Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

with just oil, garlic and maybe some spinach or basil leaves tossed in at the last minute

no, just truffle oil . . . but given how good that was, I would love to try more.

My first homemade sausage.

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.