 | Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $0.01 The first in a (currently) trilogy of memoirs. Focused on Ruth's early years and her first marriage.
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 | Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $0.49 The second in (currently) a trilogy of memoirs - Ruth starts to find her way in the food world and learns about what love really is.
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 | Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $1.64 The third book in a (currently) trilogy of wonderful memoirs. Ruth's adventures in New York aren't just about reviewing restaurants for the NY Times...it's also about finding herself.
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 | Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford
Buy new: $17.13 / Used from: $0.18 While you can't really expect a journalist to give up his roots and go completely memoir, it's still a great book filled with insights into a professional kitchen and later (although not as thrilling or, to me, interesting) a butchery in Tuscany.
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 | The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $3.70 An absolutely fascinating man. Have to give him props for being very focused on the world of food (his daughter's birth comes as a complete shock, and is given only a line or two before carrying on with the other stories).
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 | My Kitchen Wars by Betty Fussell
Buy used from: $0.74 An oldie but a goodie...quick read, too.
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 | Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess by Gael Greene
Buy new: $11.19 / Used from: $0.10 The title says it all
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 | As They Were by M.F.K. Fisher
Buy used from: $0.01 Can't get away from one of the pioneers of them all...
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 | Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
Buy used from: $14.93 Have to give the woman props for trying some of those recipes...if I brought brains or kidneys home, I might get shot.
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 | Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey
Buy new: $18.25 / Used from: $1.94 For something really different (and also an easy read), Jaffrey's account deals mostly with food and is very interesting.
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 | Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) by Anthony Bourdain
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $4.91 If you are squeamish about drugs, sex, alcohol, or lay-the-cards-out kind of writing, this may not be the book for you. Bourdain is vastly interesting, however, and his frank and engrossing style is really refreshing in this genre.
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 | Women Who Eat: A New Generation on the Glory of Food (Live Girls Series)
Buy new: $11.96 / Used from: $0.01 If the title isn't enough to win you over, then the diverse accounts within from women from many backgrounds who are struggling, celebrating, or wondering about food will. Absolutely fabulous anthology.
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 | Best Food Writing 2006
Buy new: $11.96 / Used from: $0.01 All in this series are wonderful, chock full of great stories you may not find anywhere else. I believe the first was in 1999...
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 | In My Mother's Kitchen: 25 Writers on Love, Cooking, and Family by Various
Buy used from: $2.93 Again, the title says it all (notice who the authors are! All-stars here!)
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 | Don't Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs
Buy used from: $0.94 Now, doesn't it make you feel better knowing that the best mess it up, too?
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 | Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater by Alan Richman
Buy new: $11.92 / Used from: $0.01 "A professional eater"...can I get that in chocolate?
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 | French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew by Peter Mayle
Buy new: $10.04 / Used from: $0.01 Although his books are all fairly good, this one is just superb!
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 | Toast by Nigel Slater
Buy new: $17.00 / Used from: $0.81 Another great memoir, especially from the male point of view.
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 | Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir by Elizabeth Ehrlich
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $0.94 Now we get to see what those Jewish mothers are *really* like!
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 | Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life by Mimi Sheraton
Buy new: $13.95 / Used from: $0.08 Another restaurant critic who knows how to spill more than just the beans.
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 | Between Bites: Memoirs of a Hungry Hedonist by James Villas
Buy new: $16.00 / Used from: $4.35 Another title that just says it all...
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 | Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West
Buy new: $11.92 / Used from: $2.08 While this book gets a lot of mixed reviews, as a memoir I still think it's worth a lot.
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 | The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture by Edvige Guinta
Buy new: $14.49 / Used from: $9.30 If you like your Italian, here's a great place to mix life and pasta.
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 | Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer by Jeannette Ferrary
Buy new: $15.00 / Used from: $0.81 Another fantastic memoir by a very strong [stomached] woman... :)
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 | Slice of Life: Contemporary Writers on Food
Buy used from: $0.01 One of my favorite anthologies of food writing.
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 | Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Buy new: $11.24 / Used from: $1.68 It's fiction, I know, but it has to have a place here. Her stories of food, mixed with a bit of fantasy and just an incredible story, makes it a classic that you have to pick up.
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 | Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Buy new: $10.19 / Used from: $0.84 Didn't expect to see one of the greats in creative non-fiction here? Well, the last essay included in this "compilation" is all about food...or rather, what his father allows to pass as food. As always with Sedaris, it's poignant, funny, and yet stirring in ways you don't quite expect.
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 | The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
Buy new: $16.98 / Used from: $8.85 If you want to remain an omnivore after reading this book, you may want to skip over a few chapters featuring your favorite meats. The truth is hard, but someone has to tell it - and Pollan uses his signature style of personal experience blended with facts and interesting field trips...
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 | Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs, and Lasagna by Doris Roberts
Buy new: $16.23 / Used from: $0.01 While not as focused on food as many other books in this list, Doris Roberts is a foodie at heart with a fascinating story that often had me giggling and loving her life.
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 | The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $7.54 Again, not quite memoir, but he mixes personal experience with a journalistic flair that makes this so incredibly rich and rewarding. I guarantee you'll never think of Johnny Appleseed the same way again!
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 | Eater's Digest: 400 Delectable Readings about Food and Drink by Lorraine Bodger
Buy used from: $0.57 now this is a tome! There are a few short memoir-esque pieces in here, but also just a lot of great bits of information that help you to *understand* all those other memoirs (trust me, I had to have a culinary dictionary on hand at times when the chefs get going!)
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Listmania!
