A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

A Year in Provence

Peter Mayle · 207 pages

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glo

My Life in France

Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme · 344 pages

Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the coun

The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese

Michael Paterniti · 349 pages

In the picturesque village of Guzma n, Spain, in a cave on the edge of town, there is a cramped limestone chamber known as "the telling room." This is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets--usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a Spanish cheesemaker as he spun an

Notes from a Small Island

Bill Bryson · 324 pages

After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move Mrs Bryson, little Jimmy et al. back to the States for a while. But before leaving his much-loved Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around old Blighty, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had for so long been his home. The resulting book was a eulogy to the country that produced M

From Here, You Can't See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant

Michael S. Sanders · 344 pages

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany

Bill Buford · 336 pages

Writer Buford's memoir of his headlong plunge into the life of a professional cook. Expanding on his award-winning New Yorker article, Buford gives us a chronicle of his experience as "slave" to Mario Batali in the kitchen of Batali's three-star New York restaurant, Babbo. He describes three frenetic years of trials and errors, disappointments and triumphs, as he worked his way up the Babbo ladder

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter

Steve Dublanica · 302 pages

Taken from the popular blog, WaiterRant.net, tells the story from the server's point of view about customer stupidity, arrogance, misbehavior and even human grace.

An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude

Ann Vanderhoof · 320 pages

Under the Tuscan Sun meets the wide-open sea . . . An Embarrassment of Mangoes is a delicious chronicle of leaving the type-A lifestyle behind -- and discovering the seductive secrets of life in the Caribbean.Who hasn't fantasized about chucking the job, saying goodbye to the rat race, and escaping to some exotic destination in search of sun, sand, and a different way of life? Canadians Ann Vander

A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure

Marlena de Blasi · 346 pages

American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life. In search of the rhythms of country living, the couple moves to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. In this patch of earth wher

Food: A Love Story

Jim Gaffigan · 346 pages

""What are my qualifications to write this book? None really. So why should you read it? Here's why: I'm a little fat. If a thin guy were to write about a love of food and eating I'd highly recommend that you do not read his book." Bacon. McDonalds. Cinnabon. Hot Pockets. Kale. Stand-up comedian and author Jim Gaffigan has made his career rhapsodizing over the most treasured dishes of the American

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table

Ruth Reichl · 320 pages

Warm, very descriptive of mouth watering food interspersed with receipes. A story of food and her life which was quite an exciting one of a restaurant critic.

It Must've Been Something I Ate: The Return of the Man Who Ate Everything

Jeffrey Steingarten · 448 pages

In this outrageous and delectable new volume, the Man Who Ate Everything proves that he will do anything to eat everything. That includes going fishing for his own supply of bluefin tuna belly; nearly incinerating his oven in pursuit of the perfect pizza crust, and spending four days boning and stuffing three different fowl--into each other-- to produce the Cajun specialty called "turducken." It M

Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted: A Culinary Adventure With 60 Recipes From Around the Globe

Gordon Ramsay · 368 pages

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

Eric Newby · 253 pages

It is an autobiographical travelogue of Eric Newby,describing,in a comic,understated style,his ascent to Mir Samir.

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City

David Lebovitz · 282 pages

Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood. But he soon discov

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

J. Maarten Troost · 312 pages

The laugh-out-loud true story of a harrowing and hilarious two-year odyssey in the distant South Pacific island nation of Kiribati--possibly The Worst Place on Earth.At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost--who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs--decided to pack up his flip-flops and move

On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta

Jen Lin-Liu · 398 pages

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living

Julie Powell · 309 pages

Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy, but as she moves from

Sushi and Beyond: One Family's Remarkable Journey Through the Greatest Food Nation on Earth

Michael Booth

The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain

Paul Theroux · 353 pages

Paris to the Moon

Adam Gopnik · 342 pages

Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafes, breathtaking facades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light.

Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted

Annie Hawes · 345 pages

A small stone house deep among the olive groves of Liguria, going for the price of a dodgy second-hand car. Annie Hawes and her sister, on the spot by chance, have no plans whatsoever to move to the Italian Riviera but find naturally that it's an offer they can't refuse. The laugh is on the Foreign Females who discover that here amongst the hardcore olive farming folk their incompetence is positiv

Almost French: A New Life In Paris

Sarah Turnbull · 320 pages

A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir, Almost French takes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor. Sarah Turnbull's stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frederic together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decides to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world's most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite f

Around the World in 80 Days

Michael Palin · 256 pages