So my summer reading definitely had a theme to it: the food memoir.

It started in France and I have to say that reading books about other people traveling and eating totally enriched my trip. Once I got home I couldn’t stop and read a few more. And I have two that I can’t wait to get to so I am including them too. So on the off chance that you love food and travel, here you go.

1. Tender At The Bone by Ruth Reichl

 

There is just something about her writing that really touches a very personal part of you and makes you feel like you are sitting down with a sister or best friend over coffee. Born to a mother who suffers from manic depression, she has an innate appetite that fuels her path in food writing (she was the editor of Gourmet Magazine for 10 years). She was rather groundbreaking in this genre, since only MFK Fisher had been a woman who wrote about food. During this period she worked at a camp in France, went to a French boarding school in Canada, Honeymooned all over Italy and Greece for months, and then ended up a Berkley hippy during a groundbreaking food scene. And she shares recipes that give a picture of each period, many of them mouthwatering, which she wanted to use instead of photographs but readers begged her for some and I am glad they did.  The time period is a very sweet, coming of age period for Reichl, unlike its successor…

 

2. Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl:

Here she has some scandal. Affairs. Adopting a baby only to have it pulled away after 6 months. But it is mostly about the food. And when your friends are Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck and Jonathan Waxman, there is a lot to say about what is happening in food. Throughout the book she is the LA Times Food Critic, and so she covers everything from Wolfgang Pucks new restaurant opening to a chef’s dinner in Spain where she goes drinking all night with the celebrity chefs she is covering. But the parts that stay with me are how she couldn’t stop making Cream of Mushroom soup when she was going through a divorce. There is such an intimacy to food and she really captures it.

Both books are page turners, and now I am reading Sapphire and Garlic, their sequel, which I bought on Kindle the second I finished Comfort Me With Apples. It follows how she becomes the NY Times food critic and has to dress in disguise in order to review the food. I can’t put it down and keep hiding from my kids so I can read it.

3. My Sweet Life In Paris by David Leibovitz –

 

I can’t believe how good this book was! I found myself telling the stories to my husband and father-in-law as I was reading it because it was so appropos to what we were experiencing in our travels (for example, feeling incredibly rude getting up to tell the waiter we needed our check, only to learn from Leibovitz that they expect you to tell them when you are done and want the check, since bringing it to you is considered rude, like they are rushing you.) This book also includes recipes and I for real want to try every. single. one. There is so much hilarity in the book but also real cultural insights into the French. A must read for anyone diving into their culture.

 

4.  Consider the Oyster by MFK Fisher –

 

I read this before (and even did a blog post about it! One of my favorites), but she is like a supporting character in Ruth Reichl’s Comfort Me With Apples I am revisiting everything she wrote. This is a good one to start with.

5. Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist-

 

This was a book I started a long time ago but only got a third of the way through. It was so nice to read it right after Tender at the Bone and Sweet Life in Paris, because the stories are based in the Midwest, where I grew up (Fun Fact: I actually grew up in the town next to Shauna Niequist.) So it was nice to have the narrative of a love of food through all different contexts, especially a familiar one. I want to make every one of Shauna’s recipes. And I love how she celebrates life around the table.

6. The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan-

 

Ok, so this one isn’t exactly about food but it is a memoire of an Irish Catholic family, which helps me so much to understand where my loyalty and faith stem from. She gets cancer at 36 and has 2 small girls at the same time that her father gets cancer. And the resulting chaos in her family that ensues reminds me that every family is a little (or a lot) crazy. Really touching was her tribute to a mom of four kids, which she always wanted to have. Her hormone therapy made her unable to have any more so she had to grieve her dream. She is a master at creating character portraits of people and she writes from the heart, even if it exposes her own weaknesses.

7. A Personal History, Katherine Graham –

 

I read this memoir a long time ago, and it is also not about food, but it has become the standard for me for all memoirs and I find myself thinking of it often. She was the editor of the Washington Post after her manic depressive husband, who was the head of the paper, committed suicide. Just a great story of an elegant lady whose steely intelligence outpaced her own naïveté to become a towering female figure in politics and writing.

Up next, these two selections which are next on my reading list. I already know I will love them and am really familiar with the authors. Having them to look forward to are like having unopened chocolates waiting for me.

8. The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffery Steingarten –

 

I love Jeffery Steingarten as a judge on Top Chef Masters, and I was thrilled to figure out that the food writer for Vogue was the same gruff guy I see tearing apart the chefs’ creations, especially because he writes sort of sweetly about food. The first piece I ever read by him was on Brown Butter, and I have loved every piece he ever wrote since. I have a feeling it will be like Ruth Reichl’s Sapphires and Garlic in content, but Steingarten has a style all his own.

 

9. Mastering the Art of French Eating – by Ann Mah

 

 

I follow Ann Mah’s blog because she splits her time between NYC and Paris, and she is a momma to a toddler, so her food is always based on great food experiences but is pretty down to earth at the same time. Her husband was in the military, and like Julia Child, she has to define herself in the city of Paris alone when he is called to duty in the middle east. If this book is half as warm and smart as Ann’s blog is, it will be a terrific read. I can’t wait to read this book.

 

Have you read any memoirs that you loved? I’m all ears.

Happy Reading! xoxo Katie