Weekend Cooking: What's on My TBR?

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

_______

This week I want to spotlight four food books I have on my TBR. I am hoping to get to all of them in the next several months. The first two are biographies, the second is a novel, and the third is a cookbook of sorts. Let me know if you have read any of these and what you thought.

Joan Reardon, a cookbook author herself, wrote M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child & Alice Waters: Celebrating the Pleasures of the Table. Reardon interviewed all three women and had access to personal papers and archives. When the book was published, Fisher had already died. Reardon explores the lives of these women and how they interconnected and traveled on parallel paths as they woke up the American palate. Fisher is one of my all-time favorite authors. Julia Child needs little introduction. Alice Waters was one of the first chefs to emphasize fresh and seasonal. I apologize for the poor quality of the cover shot, but I had a difficult time finding a photo on the Internet. I've owned this book for a number of years and for some reason never got to it.

Published by Harmony Books, 1994
ISBN-10: 0517577488
Source: Bought in the 1990st (see review policy)


Writing at the Kitchen Table by Artemis Cooper is the authorized biography of Elizabeth David. If you don't know, David was one of the major food writers from about 1950 into the mid-1980s. According to the book flap, she was well traveled in Europe, the Mediterranean, and even India. Apparently a couple of scandals were associated with her during her ex-pat years. When she finally returned to England after the war, she was horrified by the drab and uninspiring food of her native country, which led her to write her first food book. She almost single-handedly changed the nature of British cuisine. I hope to read this biography as part of the Women Unbound reading challenge.

Published by Ecco Press, 1999
ISBN-13: 9780060198282
Source: Bought when it came out (see review policy)


The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel is an epistolary novel, which is a style I usually enjoy. According to the press release from FSB Associates, the book includes about 80 recipes, and I noticed that there is a recipe index. Some of the dishes look pretty appealing. Flipping through the book, I saw that it has some fun graphics and fonts. I hope to read this one sooner than later.

Published by Polhemus Press, October 2009
ISBN-13: 9780982349205
Source: Review copy (see review policy)


The Foodie Handbook by Pim Techamuanvivit is subtitled The (Almost) Definitive Guide to Gastronomy. According to the press release from Chronicle Books, Techamuanvivit writes the food blog Chez Pim and has also contributed to Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and the New York Times. The book contains recipes, ingredient tips, and food advice. There is a section on how to judge a restaurant, information about food and wine pairings, and a list of 50 things all foodies should do before they die. I'm looking forward to a closer inspection of this book.

Published by Chronicle Books, October 2009
ISBN-13: 9780811868532
Source: Review copy (see review policy)