Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

The link leads nowhere, but I'm interested in hearing the titles of the books.

I've been doing some food-related summer reading. I was assigned to review The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table. It's taking me forever to get through it because I've been so swamped with work lately, but I'm loving it and I'm learning so much. I've gone all my life not realizing that cheese should be seasonal!

I highly reccomend Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée. It's a beautiful food memoir.

I highly recommend Ruth Reichl's autobiographical books -"Tender at the Bone," "Comfort Me With Apples," "Garlic and Gapphires," "Not Becoming My Mother," in chronological order. The multi-James Beard award winning chief editor of Gourmet (and the editor of "The Gourmet Cookbook" and many of their other books, she was the restaurant critic of the NY Times, The LA Times and other publications, a restauranteur and caterer before that. They're great entertainment interspersed heart tugging memories, including recipes. Reichl, who started her foodie career waitressing while in college, writes about growing up with a manic depressive but highly creative and often loony mom (who couldn't cook), learning to cook and learning to write, her life as the cook in a hippie commune in the 60's in San Francisco, her relationships marriages (one disaster, one good), struggles to have family, deal with neuroses, struggles with editors, fellow journalists, neighbors, and chefs, including wonderful and lyrical food writing.

They're sure to keep any Serious Eater busy for the summer - I recommend them very highly.

I second all of Ruth Reichl's books...or anything else she writes, for that matter. I've mentioned my favorite book several times on this site...The United States of Arugala. Never wanted it to end.

Another of my favorite writers is Alan Richman. Don't remember the name of his book but search it and then read it. LOL funny and such a down to earth, no nonsense approach.

i've read both. the book by wizenberg is ok. the melucci book made me want to scream and throw it across the room. the woman is really, really stupid when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex and operates from a place of zero self esteem or self awareness. ugh.

if we're discussing new food memoirs, i enjoyed spice by dahlia jurgenson, dirty dishes by pino luongo, and passion on the vine by sergio esposito.

there was an article somewhere recently about how bourdain spawned this chef memoir genre and how he made it look so easy but it's not. i'd have to agree.

i have to agree with the rec. for ruth reichl's memoirs. they are beautifully written and vastly entertaining.

If you like anything remotely political, I'd recommend The Cuisines of the Axis of Evil.... I'd never heard of it until a friend gave it as a birthday gift last year. It's funny, enlightening, and the author is acutely aware of how intimately food and politics can be tied together. Plus, excellent recipies throughout.

The "made spaghetti" book sounds, from what I read, absolutely dreadful--the typical 'tee-hee, men can't commit' memoir. Additionally, the woman works in publishing and from what I read of excerpts it sounds like someone who can't write very well who got her book published as a result of her connections. If you think I'm being harsh, here is a review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/books/review/Muhlke-t.html

Any chick lit book that calls men "unfathomable creatures" makes me want to hurl, and adding recipes with that sentiment only makes it worse...

I agree with all of @gatronomeg's recs, btw.

I look at the Orangette blog from time to time. It's very nice and I could see why people like it, but I like an earthier, less self-consciously jolie approach to food. I've seen the Melucci's spaghetti memoir, but have resisted picking it up from the same reasons Heart of Glass cites.

The best food related memoir I've read is Elisabeth Luard's "Family Life, " which may have to be ordered via Amazon.co.uk. Luard is the author of my favorite panEuropean cookbook, "The Old World Kitchen." I also love the two collections of food essays by Laurie Colwin.

If you haven't read them, I also recommend Ruth Reichl's books. They were the first in the food memoir genre that I read and they are some of the best. I also liked Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr Latte. I found it to be a good mix of food/recipes and chick lit, if you are into that sort of thing

Heat by Bill Buford is a fantastic book for summer reading

@mermil those are my favorite books too!! I love Laurie Colwin and cried when she passed away suddenly. I think I have read Simple Cooking at least 6 times and I've read Lora Brody's books at least a dozen. And I have a fantasy to call the Sterns and invite them for dinner with my family!!
Great picks.

Just finished Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. I quite liked it - I'm sure you know the story.

shark's fin soup and szechuan pepper by fuschia dunlop.

Orangette is a great cook - - her recipes are simple, smart, and straightforward. Don't knock a good cookbook - they are hard to come by. I think Ruth Reichl is overrated and a little breathless - if this is sacrilege, so be it. Try some foodie history, maybe? If you haven't read anything by Laura Shapiro you're in for a treat: her Julia Child bio, or Something from the Oven, or Perfection Salad. Ditto David Kamp's United States of Arugula, thoughtful and charming, and Anne Mendelsohn's brilliant new book, MILK.

As a college professor who teaches in this area, consistent student favorites are Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires," and Diana Abu-Jaber's "Language of Baklava." Also, for wine lovers, I highly recommend "Wine and War" by Don & Petie Kladstrup. Its a fantastic and funny history of how French wine makers resisted and defied the Nazi occupation (such as sending the Nazi's their garbage wine and labeling it "reserve").

Not really "light reading," but I'm very much enjoying "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, all the same. I'm trying to get through it rather quickly, as I want to be finished with it before Food, Inc. opens here on Friday.

Wine books are more interesting these days with the glut of food books on the market. As others have mentioned, you can't go wrong with Heat or any of the Ruhlman books. Bourdain deserves more recognition because he made food writing look so easy and most of the later tell-alls just don't hit the mark.

If you like wine, I highly recommend George Taber's "Judgement of Paris". It gives a good history of some key players in Napa Valley and pends a decent amount of time on the wine industry and trends in general. The movie Bottle Shock was loosely based on the events, very loosely as in most of what in the movie never really happened!

Another good wine book is Billionaires Vinegar. Some good stories of the wine world and the excesses of the 80s and trophy wines.

i LOVE this thread! I have read food-related books almost exclusively for the past year and a half and have run out of books on my "to read" list, so this is great. Here are some that i've enjoyed:

Heat - Bill Buford

My Life in France - Julia Child

The $64 Tomato - William Alexander (very funny account of a man's fight against groundhogs & deer that keep eating the prized fruit of his garden)

Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn - Catherine Friend (another funny writer, telling how she and her partner picked themselves up out of their urban surroundings and moved to the country to become sheep farmers, and how out of their element two city-slicking lesbians were among their fellow sheep farmers)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

United States of Arugula - Kamp (essentially a history of the big food names in the country)

Enjoy!!!

I love Wizenberg's A Homemade Life. Simple, touching stories with simple, tasty recipes. Her writing is very sweet and cute with a feel-good aftertaste.

I also like Reichl's memoirs, especially Comfort Me With Apples.

I bought "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen" by Jacques Pepin a few months ago, after I saw him give a lecture at the MFA...but, I seem to have misplaced it. Has anyone read it? If so, is it worth the read?

I like the Sterns (Jane and Michael) too. They are so unpretentious.

Oh, for pity's sake, everyone! Reading this is de riguer! If you have not read it or are not planning to read it, you are missing the boat. Getcher heads in gear.

Indeed, sugartoast, I'm not an Amanda Hesser fan... her articles were one of the reasons I stopped subscribing to the NY Times, and the Orangette blog reminded me a little of Ms. Hesser's approach to food.

I also am a big fan of Nigel Slater's cookbook, Appetite, and have a few others, but "Toast" was TMI for me.

sugartoast, i'm a big hesser fan. i wish she'd write more of those mister latte essays, i loved them.

Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Nguyen is a wonderful food-oriented memoir about a Vietnamese girl's attempt to assimilate into the U.S. in the 1970's. (She envied the Jiffy corn muffins of her elementary school friends while she ate pho at home.)

Also highly recommend Miriam's Kitchen by Elizabeth Ehrlich -- one woman's search for identity via the decision to keep a kosher kitchen.

I'm reading Dish by Marion Kane right now (a writer based in Canada).

I've heard good things about MFK Fisher but have not had a chance to read her work yet.

Lots of good suggestions here especially Wizenberg and Reichl books. I would add David Lebovitz' new one - "The Sweet Life in Paris." Very funny with lots of great recipes.

Interested in celebrating the earth and making a green change, then recipe collection and cookbook "Dishing Up Vermont" by Tracey Medeiros is a must for you and your family. Committed to ethical trade, the environment, and highest quality foods grown by people involved in eco-friendly farming, Medeiros offers wholesome and delicious recipes from all over the state of Vermont using sustainable food products that support health, well-being, and social responsibility. A wonderful variety of creative food items are highlighted for all occasions at any time of the year!

Different generation, but Elizabeth David and MFK Fisher both write about food and memory that draw you in even today.

David's book on Italian food written when the UK was still suffering food shortages is a classic and I find it as good as Silver Spoon, Hazen etc.

Try Jacques Pepin's "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen"--very entertaining, and his down-to-earth personality really comes through. An older must-read is A.J. Liebling's "Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris" about eating in Paris in the 1920s. I also loved "Appetite for Life" and the two early Ruth Reichl books. Amanda Hesser is mostly annoying, but that's just me.

Julia Child's "My Life in France" was a treat to read. Highly recommended!

A Homemade Life builds on Molly Wizenberg's blog essays, Orangette, but I do enjoy her spare but engaging writing style. Occasionally the essay takes the long way round to a recipe (recipes being the reason I ordered the book in the first place), but the detours are never unpleasant. Afraid I've not read the other book mentioned at the NPR link. Also, I love, love, love Nigel Slater's "Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger." This is truly a memoir, and purely, unadulteratedly British, but I'm a bit of an Anglophile, so I enjoy the unfamiliar foods, techniques and traditions.

C. Trillin and J. Steingarten are my two fav food writers, though there are many books listed here that I also love. There are also many I haven't read, and I'm excited to have so many great suggestions.

I don't know if he only has one book, but the Alan Richman book that I have is called Fork It Over. I liked it alot.

Michael Pollan's writing literally changed my life. The Omnivore's Dilemna convinced me that it was time to start buying as much organic food as possible, even if it costs more. I'm the self proclaimed Cheapest Woman on Earth, so this was huge! Plus I think he's a great writer.

Anything by MFK Fisher.

How to Cook A Wolf by MFK Fisher is a classic and lots of fun -- light, not exactly a memoir but chatty.
I second (or third or nth) the recommendations for anything by Steingarten. Also, while not specifically food-centric, Peter Mayle writes a lot about food and restaurants and especially food festivals in a fantastically funny and approachable way (try French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew).
The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine has been out quite a while now too but in some ways seems to me to have anticipated the growing interest in sourcing your own food -- but in a much less intense and apocalyptic-sounding way.

Great ideas in here, my reading list just got much longer! I'd just like to second "Language of Baklava" -- I read it ages ago but I remember loving it! Also I'd like to add John Edge's "Apple Pie" in the non-fiction category -- I got it as a gift and was pleasantly surprised by Edge's ability to turn a history of apple pie-cum-casual anthropological study into a page turner. (It's also conveniently compact for subway riders.)

Oh and I can't post this without fourth-ing or fifth-ing the MFK Fisher and Ruth Reichel recommendations. Although now that I've gone there, I also have to mention "The Tenth Muse," a memoir by Judith Jones, the editor who "discovered" Julia Child and influenced/was influenced by lots of other important chefs/foodies (don't worry, it has appetizing recipes too!).

And if you haven't read the Omnivore's Dilemma yet, do.

Also good, super quick: "Stuffed" by Patricia Volk. I'll stop now.

Pass the Polenta by Teresa Lust has some great essays, especially the one on how to grade a wine. Love most of the books mentioned. Reichl's humor and food description is very witty, earthy, and sensual. I adore Steingarten's humor. A Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White showed the extent to which serious cooking and cooking knowledge put a chef over the top. Although that can go a bit too far as seen in The Perfectionist by Chelminski, about Bernard Loiseau, the 3-star Michelin chef when he took his life for fear of losing a star. I use both Heat and Kitchen Confidential in order to teach narrative and description in my beginning writing class. Even Bourdain's Les Halles is a fun read. Elizabeth David also writes sensually, poetically, and aptly about food and is one of my favorites to return to again and again. Marlena di Blasi's sensual food descriptions are definitely worth reading in bed. And for a real killer that has almost endless literary and cooking references to food, read Reckless Appetites: A Culinary Romance by Jacqueline Deval. Peter Mayle, yes, especially the essay on eating at the French truck stop, which also appeared in Gourmet Magazine. I adore Ruhlman, found amusement in Julie and Julia, felt like moving to Paris after reading My Life in France, and appreciated the history and passions of Judith Jones in The Tenth Muse. I also liked Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. Flinn's The Sharper the Knife the Less You Cry kept me interested for several days. And finally, anything by Angelo Pellegrini is always a pleasure to read.