Cooking with Too Many Good Books

Have you heard that there is an adventure tied to every culinarian’s life story? If not, it has become a trend with popular chefs, cooks, bakers, culinarians and kitchen folk alike. Looking for an adventure to read about? Come to the Peter White Public Library and check out our New Non-fiction section.

A wonderful companion for grocery shopping when searching for the proper produce is Ingredienti: Marcella’s guide to the market (641.5945 HA) by Marcella Hazan. This book breaks down how to obtain the freshest vegetables by examining the grocery store or farmer’s market produce properly. Marcella was old school and kept a handwritten journal consisting of notes on different produce and how she incorporated them into her recipes.

New technology has made blog journaling popular these days. Molly Wizenberg, author of the international blog “Orangette” has come out with a fairly new book: A Homemade Life: Stories and recipes from my kitchen table (641.5092 WI). She incorporates food with her childhood upbringing into a story that is tough to put down. It is also filled with homemade recipes that can help turn your kitchen table into a memorable story of its own.

History is an important factor in life, which goes hand in hand with cuisine, as well. If you are a history buff, political advisory, or culinarian, “The Presidents Kitchen Cabinet: Story of the African Americans who have fed our First families, from the Washington’s to the Obamas” (641.5092 MI) by the award-winning Adrian Miller will intrigue you. This book gives an inside look into who prepared food, and what was prepared for our presidents from 1789 to 2016.

If these books do not spark your interest or inspire you to cook, try The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week) (641.552 MA), by Robin Mather. The story takes place in parts of rural Michigan, where the author commits to eating three home cooked meals a day.  A similar good read is A life of Playing with Fire (641.5092 LY) by Barbara Lynch, who makes stern comments with a quirky sarcasm in regards to kitchen work.

Another light-hearted read about a culinary adventure is The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry 641.07 FL by Kathleen Flinn. Who explains how she left the corporate ladder to move to Paris, join Le Cordon Bleu, and pursue her own dream. Similar to Barbara Lynch, she is great at capturing the fast-paced lifestyle of kitchen work, with grit and sarcasm. Books on celebrity chefs or books that have a stamp of approval by celebrity chefs include Generation Chef : Risking it all for the American dream (641.5092 ST) by Karen Stabiner, who gives details on the life of a young chef in New York who is persistent and who does not give up on his dream, and 32 Yolks : From my mother’s table to working the line (641.5092 RI) by the celebrity French chef Eric Ripert.

--Shane G. Sizemore, Circulation Department