Looking for recommendations on books about cooking or chefs but not cookbooks!
Looking for recommendations on books about cooking or chefs but not cookbooks!
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Looking for recommendations on books about cooking or chefs but not cookbooks!
Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, along with the 2 sequels. Guy Fieri’s books regarding Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.
Jennifer Jones Fernandez I second kitchen confidential + sequels. ❤️ AB
@Jennifer agreed. His sequels were very good too.
@Nicole Love all her books!
I just finished her book Tender at the Bone. So good. Yummy recipes too – not that I’m going to cook or anything.
love all her books❤️
Delicious! was one of my faves!
another vote for Ruth Reichl — love all of her stuff!!
Kitchens of the Great Midwest is good if you’re looking for fiction
If you like Mysteries check out Diane Mott Davidson
Anthony Bourdain books,
Currently reading Love, Loss and What we Ate by Padma Lakshmi (of Top Chef fame) and enjoying it.
Check Stacey Ballis books. Recipes are in the books too 🙂
I was just going to say that! ?
@Kristin I love her books.
Haha you and I thought alike
I agree – check out Stacey Ballis’s books, they’re great!
Stacy Ballis books are great reads and mention cooking and kitchens and all kinds of food stuffs
The Glass Kitchen by Linda Francis Lee
Here’s to Us, Elin Hilderbrand
MFK Fisher, always.
How To Cook A Wolf (one of my favorites!)
https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Foot-Journey-Richard-C-Morais/dp/1439165653
They turned it into a movie as well!
I loved the movie!
Yes chef. By Marcus Samuelson awesome book about his life
@Karen I second this one.
Agree!
Delicious by Ruth Reichl.
@Kate Garlic and Sapphires is good too
Like Water for Chocolate
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan- it seems like they were always cooking.
Blue Bistro
Julie and Julia, the main character cooks her way through Julia Child’s cookbook. Very loosely cooking related but a good book that’s also a movie.
Just finished The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living and enjoyed it. My mouth was watering as I read it.
32 Yolks by Eric Ripert
My celebrity boyfriend…
Devil in the Kitchen – Marco Pierre White
My Life in France – Julia Child
I loved this. It’s fiction but it’s based on MK Fischer. Food Writer
Grant Achatz, life on the line
My Life in France’ by Julia Child with Alex Pru’domme.
The soul of a chef, life on the line, becoming a chef (that may be better for those going into culinary I had to read t for school lol)
Kitchen Confidential
Anything by Stacey Ballis!
Stacey Ballis books! She and Jen Lancaster are friends.
As said above Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain And Yes Chef by Samuelsson
If you are wanting fluff, the Dianne Mott Davidson was fun.
@Suzy Agree! Total fluff but the recipes were actually awesome that were at the beginning or end of the chapters – can’t remember where they were.
@Tracie i finally got ok with the fact that not every book has to be War and Peace…or even Separate Peace. I like Goldy and the gang.
<3
Kitchen Confidential, definitely! & Give A Girl A Knife
Delancey by Molly Wizenberg
So I know you said no cookbooks…but are you looking for just general instructions on cooking? Cause Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is amazing…though yes there are recipes. But the way she writes about food and the places and her Netflix show are amazing.
I am in love with this book!
@Vanessa It is an awesome book!
Oh and Salt or Cod
But they are each more about the history of ….
He recently wrote one on milk that is interesting as well.
Julie and Julia, Kitchen Confidential, My Life In France.
Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain
The Devil in the Kitchen by White
32 Yolks by Ripert
Yes, Chef by Samuelsson
Cooking as Fast as I Can by Cora
The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Pepin
That’s what I have off the top of my head. I’ll have to check, I have tons in that genre.
Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness. By Sasha Martin
A Homemade Life. The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry.
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones and Living in a Foreign Language by Michael Tucker (added benefits of travel journal too)
Kitchen Confidential
Pancakes in Paris.
Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin
Julie and Julia
The Recipe Box by Viola Shipman
https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Happiness-James-Villas/dp/0758228481/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1548039835&sr=8-12&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=hungry+for+happiness
My Life in France about the life of Julia Child
Julia Child’s books about her time in France are wonderful.
Anything by Ruth Reichl
I ❤️ Garlic and Sapphires.
Bones, Blood and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The $64 Tomato by William Alexander, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser (This one has recipes, but they all tie into the story) Anything by Michael Pollan
Stacey Ballis books?
Fiction with this as a centerpiece, or instructional?
Books by Stacy Ballis!
Yes, Chef!
Yes Chef. Marcus Samuelson biography. Loved it
Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunée
Heat
Anthony bourdain, kitchen confidential.
Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, The Art of Eating by MFK Fisher
Julie and Julia
Cooking Know-How by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough
Here’s to Us – Elin Hilderbrand
Prune
I just finished Delancey. I am now actively planning a trip to the restaurant in Seattle.
I loved Born Round by Frank Bruni. Not a chef but the NYT food critic.
Anthony Bourdain!
My Life in France – Julia Child
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.
The Shaper the Knife, the less you cry by Kathleen Flinn.
A couple of books by Molly Wizenberg; A Homemade Life & Delancey.
I love memoirs around food….
Read Stacey Ballis books or Al Rokers Morningshow Murder Books.
Stacey Ballis is the BEST!!! Love her books
Agree!
I hadn’t read her before, but read Out to Lunch this weekend and LOVED it.
Jacques Pepin has an autobiography which is really excellent.
All the Anthony Bourdain memoirs, also good.
Also “must’ve been something I ate” by Jeffery Steingarten(and he has another one also).
@Soren these are all awesome!
@Michelle thanks! I love Jacques on tv and his biography makes me love him more. And Jeffrey was a judge on Iron Chef America the first time around (not the recent reboot) and he is such a character.
A couple of fiction books that fit the bill and are quite good are. Chocolat A Novel by Joann Harris and A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle.
a year in Provence is non-fiction though. Several sequels all fun too!
@Soren I love all his books! He wrote a couple of fiction ones, too.
@Audrey Bourdain? Yes! I’ve not read them but I think I bought one at a signing…
@Soren you are right. I may have to check out the sequels.
@Donna if you liked the first, the others go on the same vein. I haven’t read them in years but I remember really enjoying them!
@Soren I meant Peter Mayle, but it’s all good!
Apron Anxiety
I didn’t see it on here yet but Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton is also fabulous.
@Tracie I loved the way she wrote about the food. I could almost taste it. She didn’t come off as very likable or someone I’d want to know at all though.
@Dawn Agree – not someone I’d seek out to be besties with. But I’d love to eat her food! ?
Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, Marcus Samuelsson
Julia julia
Kerry Greenwood, the Corina Chapman series.
The Kitchen Counter Cooking School and by Kathleen Flinn.
Oh, oh….Ruth Reichl! Garlic & Sapphires was great.
Blood Bones and Butter was my favorite
The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
For fiction “The School of Essential Ingredients ” by Erica Bauermeister. Almost any book by Stacy Ballis.
Stacy Ballis books
It’s an older one but Heartburn by Nora Ephron
Julie and Julia.
John Baxter’s books about cooking and eating in France are very good…
Delicious by Ruth Reichl
Love Godess Cooking School by Melissa Senate
The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig
Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
Frances Mayes wrote several great books (including Under the Tuscan Sun) about learning to cook from her Italian neighbors.
Following. Such great recommendations.
Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Real Food Fake Food by Larry Olmsted
Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson. It’s about his life and how he developed as a chef.
52 Loaves: One man’s relentless pursuit of truth meaning and a perfect crust by William Alexander
He also wrote The $64 Tomato about gardening. One of my favorites!
I love biographies on Julia Child and there are several out there.
Girls Guide to Love and Supper Clubs by Dana Bates
I like Anthony Bourdain’s books. He was a very flawed human, as we all are, but an interesting one. Also, I read my first Stacey Ballis this weekend, and LOVED it.
Stacey Ballis writes books about chefs. I don’t have titles off the tip of my brain, but she’s written several.
Madeline Bean Culinary Mysteries by Jerrilyn Farmer
Out to Lunch and Off the Menu…both books by Stacey Ballis
Julie & Julia, as well as most of Stacey Ballis’s books.
Diane Mott Davidson, The Goldy the caterer series!
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.
@Dana one of the BEST books I’ve ever read!!
I held off on reading this for a long time because I found him somewhat off-putting. After he died, I decided to check out the audiobook, and I’m glad I did; it put him in better context for me. The chapter on kitchen tools for the home cook was especially useful. I love the audiobook because it’s read by him and so you can really picture him in all these wild situations he describes.
I need to reread this. Great book!
Anthony bourdain or Ruth reichl
My girlfriend went to culinary school and recommended “Blood, Bones and Butter” by Gabrielle Hamilton to me a few years ago. Still one of the most insightful and captivating books I’ve ever read. And I also learned a good bit while reading!
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat….explains how each of these 4 things influence cooking. It’s been turned into a Netflix mini series as well.
@Cindy I love the Netflix show! I think I will start there. Thanks!
Food Lab
The School for Essential Ingredients, several years old but really delicious https://www.amazon.com/School-Essential-Ingredients-Novel-ebook/dp/B001Q8V6N0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548080093&sr=8-1&keywords=the+school+of+essential+ingredients
My Life in France by Julia Child.
Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn
@Stacy is the title a reference to onions or culinary school ???♀️
Haha!! Maybe a bit of both ?
@Stacy exactly.
Tender at the Bone. Excellent. By the former New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Rhiel.
The 100 foot journey
Like water for chocolate
Also Michael Pollen’s books are good.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/480479.Under_the_Tuscan_Sun?ac=1&from_search=true
Julie and Julia, but to honest, I saw the movie instead of reading the book…?
I’m enjoying ‘Kitchen Confidential’✔️
@Samantha, if you like that, check out A Cook’s Tour next. I love all of his books, but that’s probably my favorite.
@Christine thank you, I will!
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
There are anthologies of the best food writing too. Best American Food Writing (insert year) is a series. They might be worth looking for…
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Peppercorn by Fuschia Dunlop was one of the most fun books I read last year.
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl. I loved this book!
ANYthing by Ruth Reichl
Stacy Ballis writes fiction with a definite foodie influence.
Like fiction regarding chefs/ cooking?
The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry and Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn. Also echo Stacey Ballis.
Julie and Julia.