Culinary Memoirs

Updated September 19, 2022
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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Anthony Bourdain
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES-BESTSELLING PHENOMENON The bestselling breakout chef-tells-all from Anthony Bourdain, the globally beloved Emmy award-winning host of Parts Unknown and No Reservations. In the now classic memoir that launched Anthony...
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
Julie Powell
Paper Book
Julie Julia is the story of Julie Powell's attempt to revitalizeher marriage, restore her ambition, and save her soul by cooking all 524recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, VolumeI, in a period of 365 days.The result is a masterful medley of BridgetJones' Diary meets Like...
My Life in France
Julia Child
Paper Book
The bestselling story of Julia's years in France in her own words--and the basis for the film Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the...
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Ruth Reichl
Paper Book
Author of Save Me the Plums Ruth Reichl's iconic, bestselling memoir of her time as an undercover restaurant critic for The New York Times "Expansive and funny." --Entertainment Weekly Ruth Reichl, world-renowned food critic and former...
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
Bill Buford
Paper Book
From one of our most interesting literary figures – former editor of Granta, former fiction editor atThe New Yorker, acclaimed author ofAmong the Thugs– a sharp, funny, exuberant, close-up account of his headlong plunge into the life of a professional cook. Expanding on his James Beard...
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir
Michelle Zauner
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American--"in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself" (NPR). * CELEBRATING...
Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK nbsp; NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Miami Herald * Newsday * The Huffington Post * Financial Times * GQ * Slate * Men's Journal * Washington Examiner * Publishers Weekly * Kirkus...
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen
Laurie Colwin
Paper Book
Weaving together memories, recipes, and wild tales of years spent in the kitchen, the acclaimed author of Happy All the Time delivers a beloved cookbook manifesto on the joys of sharing food and entertaining. * With a foreword by Ruth Reichl. "As...
A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
Molly Wizenberg
Paper Book
When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer, everyone told her to go easy on herself, to hold off on making any major decisions for a while. But when she tried going back to her apartment in Seattle and returning to graduate school, she knew it wasn't possible to resume life as though nothing had...
The Sweet Life in Paris
David Lebovitz
Paper Book
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...
Yes, Chef: A Memoir
Marcus Samuelsson
Paper Book
JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE - NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "VOGUE" - "NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER "One of the great culinary stories of our time."--Dwight Garner, "The New York Times" " " It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook...
The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen
Jacques Pepin
Paper Book
In this captivating memoir, the man whom Julia Child has called "the best chef in America" tells the story of his rise from a frightened apprentice in an exacting Old World kitchen to an Emmy Awardwinning superstar who taught millions of Americans how to cook and shaped the nation's tastes in...
Taste: My Life Through Food
Stanley Tucci
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named a Notable Book of 2021 by NPR and The Washington Post From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen....
The Gastronomical Me
M. F. K. Fisher
Paper Book
In 1929, a newly married M.F.K. Fisher said goodbye to a milquetoast American culinary upbringing and sailed with her husband to Dijon, where she tasted real French cooking for the first time. The Gastronomical Me is a chronicle of her passionate embrace of a whole new way of eating,...
Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
Madhur Jaffrey
Paper Book
Today’s most highly regarded writer on Indian food gives us an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and a society that has since disappeared. Madhur (meaning “sweet as honey”) Jaffrey grew up in a large family compound where her grandfather often presided over...
Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
Victoria Abbott Riccardi
Paper Book
In the tradition of Under the Tuscan Sun and On Rue Tatin, here is a Broadway Abroad travel memoir with plenty of food, but this time set in the exotic, alluring city of Kyoto.
Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris
Ann Mah
Paper Book
When journalist Ann Mah's husband is given a diplomatic assignment in Paris, Mah, a lifelong foodie and Francophile, begins plotting gastronomic adventures à deux. Then her husband is called away to Iraq on a yearlong post - alone - turning Mah's vision of a romantic sojourn in the City of Light...
Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir
Kwame Onwuachi
Paper Book
"Kwame Onwuachi's story shines a light on food and culture not just in American restaurants or African American communities but around the world." --Questlove   By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi (winner of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for ...
My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story With Recipes
Luisa Weiss
Paper Book
The Wednesday Chef cooks her heart out, finds her way home, and shares her recipes with us It takes courage to turn your life upside down, especially when everyone is telling you how lucky you are. But sometimes what seems right can feel deeply wrong. My Berlin Kitchen...
Give a Girl a Knife: A Memoir
Amy Thielen
Paper Book
A beautifully written food memoir chronicling one woman's journey from her rural Midwestern hometown to the intoxicating world of New York City fine dining--and back again--in search of her culinary roots   Before Amy Thielen frantically plated rings of truffled potatoes in...
Burn the Place: A Memoir
Iliana Regan
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A singular, powerfully expressive debut memoir that traces one chef's struggle to find her place and what happens once she does. Burn the Place is a galvanizing memoir that chronicles Iliana Regan's journey...
Talking with My Mouth Full: My Life as a Professional Eater
Gail Simmons
Paper Book
When Top Chef judge Gail Simmons first graduated from college, she felt hopelessly lost. All her friends were going to graduate school, business school, law school . . . but what was she going to do? Fortunately, a family friend gave her some invaluable advice-make a list of what you love to...
My Ackee Tree: A Chef's Memoir of Finding Home in the Kitchen
Suzanne Barr
Paper Book
Suzanne Barr's journey to become a chef started when she was 30. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she moved home to Florida to take care of her. Suzanne escorted her mother to doctor's appointments, bathed her, and kept her company, but the hardest part of the experience was that she didn't...

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