Favorite books? (not recipe books)

[Tab]

I like reading about the industry and stuff like that, not plain old recipe books (although I do read them for ideas).

I have read:
- Most Michael Ruhlman books ("Making of a Chef", etc)
- "If you can stand the heat" - not the greatest, but interesting
- Tom Collichio's "Think like a chef" (this book is great)
various others.
- "How to read a french fry"
- Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" (though I don't habe a chemistry degree)

I have heard of, but not read:

"No one knows the truffles I've seen"
a few others


Recommendations on anything in this vein?

Thanks

- Tab

[Warpy]

1. Every foodie and wannabe chef needs to read "Heat."

Foodie fast talks his way into the kitchen of one of Batali's restaurants in NYC and learns the biz from prep to grill. Hilarity ensues. He then becomes a foodie dharma bum in Italy, searching out the sources of Italian cuisine. More hilarity ensues.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. I'm reading this now

I recommend it highly.

[Tab]

8. I have heard about this, thank you.

I've been meaning to get it.

[kestrel91316]

2. How To Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons

And TOTALLY OT: Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.......

[shireen]

3. not books, but food-related movies ...

Babette's Feast -- OMG! Unbelievable! It's in Danish with English subtitles. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

Waitress -- I recently saw it on on-demand cable, and loved the pies. So many pies, so little time. Right after watching it, I rushed out to Whole Foods and bought an Apple Pie. :D

But since this is a thread on books, I've got a few food-related sustainable farming books on my reading pile. I can't afford land, so I can pretend to be a farmer in my mind. :)

[Neecy]

4. I've read a couple lately....

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell. Funny and a quick read, and a story of a successful cooking blog.

The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski. The story of Bernard Loiseau. Much of it is about his 2003 suicide - said to be because of rumors that he'd lose his 3rd Michelin star - but the larger story is the tremendous stress the top chefs live with. It also gives a pretty fascinating history of the Michelin Red Guide. I got this in the Amazon.com bargain bin last month and it was well worth the couple of bucks I paid for it. You can probably still find it there.

[fudge stripe cookays]

11. I'll second Julie and Julia.

I was reading it on a plane up to Seattle from DFW, and I think I probably drove me seatmate crazy; I was laughing my ass off. Especially during the part where she had to boil the calves hooves for gelatin. All these really exotic recipes, and half the time they ended up ordering pizza.

Kind of in the same vein is "The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry"; I think her name is Kathleen Flynn. janepippin recommended it to me and I enjoyed it. The woman gets laid off from her job, so decides to take her savings and attend Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

Just heard of another one the other day. I tuned into the public radio station in Milwaukee, and they were interviewing the author of "A Short History of the American Stomach" I think it was, which also sounded interesting. Frederick something was the author. I have it written down at work.

[hippywife]

5. Well, let's see...

I've read:

Heat
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Second Nature, also by Pollan

Now reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, again, by Pollan and have his book, In Defense of Food on request at the library. Last I looked yesterday, I was 21 of 79 requests.

[trof]

7. Anything by the late MFK Fisher.

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was a fascinating woman.
She writes about how to enjoy food. There are a few recipes, but her works aren't cookbooks.
Fantastic writer with a very interesting, non-conformist life.

[Duer 157099]

9. So far, Heat is my favorite "foodie" book

But I'm reading/listening to quite a few lately. Current one is very interesting:

The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice

http://www.amazon.com/Taste-Conquest-Three-Great-Cities/dp/034548083X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205281171&sr=8-1

The smell of sweet cinnamon on your morning oatmeal, the gentle heat of gingerbread, the sharp piquant bite from your everyday peppermill. The tales these spices could tell: of lavish Renaissance banquets perfumed with cloves, and flimsy sailing ships sent around the world to secure a scented prize; of cinnamon-dusted custard tarts and nutmeg-induced genocide; of pungent elixirs and the quest for the pepper groves of paradise.

The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trotting tale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, fickle fashion, and mouthwatering cuisine–in short, the very stuff of which our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, and anecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writer and food historian, tells the story of three legendary cities–Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam–and how their single-minded pursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet and set in motion the first great wave of globalization.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the world’s peoples were irrevocably brought together as a result of the spice trade. Before the great voyages of discovery, Venice controlled the business in Eastern seasonings and thereby became medieval Europe’s most cosmopolitan urban center. Driven to dominate this trade, Portugal’s mariners pioneered sea routes to the New World and around the Cape of Good Hope to India to unseat Venice as Europe’s chief pepper dealer. Then, in the 1600s, the savvy businessmen of Amsterdam “invented” the modern corporation–the Dutch East India Company–and took over as spice merchants to the world.

Sharing meals and stories with Indian pepper planters, Portuguese sailors, and Venetian foodies, Krondl takes every opportunity to explore the world of long ago and sample its many flavors. The spice trade and its cultural exchanges didn’t merely lend kick to the traditional Venetian cookies called peverini, or add flavor to Portuguese sausages of every description, or even make the Indonesian rice table more popular than Chinese takeout in trendy Amsterdam. No, the taste for spice of a few wealthy Europeans led to great crusades, astonishing feats of bravery, and even wholesale slaughter.

As stimulating as it is pleasurable, and filled with surprising insights, The Taste of Conquest offers a fascinating perspective on how, in search of a tastier dish, the world has been transformed.

[Duer 157099]

10. Heads Up: new book coming in May

The Saucier's Apprentice: One Long Strange Trip through the Great Cooking Schools of Europe by Bob Spitz

(although the thought of a saucier named Spitz is a bit... too much)

I'm so hoping this will be another "Heat"-like adventure!

From Amazon:

Book Description
The education of a barbarian in the temples of haute cuisine.

In the blink of an eye, Bob Spitz turned fifty, finished an eight-year book project and a fourteen-year marriage that left him nearly destitute, had his heart stolen and broken on the rebound, and sought salvation the only way he knew how. He fled to Europe, where he hopscotched among the finest cooking schools in pursuit of his dream. The urge to cook like a virtuoso, to unravel the mysteries of the process, had become an obsession.

Spitz hit the fabled cooking-school circuit in a series of idyllic European villages, and The Saucier's Apprentice is a chronicle of his exploits. Combining an outrageous travelogue with gastronomic lore, hands-on cooking instruction, hot-tempered chefs, local personalities, and a batch of memorable recipes, Spitz's odyssey recounts the transformation of a professional writer—and lifelong kitchen amateur—into a world-class cook. 30 illustrations.

About the Author
Bob Spitz is the author of The Beatles, a New York Times bestseller. His articles appear regularly in almost every important magazine and newspaper. He lives in Darien, Connecticut.

[hippywife]

13. Sounds like it's going to be

pretty similar to Heat but with the addition of personal drama.

[fudge stripe cookays]

12. More of a fictional food lovers item, but...

if you dig chick lit AND food writing, this was very cute:

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Love-Anthony-Capella/dp/0670033227/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205720978&sr=1-7

I found it for $1.00 in the bargain rack at the back of Half Price Books, and it was really entertaining. Kind of a Cyrano de Bergerac look at chefs and Rome-- one friend helps another court a pretty American with food, and what ensues.

[wryter2000]

14. I second McGee

Awesome book.

[bicentennial_baby]

15. My List!

On Food and Cooking
Larousse Gastronomique
Kitchen Confidential
The Reach of a Chef
The Soul of a Chef
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

And one I just got that I can't wait to read: Alice Waters and Chez Panisse