Food - Biography
Wine Diva cookbooks

Books – Food – Biography

Books 1 to 20 of 41 – Biography

Not for Bread Alone  by Daniel Halpern
There is more to be gained from our daily bread than mere sustenance. Curiosity, romance, ritual, and insight can be as much a part of a meal as any of its edible ingredients. In this delectable collection of essays on fine food and drink, twenty-two renowned writers capture the gestures, the celebrations, and the moments in which food, wine, and the act of eating transcend their initial purposes to become something far greater. Twenty-two acclaimed writers celebrate the art of eating: Including: Colette – Alexandre Dumas – Judith B. Jones – Barbara Kafka – Charles Lamb – Rose Macaulay – Joyce Carol Oates – James Seay – Alice Waters.

Paperback,  192 pp,  $19.95. Buy now

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives  by Guy Fieri
Guy Fieri takes you on a tour of America’s most colourful diners, drive-ins and dives, complete with recipes, photos, and memorabilia. Packed with Guy’s iconic personality, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives follows his hot-rod trips around the U.S. From digging in at legendary burger joint the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento, California, baking Peanut Pie from Virginia Diner in Wakefield, Virginia, or kicking back with Pete’s “Rubbed and Almost Fried” Turkey Sandwich from Panini Pete’s in Fairhope, Alabama, Guy showcases the amazing personalities, fascinating stories and outrageously good food offered by these American treasures.

Paperback,  250 pp,  $27.95. Buy now

So You Want to be a Chef?  by Lisa M. Brefere, Karen Eich Drummond and Brad Barnes and others
Understand what it takes to be a chef by reading the comprehensive information in So You Want to Be a Chef?: Your Guide to Culinary Careers, Second Edition. Revised and updated to include a new chapter on Research and Development chefs and expanded coverage of on-site foodservice areas, this guide presents a real-world look at culinary careers. The authors vividly describe the feel, the reality, the hours, the physical demands, the tradeoffs, and the benefits of working in various culinary settings, while interviews with a range of industry leaders offer helpful advice and inspiring vignettes.

,  256 pp,  $42.95. Buy now

Beyond the Great Wall  by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
In the West, when we think about food in China, what usually comes to mind are the signature dishes of Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai. But beyond the urbanized eastern third of China lie the high open spaces and sacred places of Tibet, the Silk Road oases of Xinjiang, the steppe lands of Inner Mongolia, and the steeply terraced hills of Yunnan and Guizhou. The peoples who live in these regions are culturally distinct, with their own history and their own unique culinary traditions. In Beyond the Great Wall, the inimitable duo of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, who first met as young travellers in Tibet – bring home the enticing flavours of this other China. For more than twenty-five years, both separately and together, Duguid and Alford have

Hardback,  384 pp,  $69.95. Buy now

God in a Cup  by M. Weissman
Can a cup of coffee reveal the face of God? Can it become the holy grail of modern-day knights in a relentless quest for perfection? Can it change the world? These questions are not rhetorical. In God in a Cup, journalist and adventurer Michaele Weissman treks into an exotic realm of speciality coffee where the successful traveller must be part passionate connoisseur, part activist and part Indiana Jones.With obsessive standards and fiercely competitive baristas, these roasters are creating a new culture of coffee connoisseurship in America – a culture in which $10 lattes are both a purist’s pleasure and a way to improve the lives of third-world farmers. For those who love a good cup of coffee and a great adventure story.

,  268 pp,  $32.95. Buy now

Chinatown New York; Portraits, Recipes, and Memories  by Ann Volkwein

,  224 pp,  $48.95. Buy now

Moro East  by Samantha Clark and Samuel Clark
Manor Garden allotments in the East End may seem a world away from Moorish Spain or Morocco. However, once beyond the gates, you are transported to a community of Turks and Cypriots who cultivate and cook an extraordinary range of ingredients. Learn how plants can be eaten at various different stages of their growth, recipes for parts of the crop that might otherwise be discarded, making use of produce that does not ripen, and how to use up the gluts of produce at the end of the growing season. Many of the recipes reflect everyday activities at the allotment – Turkish women rolling flatbreads, families gathering to grill kebabs at the weekend. The spirit of the community is captured in the photographs and the dishes.

,  288 pp,  $75.00. Buy now

Gluten Free Girl  by Shauna James Ahern
Shauna James Ahern is a reformed processed food eater who had to transform her diet when she was diagnosed with celiac disease. Enlivened with funny accounts of the author’s own experiences, the book guides readers to the simple pleasures of eating healthy food that is full of flavour. Even readers who can eat gluten will find connections with this book. Part memoir, part advice, and all inspiring, it includes dozens of great recipes. Shauna James Ahern shares her success in living gluten free, which means going wthout traditional bread, beer, pasta, as well as the foods where gluten likes to hide such ice cream.

,  288 pp,  $36.95. Buy now

Mum’s Favourite Recipes  by Bill Tikos
Remember the trifle your mother used to make for her dinner parties? Or the roast beef and Yorkshire ‘pud’ for family lunch on Sundays? There was comforting chicken soup when you were sick, and perhaps a banana cake to help mend a broken heart. Most of us have treasured memories of our mum in the kitchen, cooking our favourite dish. The recipe might have been passed down from her mum or simply torn out of a magazine, but she had somehow made it her own. In this book 80 leading chefs, celebrities and ordinary Australians share with us culinary secrets from their greatest source of inspiration – Mum. These are much-loved, much-cooked recipes from all kinds of households and from every corner of the globe. Contributors include Stephanie Alexan

Paperback,  192 pp,  $35.00. Buy now

Grossi Florentino  by Guy Grossi and Jan McGuinness
The Florentino is one of Melbourne’s most famous and enduring restaurants. Generations of Australians have met, conversed, done deals and partied within its impressive surroundings. This history of the Florentino is intertwined with Melbourne’s history, and with the history of Italian migration to Australia and its influence on local culture and eating habits. Beginning in 1900 as a wine cafe at the wrong end of town, it developed into a fine dining establishment that became the place to be seen. One of the first cafes in Melbourne to offer espresso coffee and homemade pasta, what became Grossi Florentino is now considered the city’s best Italian restaurant. Its clientele has included prime ministers and politicians, corporate leaders, arti

Paperback,  232 pp,  $45.00. Buy now

Mrs Cook’s Book of Recipes  by John Dunmore
During her long life, Elizabeth Cook (1741-1835) had many opportunities to hear about the voyages undertaken by her famous explorer husband Captain James Cook. She met many sailors and explorers, and discovered how they survived on long sea journeys and learned about the exotic foods they consumed in distant lands. In this book John Dunmore has compiled the kind of exotic recipe book Elizabeth Cook herself might have written. It includes such delicacies as stewed albatross, turtle soup and roasted goat, as well as favourites to welcome the mariner home: oyster loaves, jugged pigeons and fried celery. Along the way the character of this remarkable London woman emerges, who not only outlived her husband but her six children too.

Hardback,  96 pp,  $24.99. Buy now

IN A CAJUN KITCHEN, AUTHENTIC CAJUN RECIPES AND STORIES FROM A FAMILY FARM ON THE BAYOU  by TERRI PISCHOFF WUERTHNER
A memoir with recipes to remind people of the true flavours of Cajun cooking. This work presents a treasure trove of 180 authentic Cajun recipes: roasted pork mufaletta sandwiches, creamy crab casserole, breakfast cornbread with sausage and apples, gumbo, shrimp fritters, black-eyed pea and andouille bake, coconut pralines, pecan pie and more

Hardback,  336 pp,  $41.95. Buy now

Her Fork in the Road 
Women’s relationships with food are passionate and obsessive, embracing and comforting, complex and frustrating. This sampling of stories – by some of the writers in and out of the food and travel fields – journeys to the heart of these age-old relationships, taking readers from the kitchens of contemporary America to the far reaches of the globe

Paperback,  248 pp,  $37.95. Buy now

Remembrance of Things Paris 
For sixty years the best food writers have been sending dispatches from Paris to “Gourmet”. At once unique and universal, these essays by Joseph Wechsberg, Naomi Barry, and Diane Johnson, among others, present tantalizing glimpses of culinary life in the world capital of love and food. From unforgettable vignettes of resourceful chefs feeding hungry Parisians after World War II to the birth and rise of nouvelle cuisine-it’s all here: the old-time bourgeois dinners, the tastemakers, the hero-chefs, and, of course, Paris in all its charm, arrogance, and splendid refinement

Paperback,  368 pp,  $22.95. Buy now

Relish  by Ruth Cowen
The story of Europe’s first celebrity chef

Hardback,  368 pp,  $59.99. Buy now

The Adventure of Food 
This volume of food-related essays begins with a breakfast of foraged fruit in Fiji and (after circling the globe) ends with an abalone-hunting California tidepooler who reflects on the Makah whale hunt. Contributors include travel writers who eat and gas

Paperback,  350 pp,  $39.95. Buy now

American Pie  by Pascale Le Draoulec
In today’s treadmill, take-away world, does pie still have a place? As she traveled across the United States in an old Volvo named Betty, Pascale Le Draoulec discovered how merely mentioning homemade pie to strangers made faces soften, shoulders relax, and memories come wafting back. Rambling from town to town, you’ll meet the famous, and sometimes infamous, pie makers who share their stories and recipes, and find out how a quest for pie can lead to something else entirely. Crossing class and color lines, and spanning a nation (Montana has its huckleberry, Pennsylvania its shoofly, and Mississippi its sweet potato), Pascale discovers that pie — real, homemade pie — has meaning for everyone.

Paperback,   $19.95. Buy now

The Chef, the Story & the Dish  by Rochelle Brown
Presents profiles of twenty top food personalities, including Emeril Lagasse, Charlie Trotter, and Lidia Bastianich, and includes a recipe from each chef.

Hardback,  108 pp,  $59.95. Buy now

The World Food Cafe  by Chris Caldicott
Chris and Carolyn Caldicott own and run the World Food Cafe in London’s Covent Garden. In this cookbook they bring together vegetarian recipes from around the world, travellers’ tales that describe how the recipes were discovered, and Chris’s travel photo

Paperback,  192 pp,  $39.95. Buy now

The World from Italy  by George Negus
On one of their forays into the bustling daily market of Florence, they bought a T-shirt which bore the words Football is life …all the rest is mere detail! So began Negus’s journey into the heart and soul of Italian daily life – the holy trinity of football, food and politics. This memoir uncovers a side of Italy that you won’t find in guidebooks and offers some thought-provoking insights on how the world works today, how it could work and how, despite their mad rush to nowhere in particular, the Italians still manage to go their own wonderful way.

Paperback,  278 pp,  $24.95. Buy now