W. Brett Wilson - 2012
    Brett Wilson, Dragons' Den co-star and Risky Business host, often gets asked about his secrets to success. He became one of Canada's top investment bankers because he was driven, willing to take risks and saw opportunity where others saw roadblocks.But along the path to business success, he tripped over a multitude of misguided priorities. For many years, Wilson pursued business with uncompromising focus, working long hours, seven days a week. In the process, his marriage and his health suffered greatly: he was rarely home as his children were growing up, divorce became inevitable and cancer struck at age forty-three. He truly learned the hard way that one can find financial success and the respect of business peers while almost losing what matters most: health, family and friends.Redefining Success details how Wilson was forced to redefine his life, making health and key relationships his first priorities. Through trial and error, he discovered that these simple virtues are foundational for real, enduring success, both in business and in life. Wilson's compelling insights are the basis for Redefining Success. Not just for entrepreneurs and business people, the book outlines how we can change our lives for the better by re-evaluating our personal definitions of success, then reworking them into a life plan that is feasible, lasting and rewarding.Inspirational and paradigm-changing, Redefining Success will help you implement and sustain lasting, positive change in your life—and make your world a little more meaningful—every day.