Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I am a huge Jim Harrison fan, and I love his collection of food-related essays called The Raw and the Cooked. Harrison is the literary gourmand for hunters, scroungers, philosophers, down and dirty cooks, intrepid travelers, unabashed partyers and anyone who is prone to excessive eating and drinking. If you want a better idea of the charming insanity of Mr. Harrison, the Times did a great feature on him a few months ago that also has a video - it shows him cooking grouse or something, while sucking on a cigarette and talking about his gout. He's the character of characters, with the appetite of a thousand kings.

John Lanchester's THE DEBT TO PLEASURE - part cookbook, part novel, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. (Thanks Amazon)

As I posted above, my top books are Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef.

I forgot to explain why.....

I like Garlic and Sapphires because it is every food-junkies fantasy to be a restaurant reviewer. What could possibly be better? Reichl provides great insight and access into a world most of us only dream of.

I like Kitchen Confidential because of Bourdain's unique "voice." He uncovers the behind-the-scene stuff as well as his personal demons. It is one of the first non-cookbook food books I read.

Ruhlman paints a nice picture of what it is like to attend the CIA. I found the book very engaging and would read it for hours at a time.

I've read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking approximately 154,453 times apiece. Some of the recipes are pretty good, but it's the wit, depth, and immediacy of her writing that get me every time. I've enjoyed most of the books mentioned here, especially Tender at the Bone and Mr. Latte. Colette Rossant's three memoirs of growing up in Paris and Egypt were quite engaging.

"Serious Pig" by John Thorne and Matt Lewis Thorne. It has much intelligent, literary writing and recipes and if for no other reason is worth having for the essay on the (possible) history of chili.

National: Kreuz Market, Lockhart, TX
NY State: Big W's, Pawling, NY
NYC: RUB (Daisy May's loses only b/c of their irritating TV ads)