Culinary Memoirs

Submitted by admin on Wed, 05/06/2009 - 3:15pm

Famous and not so-famous chefs, restaurateurs, and food journalists serve up memories, meals and more. Created by the staff at the West University Branch Library.

Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
A street-smart chef’s inside look at the restaurant business. 
 
Cleora Butler. Cleora’s Kitchens: The Memoir of a Cook & Eight Decades of Great American Food 
An African-American woman’s amazing culinary heritage, with recipes.
Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme. My Life in France
How great American chef Child got started.
 
Linda Ellerbee. Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table
Recipes and remembrances from the veteran television journalist.  
Courtney Febbroriello. Wife of the Chef
Co-owner of a Connecticut restaurant tells all.
 
M. F. K. Fisher. Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon
Between the great wars, Fisher falls for France -- its food, wine, and people.
Gael Greene. Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess
A restaurant critic’s sensuous tales of worldwide dining and carousing.
Molly O’Neill. Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food and Baseball
A food writer’s coming of age.
Abe Opincar. Fried Butter: A Food Memoir
Interwoven memories of food and life from a gifted storyteller.
Jacques Pepin. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen
From war-time France to the Food Channel, an unassuming autobiography from the celebrity chef.
Julie Powell. Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living
One young woman’s yearlong marathon of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Ruth Reichl. Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table
Reichl polishes her palate, becomes a restaurant reviewer, and then Editor of Gourmet magazine.
Ruth Reichl. Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
How Reichl dined incognito whilst writing restaurant reviews for the New York Times.
Ruth Reichl. Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table
The hilarious memoir of a gourmet-in-training.
Michael Ruhlman. Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
Behind the scenes at America’s top cooking school.
James Villas. Between Bites: Memoirs of a Hungry Hedonist
Culinary journalist Villas dishes up memories of his fellow epicures.
Patricia Volk. Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family
Laughter and tears from three generations of Jewish restauranteurs.