Pleasure reading is a rare thing in today’s fast-paced society. When you’re not working nine to five, you’re probably reaping the benefits of happy hour or binge watching a marathon of Top Chef with a pint of Bluebell in your lap. That’s why when it comes to sitting down with a read, other than the latest “Best of” list, you want it to grab your interest. Through the years, I’ve stumbled upon authors that share my passion for food by showing me different angles of the culinary world. Below you will find my grocery list of books for almost every reader and appetite:
Food: A Love Story
Jim Gaffigan
Type of reader: You’re looking for something that’ll supply a little bit of everything in regards to entertainment, awareness, and most importantly insight on your favorite topic: food. You’re an upfront kind of individual. You realize you probably shouldn’t have eaten that third chili cheese dog, but to you it was all worth it and you gladly accept your future fate with a handful of Tums.
What you’ll find: As Gaffigan will tell you, he is by no means a qualified “foodie.” He is an “eatie” that knows what he likes and earns his credibility based on one fact: he’s fat. This knee slapper is divided by food clichés, observations, and fond memories. He will change the way you think about your favorite meal while you’re laughing out loud the whole time.
Pair with: The Mother Effer at Zoli’s. Finish the challenge with ease, grab your unicorn tee, and treat yourself to some Emporium Pies.
The End of Food
Paul Roberts
Type of reader: You live your life by the farm-to-table and sustainable movements. You’re an activist for recycling, Watering Malawi, and No Kid Hungry. You understand the connection and importance that food plays to issues such as economic stability, obesity, cultural development, and community relations. You want a book that inspires, teaches, and most importantly feeds a hunger for food related topics.
What you’ll find: This novel comes from best selling author of The End of Oil. It outlines the history of food’s development in terms of production, distribution, culture, and repercussions within the first section. The second section discusses the world’s current food situation, which leads into the third section, a bleak future with few solutions to the food system.
Pair with: The house made charcuterie board at FT33. You should probably follow McCallister to the farm and monitor every ingredient’s journey until it reaches your stomach.
Heat
Bill Bufford
Type of reader: You watch Chopped along with a number of other Food Network series and envision what life would be like if you were Stephan Pyles. You wonder why you chose SMU’s Cox School of Business over Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. Then again, you hear The Rustic is hiring. Maybe, you can jump on the line there.
What you’ll find: Once a writer and editor at The New Yorker, this guy decided to trade in his editorial life for boiling water and pasta-making and at Babbo Italian restaurant. Follow his journey from inexperienced “kitchen b-word” to a reliable line cook through the larger than life personalities he encounters and his own humiliating mishaps.
Pair with: Lucia’s hand rolled tagliolini cacio e pepe alongside their smoked lamb sweetbreads.
McDonaldization
George Ritzer
Type of reader: You shout from the mountaintops how much you hate McDonalds and food monopolies like Tyson. A McFlurry and large fry are your guilty pleasure, but you will take that secret to your grave. You want a book that takes your protest of corporate powers down to a science.
What you’ll find: The process of the fast food restaurant is coming to dominate more and more sectors of American Society as well as of the rest of the world. This book compares the development of our high profit, low cost culture to characteristics of a fast-food restaurant. Taking four aspects of McDonalds, Ritzer looks at efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control.
Pair with: A quarter pounder with cheese sounds really good right about now, but you’ll choose the grease simplicity of Maple & Motor’s flat grilled American beef instead.
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
Michael Pollan
Type of reader: You can’t fathom hearing about another diet fad or elaborate health scheme. You’ve been thinking about cutting back on that second doughnut each morning, but then again you love sugar.
What you’ll find: Really any book you’ll pick up by Pollan will satisfy your hunger for nutrition, culture, and community interdependence. This one outlines the simplicity to our daily decisions when it comes to food. Looking at a variety of different cultures and traditions, Pollan lays out straightforward rules to eating wisely.
Pair With: Kale. Just Kale.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Anthony Bourdain
Type of reader: You find Tesar’s spat with Dallas Morning News’ critic Leslie Brenner purely fascinating. You love the food world for its obsession with bacon and Nutella, but even more for its drama full of flying knives and F bombs.
What you’ll find: Learn the logistics of running a restaurant, understand why ordering fish on a Monday night is never a good idea, and appreciate the grit that goes into becoming a successful chef. It’s crude, dysfunctional, quirky, and heart warming. Chefs vary in their techniques and approach; this is Bourdain’s world and you’re just reading it.
Pair with: Knife’s bacon tasting and some enlightening words from Chef John Tesar himself.
Born Round: A Story of Family, Friends, and a Ferocious Appetite
Frank Bruni
Type of reader: You can’t stand the people that shovel down two full orders of Cane’s fried chicken followed by a Pokey O’s ice cream sandwich, yet still manage to stay stick thin. Where’s the justice in the world?
What you’ll find: Bruni describes the joys and sorrows of the culinary world as he takes readers through his struggle with weight gain due to his addiction of food. Readers get a personable and brutally honest insight to his childhood as well as his journey to becoming a restaurant critic for New York Times. You’ll get all types of feels from this read including humor and delight from his Italian family memories.
Pair with: Urbano Café’s bowl of veal bolognese with pappardelle that offers rich Italian flavors like grandma used to make.
My Life in France
Julia Child
Type of reader: The movie Julie & Julia ranks among your top ten. You’d like to think you’re the next Martha Stewart. If only you could get more blog views.
What you’ll find: This list would be incomplete if I left off someone as influential to American cooking as Julia Child. Julia went from a kitchen newbie transplanted in the heart of France to a published cookbook writer and television host of The French Chef. Her memoir describes the importance of living and experiencing as much as you can.
Pair with: The poached farm egg salad with crispy chicken liver followed by the hanger steak frites at Boulevardier.
