Memoir Monday and Food and the City by Ina Yalof

An unprecedented behind-the-scenes tour of New York City’s dynamic food culture, as told through the voices of the chefs, line cooks, restaurateurs, waiters, and street vendors who have made this industry their lives.

In Food and the City, Ina Yalof takes us on an insider’s journey into New York’s pulsating food scene alongside the men and women who call it home. Dominique Ansel declares what great good fortune led him to make the first cronut. Lenny Berk explains why Woody Allen’s mother would allow only him to slice her lox at Zabar’s. Ghaya Oliveira, who came to New York as a young Tunisian stockbroker, opens up about her hardscrabble yet swift trajectory from dishwasher to executive pastry chef at Daniel. Restaurateur Eddie Schoenfeld describes his journey from Nice Jewish Boy from Brooklyn to New York’s Indisputable Chinese Food Maven.

From old-schoolers such as David Fox, third-generation owner of Fox’s U-bet syrup, and the outspoken Upper West Side butcher “Schatzie,” to new kids on the block including Patrick Collins, sous chef at The Dutch, and Brooklyn artisan Lauren Clark of Sucre Mort Pralines, Food and the City is a fascinating oral history with an unforgettable gallery of New Yorkers who embody the heart and soul of a culinary metropolis.

I can't resist books about food. I love to read the behind the scenes books on chefs and cooks, and Food and the City looks to be a fascinating read. That the story here takes place throughout New York City just adds a touch of allure! On my TBR list! Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, May 2016.

What's Cooking on Your Reading List?

Cookbooks and Reading...

There are certain times of the year when I have an overwhelming urge to try new recipes, read cookbooks and try new foods. In the winter that translates to comfort food, but in the summer it's all different types of food. Cookbooks are a guide to trying new foods and recipes. But are cookbooks your typical reading? Yes and no. I think sometimes we just forget that cookbooks are books. We blindly open the pages and leaf through the recipes we find, glance at the stories that make up the other pages of the book and get to business. But what fun it is to actually READ it! How many cookbooks have you actually read?! I was able to sample some great cookbooks with some eGalleys thanks to a some generous publishers over the past few months.  Here's some great "cooking book" finds...

Mastering Pasta b Marc Vetri…  Award-winning chef Marc Vetri wanted to write his first book about pasta. Instead, he wrote two other acclaimed cookbooks and continued researching pasta for ten more years. Now, the respected master of Italian cuisine finally shares his vast knowledge of pasta, gnocchi, and risotto in this inspiring, informative primer featuring expert tips and techniques, and more than 100 recipes.

Vetri's personal stories of travel and culinary discovery in Italy appear alongside his easy-to-follow, detailed explanations of how to make and enjoy fresh handmade pasta. Whether you're a home cook or a professional, you'll learn how to make more than thirty different types of pasta dough, from versatile egg yolk dough, to extruded semolina dough, to a variety of flavored pastas—and form them into shapes both familiar and unique. In dishes ranging from classic to innovative, Vetri shares his coveted recipes for stuffed pastas, baked pastas, and pasta sauces. He also shows you how to make light-as-air gnocchi and the perfect dish of risotto. 

Loaded with useful information, including the best way to cook and sauce pasta, suggestions for substituting pasta shapes, and advance preparation and storage notes, Mastering Pasta offers you all of the wisdom of a pro. For cooks who want to take their knowledge to the next level, Vetri delves deep into the science of various types of flour to explain pasta's uniquely satisfying texture and how to craft the very best pasta by hand or with a machine. Mastering Pasta is the definitive work on the subject and the only book you will ever need to serve outstanding pasta dishes in your own kitchen. 

What did I think? Fresh pasta, even the thought of it makes my mouth water. Have you ever had fresh pasta? There's a certain kind of lightness, texture and taste. There is no mistaking fresh pasta and here, in Mastering Pasta, author Marc Vetri not only shares with us the how to make this wonderful staple, with chapters on hand forming certain pastas, or making sheet pasta, and stuffed pasta, along with amazing sauces, but the history and make-up of what goes into pasta. This is definitely one to have on the shelf! Mouth watering and thought provoking! Easy access to everything is by way of Table of Contents and a great Index. 5 bowls of pasta for this one!
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The James Beard Cookbook… Hailed by the New York Times as “one of the best basic cookbooks in America,” The James Beard Cookbook remains as indispensable to home cooks today as it was when it was first published over fifty years ago. James Beard transformed the way we cook and eat, teaching us how to do everything from bread baking to making the perfect Parisian omelet.


Beard was the master of cooking techniques and preparation. In this comprehensive collection of simple, practical-yet-creative recipes, he shows us how to bring out the best in fresh vegetables, cook meat and chicken to perfection, and even properly boil water or an egg. From pasta to poultry, fish to fruit, and salads to sauces, this award-winning cookbook is a must-have for beginning cooks and expert chefs alike. Whether it is deviled pork chops or old-fashioned barbecue, there is not a meal in the American pantheon that Beard cannot teach us to master. 

Do you really read a cookbook?! Why of course you can! And this classic tome has a wealth of cooking knowledge in-between the recipes! Did you know if you put an egg in bowl of cold water and it sinks, that means it's fresh? Or, did you know white veggies will stay whiter if you cover the pan? And adding a dash of lemon juice can help too.This is only the third revision of this classic cookbook, with a few recipes tweaked for modern times and the addition of a couple dozen new recipes. This is one of those cookbooks everyone should have on their shelf! It's a place for a beginner cook to start learning the basics and a place for the more advanced cook to come to to discover what are some of the things they could do to make their cooking advance to the next level. Great information and easy to follow recipes. Cooking terms, techniques, tools, recipes to build on. Love this cookbook! Loads of useful info and wonderful recipes. I may even have to get it in hardcover!
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Whether a five-star chef or beginning home cook, any gourmand knows that recipes are far more than a set of instructions on how to make a dish. They are culture-keepers as well as culture-makers, both recording memories and fostering new ones.

Organized like a cookbook, Books that Cook is a collection of American literature written on the theme of food: from an invocation to a final toast, from starters to desserts. All food literatures are indebted to the form and purpose of cookbooks, and each section begins with an excerpt from an influential American cookbook, progressing chronologically from the late 1700s through the present day, including such favorites as American Cookery, the Joy of Cooking, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The literary works within each section are an extension of these cookbooks, while the cookbook excerpts in turn become pieces of literature—forms of storytelling and memory-making all their own.


Each section offers a delectable assortment of poetry, prose, and essays, and the selections all include at least one tempting recipe to entice readers to cook this book. Including writing from such notables as Maya Angelou, James Beard, Alice B. Toklas, Sherman Alexie, Nora Ephron, M.F.K. Fisher, and Alice Waters, among many others, Books that Cook reveals the range of ways authors incorporate recipes—whether the recipe flavors the story or the story serves to add spice to the recipe. Books that Cook is a collection to serve students and teachers of food studies as well as any epicure who enjoys a good meal alongside a good book.

Thoughts on this one… This was a hard book to digest at the beginning. I was expecting to read about cooking and food from a "literary" stand point, but having it all arranged like a cookbook became a bit tedious at times. I found myself flipping to different sections because I needed to enjoy reading it as apposed to "studying" it, which I almost felt like when I tried to read it in order. The bits of writing were wonderful, but approach this as a book of short stories instead of a literary cookbook and you'll enjoy it more. I think that I would have been able to enjoy doing that more if it were a physical book, so that I could turn the pages and browse better.

So, do you read cooking books? Read about food? Enjoy food writing? Share your Yummy reads so we all can savor them!

What do you get when you put together "Graphic Novel" and "Food" ?… Relish by Lucy Knisley and A Review

Relish by Lucy Knisley is a memoir, a life in food, a graphic novel oozing with the delights of fresh garlic being sautéed on a stove, the wafting smell of buttery croissants, and the wonders of Huevos Rancheros for breakfast. Relish is a culinary experience, but it's also an artistic one, as Lucy puts her memories down in words and drawings. But that's what a graphic novel is and it works well for Relish.

"I was a child raised by foodies" is our first introduction to Lucy and to this graphic novel which traces Lucy's life from her early childhood to her graduating from art school all through her memories of food. The book is entertaining, funny, enjoyable, and a feast for the eyes. Lucy's drawings are good, the lettering of the text is nice (remember I really hate the computer generated text that most comic books use) and the stories told flow nicely from one part of her life to the next. We learn about her, her Chef Mother, Mexico, her parents divorce, raising chickens, Japan and hop on a culinary journey with a eurail pass. But wait, there's more… the recipes! Through out the book, are some of Lucy's tried and true recipes that are drawn AND written out…

It is so much fun to read about these recipes and then have Lucy include the recipe by drawing them out! I just loved it! And this idea of illustrating a "food" novel is certainly popular now, as Michael Pollan had his book, Food Rules, recently redone in an illustrated version. 

Why I read Relish? Because I like reading "food" books. I like reading about the inside scoop on the food industry, reading about chefs,  foods, and recipe books. And I like graphic novels, not your super hero kind generally speaking, but I do enjoy some of those, but graphic novels that are unique and this is definitely unique. "Classified" as a teen book, but I really feel this is more for adults, because it brings a kind of nostalgia about your own "culinary" coming of age. 

If you like "foodie" books, this one will make you smile. And I'm getting out some pancetta to make a Carbonara from one of these recipes that looks absolutely dee-lish! 

BTW, Lucy Knisley is an illustrator, comic artist and author. Relish is her second book, which was published last year. 

Memoir Monday... Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

I love "food" memoirs; memoirs that give us a little behind the scene look at the restaurant business, as in Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphire: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise or Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. So I was excited to receive in the mail recently an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton from Random House. Here's what the publishers have to say...

If you were to take the heartfelt food memories of Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone, mix them with the complex family relationships of Augusten Burroughs’s Running with Scissors, throw in a little of the behind-the-scenes revelations of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, then strip the mixture down to its grittiest core, you’d get a sense of Gabrielle Hamilton’s new memoir BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER.

Before Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York City restaurant, Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find the purpose and meaning in her life. BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER recounts this unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton inhabited. The result is an unflinching and lyrical work that marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent.

Hamilton will appeal to both foodies and literary audiences alike as she deliciously divulges her experiences in love, life, and food. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and Food & Wine. She also authored the eight-week “The Chef” column in The New York Times, and her work was anthologized in six volumes of Best Food Writing.

Just leafing through the book, I found Gabrielle Hamilton's writing to be compelling; easy to get lost in; enjoyable. And I'm really looking forward to sinking my teeth into Blood, Bones & Butter! This is the next course on my plate! Next month look for my full review...

Memoir Monday... Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

"Every Restaurant is a Theater"

...Ruth Reichl

They say that you are what you eat, but really Who are you when you eat? For Ruth Reichl in her funny and at times bittersweet memoir, Garlic and Sapphires, she is many people. You see Ruth Reichl was the restaurant critic for The New York Times for six years, and in New York City, her reviews could make or break a restaurant. From the very beginning of her journey to become the most influential restaurant critic in the country, literally, she was recognized. Flying from LA to NYC, Ruth sat next to a woman on the plane who was way too familiar with her. "Do I know you?" Ruth asks..."No" the woman says... "But I know you. I even know why you're on this plane." And it's through this conversation that Ruth finds out her photograph is pinned to every bulletin board at every restaurant in New York City, so she'll be recognized the minute she walks in. And that's not all... "they" also know about her husband and child! So begins Ruth's adventures in disguising herself to get an honest look, feel and taste of the restaurants she's reviewing.

Ruth Reichl is funny, insightful and a great writer. Her food descriptions are dangerous to read while hungry, but prove her ability to judge a plate of food. Some of her disguises made me laugh out loud! I loved reading about her elaborate disguises as she went restaurant hopping, but the behind the scene glimpses into the world of the food critic, the New York Times, and restaurant life make this book come to life. There have been plenty of "food memoirs" since Garlic and Sapphires was published in 2005, but this was one of the first to give us a glimpse into what was simmering in the pot! If you enjoy food, dining out and a good sense of humor, you'll enjoy Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires!

*P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!