Culinary Biography

In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman - and never went home again. Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak's pink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? Lunch in Paris is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs - one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine.

In 2005, Ed Levine was a freelance food writer with an unlikely dream: to control his own fate and create a different kind of food publication. He wanted to unearth the world's best bagels, the best burgers, the best hot dogs - the best of everything edible. To build something for people like him who took everything edible seriously, from the tasting menu at Per Se and omakase feasts at Nobu down to mass-market candy, fast food burgers, and instant ramen.

McSorley's Old Ale House has been serving light and dark ale on the Bowery in New York City's East Village since 1854. Although a Supreme Court ruling forced them to allow women inside in the 1970s, many of the bar's quirks have been constant for over a century, down to the newspaper-covered walls, Houdini's handcuffs, the raw onions, and its sawdust-strewn floors. But it's not just the decorations and attitude that stayed the same; it's the people who work and drink there. Rafe Bartholomew's father has been a bartender there for 40 years.

This is the story of one woman's journey to find herself. Armed with nothing but a love of food and the words of the 20th-century food writer M.F.K. Fisher, she travels from France to Italy, then the Congo, and back again. Along the way, she goes to pastry school in Paris, eats the most perfect apricots over the Tuscan hills, watches a family of gorillas grazing deep in the Congolese brush, has her heart broken one last time on a bridge in Lyon, and, ultimately, finds a path to life and joy.

From the soil to the kitchen, Between Two Waters interrogates the influences on what we eat: capitalism, colonialism and gender, as well as our own personal and cultural histories. Yet it also captures with real heart all that the dinner table has to offer us: sustenance, both physical and imaginative, challenges and adventure and, most importantly, communion with others.

In this unflinching and moving memoir, John T. Edge takes us on a quest for home in a South that has both held him close and pushed him away, as he tries and fails and tries again to rewrite the stories he inherited. Born in a house where a Confederate general took his first breath and the Lost Cause narrative was gospel, troubled by the violence he witnessed as a boy, Edge ran from his past, searching for a newer and better South.

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.

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.

Chocolate Covered Money is for anyone who eats chocolate, has shopped for chocolate as a gift, or has wondered what really goes on at the chocolate store "in a mall near you." Chocolate is a big business, and makes a lot of money. This book "pulls the curtain back" for a behind-the-scenes look at the people who own chocolate companies, how they make chocolate, and their celebrity friends.

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.

A gritty, charming, and flavorful love letter to Los Angeles, L.A. Son is the story of Choi’s love of food and his evolution as a chef. Choi returns to his childhood afternoons at his parents’ Korean restaurant, his nights in L.A.’s gambling halls, and his pizza-fueled studying at the Culinary Institute of America before making his way into some of the best restaurants in America.

A culinary memoir that brings to life some of the most fascinating, glamorous food years in France and reveals gastronomical treasures from gifted artisans of the French countryside. From small cafes in Paris to Normandy, Alsace, the Basque country, and beyond, Dryansky takes us on a sweeping sensory journey, with a voice as thoughtful as Kingsolver, as entertaining as Bourdain, and as cogent and critical as Pollan.

The complete history of the legendary Venice landmark where Hemingway, Welles, and others were regulars. A meeting place for writers, artists, models, and the stars of stage, screen, and corporate boardrooms, a luxurious restaurant whose fabulous concoctions and timeless decor have often been imitated but never matched, Harry’s Bar in Venice has remained one of the world’s most renowned watering holes for more than 60 years.

Madhur (meaning sweet as honey) Jaffrey grew up in a large family compound by the Yamuna River in Delhi where her grandfather often presided over dinners with forty or more members of his extended family savoring together the wonderfully flavorful dishes that were forever imprinted on Madhur's palate.

Hunger comes to us in many forms, writes Lia Huber - we long to be satisfied not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. Nourished invites listeners on Huber's world-roaming search to find the necessary ingredients to nurture all three.

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.

The long-awaited memoir from cultural icon and culinary standard bearer Alice Waters recalls the circuitous road and tumultuous times leading to the opening of what is arguably America's most influential restaurant. In Coming to My Senses, Alice retraces the events that led her to 1517 Shattuck Avenue and the tumultuous times that emboldened her to find her own voice as a cook when the prevailing food culture was embracing convenience and uniformity.

When the world becomes overwhelming, Ella Risbridger focuses on the little things that bring her joy, like enjoying a glass of wine when cooking, FaceTiming with a friend whilst making bagels and sharing recipes that are good for the soul. One night she found herself lying on her kitchen floor, wondering if she would ever get up - and it was the thought of a chicken, of roasting it, and of eating it, that got her to her feet and made her want to be alive.

Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes.

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.