Summer Reading: Our Favorite Kitchen Memoirs
School’s out and you know what that means: summer reading lists! We’re sharing our favorite kitchen memoirs. Cookbooks aren’t exactly beach reading and kitchen design books might not work poolside. A yummy food memoir – kitchen, restaurant, cooking school – can satisfy even the most finicky eater – we mean, reader. Add one of these to your summer reading list.
Although Jodi grew up in the grocery store industry, and now designs award-winning kitchens (and baths), she does not love to cook. She can cook and does cook, but only for a crowd - sometimes.
However, she loves food and reading about food!
Famous Food Writers
Among the classics of food memoirs are the books by M.F.K. Fisher. Ahead of her time in many respects, she almost single-handedly created the food memoir genre with her beautifully crafted essays and books. We recommend Gastronomical Me and move through her cannon from there.
No foody reading list would be complete without a book from Calvin Trillin. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker, Trillin’s witty storytelling should enthrall even the pickiest readers. We love Alice, Let’s Eat…Further Adventures of a Happy Eater. Another eating adventurer is the late, great Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential is now a classic, but Medium Raw gets our vote, too.
We love Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. A novelist who died way too young, Colwin loved cooking and entertaining, and writing about it all. In two volumes, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, Colwin will make you laugh out loud, and want to get into your own kitchen to try out her recipes.
Another esteemed food writer is Ruth Reichl, the former Editor-in-Chief of the defunct Gourmet Magazine and a former food critic. Reichl knows how to wield a sharp knife and a sharper pen! Start with Tender at the Bone, and continue through My Kitchen Year – 136 Recipes That Saved My Life. If you’ve ever wondered what the life of a food critic is like, check out Garlic and Sapphires – the Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise.
New Memoirs
Ruth Reichl has a new memoir, Save Me the Plums, with some of the inside scoop on the professional food industry and tales from her time at Gourmet. From the founder of the website Serious Eats comes an entertaining memoir by Ed Levine, Serious Eater: A Food Lover’s Perilous Quest for Pizza and Redemption.
Finally, Notes from a Young Black Chef tells the story of Kwame Onwauchi – named winner of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year – and his journey from childhood to Top Chef to famed restauranteur.
What are your favorite kitchen memoirs or cooking stories? We want to know. Of course, we’ll be reading other books this summer as well. You know we love a good story that features a nice kitchen.
