Culinary Biography

In his lively, unprecedented close-up portrait of Ferran Adrià, award-winning food writer Colman Andrews traces this groundbreaking chef’s rise from resort hotel dishwasher to culinary deity, and the evolution of El Bulli from a German-owned beach bar into the establishment voted annually by an international jury to be “the world’s best restaurant”.

Alice Feiring is a special sort of wine writer—the kind who dares to disagree with wine “experts”, and who believes wholeheartedly that the best wine writing is about life. To Fall in Love, Drink This is both her love letter to wine and a lifelong coming-of-age story. In a series of candid, wise, and humorous personal essays, Feiring tells the story of her parents’ divorce, her first big wine assignment, the end of an eleven-year relationship, the death of her father, a near-fatal brush with a serial killer, pandemic lockdown, and more—and suffuses each with love, romance, pain, joy, and wine.

Fatima Ali won the hearts of viewers as the Fan Favorite of Bravo’s Top Chef in season fifteen. Twenty-nine years old, she was a dynamic, boundary-breaking chef and a bright new voice for change in the food world. After the taping wrapped and before the show aired, Fati was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. Not one to ever slow down or admit defeat, the star chef vowed to spend her final year traveling the world, eating delicious food, and making memories with her loved ones. But when her condition abruptly worsened, her plans were sidelined.

In the 19th century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a young botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and experience the world, set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater. Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. But Fairchild's finds weren't just limited to food.

Burt, the hound of Beelzebub, has risen from the dead; Gadget, the miniature horse, has moved into the kitchen; and Tommy has decided to expand his beer business and on the advice of his wife, Rose, is thinking about distilling gin. What can possibly go wrong? With Brexit looming, a second baby on the way and sales of IPA beer plummeting, trouble is brewing in the Loire.

Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life, from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to "turn straight" through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his 23-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David's readers and listeners as "The One", which began with (what else?) food.

In this warm collection of personal essays and recipes, best-selling author Ann Hood nourishes both our bodies and our souls. From her Italian-American childhood through raising and feeding a growing family and cooking with her new husband, food writer Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of a good meal. Hood details recipes and more in Kitchen Yarns, along with tales of loss and starting from scratch, family love, and feasts with friends, and how the perfect meal is one that tastes like home.

In 1949, a young Chinese housewife arrived in Taiwan and transformed herself from a novice to a natural in the kitchen. She launched a career as a cookbook author and television cooking instructor. Years later, in America, flipping through her mother's copies of Fu Pei-mei's Chinese cookbooks, historian Michelle T. King discovered more than the recipes to meals of her childhood. She found, in Fu's story and in her food, a portal to another time, when a generation of middle-class female home cooks navigated the postwar transformations taking place across the world.

It's the untold story of the renegade burger chain that evokes a passionate following unlike any other. In fast-food corporate America, In-N-Out Burger stands apart. Begun in a tiny shack in the shadow of World War II, this family-owned chain has steadfastly refused to franchise or be sold. It is a testament to old-fashioned values and reminiscent of a simpler time when people, loyalty, and a freshly made, juicy hamburger meant something.

From Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben to the Jolly Green Giant and Ronald McDonald, corporate icons sell billions of dollars’ worth of products. But only one of them was ever a real person—Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken/KFC. From a 1930s roadside café in Corbin, Kentucky, Harland Sanders launched a fried chicken business that now circles the globe, serving “finger lickin’ good” chicken to more than 12 million people every day.

Call Me Chef, Dammit! is the inspiring story of Andre Rush, who became an overnight sensation in 2018, after a photograph of his now-famous 24-inch biceps went viral. However, his journey to that moment could never be captured in a fleeting moment.

From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre, en route to Paris, in the fall of 1948, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn't speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu.

When Dominique Crenn was awarded three Michelin Stars in 2018 for her influential San Francisco restaurant Atelier Crenn, she became the first female chef in the United States to receive this highly coveted honor. Filled with stories from the years Crenn spent working in the male-centric world of professional kitchens, tracking her career from struggling cook to being named the World’s Best Female Chef, starring on Netflix's Chef's Table, and running one of the world’s most acclaimed restaurants, Rebel Chef is disarmingly honest and revealing.

Burn the Place is a galvanizing culinary memoir that chronicles Iliana Regan's journey from foraging on the family farm to opening her Michelin-starred restaurant. Her story is alive with startling imagery, raw like that first bite of wild onion, and told with uncommon emotional power. Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Indiana. Regan often felt that she "wasn't made for this world." She was a little girl who longed to be a boy, gay in an intolerant community, an alcoholic before she turned 20, a woman in an industry dominated by men.

On an island where finding love can be just as hard as finding a dinner reservation on a Friday night, Amy Thomas never imagined a family would fit into her lifestyle. So when Amy finds herself turning 40, moving to Brooklyn, and making way for a baby with a new man in her life, she realizes that starting over may be her biggest opportunity yet. But how do you balance staying out all night dancing with staying up all night soothing a baby? Can a lifelong city girl trade in spontaneity for domesticity? Set amid the backdrop of Brooklyn and Manhattan's foodie scenes, Amy sets out to make her second act even sweeter than the first.

From Pasadena to Cambridge to New York, Washington, D.C., India, Ceylon, Paris, Marseilles, Santa Barbara, and Maine, Bob Spitz re-creates an extraordinary life. He takes us beyond the image of Julia as the tall, eccentric woman with a funny voice who taught America how to cook, to establish her as a genuine rebel and beloved icon, a woman who redefined herself in middle age, helped to change the role of women in America, set the standard for how to create a public personality in the modern media world.

When a New Jersey native moves to Minnesota, she discovers a local food movement strong enough to survive the toughest winter. Fascinating and heartfelt, this memoir demonstrates that even in a place with a short growing season, food grown locally and organically can be healthy, community-based, environmentally conscious, and - most of all - delicious.

From an early age, Grace Dent was hungry. As a little girl growing up in Currock, Carlisle, she yearned to be something bigger, to go somewhere better. Hungry traces Grace’s story from growing up eating beige food to becoming one of the much-loved voices on the British food scene. It’s also everyone’s story—from treats with your nan, to cheese and pineapple hedgehogs, to the exquisite joy of cheaply made apple crumble with custard.

My Berlin Kitchen tells the story of how one thoroughly confused, kitchen-mad romantic broke off her engagement, quit her dream job, and went across the ocean in search of happiness. Luisa Weiss was working in New York after college and living with her future fiancé when she decided to bake, roast, and stew her way through the huge collection of recipes she’d been clipping and hoarding for years. The blog she wrote to document her adventures, The Wednesday Chef, soon became a sensation. But she never stopped longing for her childhood home in Berlin.

Tohle je svět chlapů s vařečkou v ruce. Z kuchyní, které jedou na plný plyn. Šéfkuchař Anthony Bourdain předvádí čirou radost z přípravy kvalitního pokrmu na profesionální úrovni a chce, abyste poznali, jak to vypadá a voní v rámusící a syčící kuchyni velkoměstské restaurace. Akčně vás zasvětí do žargonu a černého humoru, jaký lze zaslechnout v předních kuchařských liniích. Začíná svým prvním kulinářským zážitkem a přes školní léta se konečně dostává do opravdové kuchyně. S tím přichází i historky, z nichž tuhne úsměv na rtech, aby se posluchač za chvilku nezřízeně rozesmál.