The Fortune Cookie Chronicles:
Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
Jennifer 8 Lee

Lee, a New York Times crime reporter,  is obsessed with fortune cookies and wants to know their origin.  She takes us around the world as she investigates and interviews experts, cooks and ancestral families for information.  Fun and engaging, the book also covers the history of chop suey, those ubiquitous take-out containers and soy sauce.  I was so consumed by the tales, I finished it in only a matter of days .  And then promptly went out to celebrate with an egg roll!

The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry Kathleen Finn

It's like going to Le Cordon Bleu without having to spend the money, time or energy!  Kathleen Finn does it all for you and tells you every aching detail in this great book.  And not only do you get a secret insider's look of the school and what it takes to make it, but you'll be immersed in daily Paris life.  Joie de vie indeed!

The Man Who Ate the World:
In Search of the Perfect Dinner
Jay Rayner

This London food critic allows us into his elite world of dining at the very best restaurants all around the globe.  It is a voracious read that will have you salivating on your pillow each night.  It is intoxicating, and indulgent without all of the calories—thank goodness!

Alice, Let’s Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater
Calvin Trillin

If you consider yourself a food lover, you've just got to read Calvin Trillin!  He's hilarious, honest and completely addictive.  Writing for The New Yorker and living in Greenwich Village, New York, he and his wife Alice eat out not only all around the city, but travel to eat items such as Dungeness crabs in California and barbecued mutton in Kentucky and then he writes about them here in this engaging essay collection.  He is truly funny and heartwarming, so much so that you may just want to do as I do, and call him "Uncle Calvin"!

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food
Judith Jones

Food memoirs are great fun because you get juicy personal details along with inspiring food stories.  And this book is no exception.  Jones published  Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, James Beard and M.F.K. Fisher too (to mention just a few).  She includes 50 of her favourite recipes in the book, and tells stories about family, often centering in and around the kitchen, that will delight and inspire you.  If only all memoirs could be like this!

Eat, Memory:
Great Writers at the Table
Edited by Amanda Hesser

Hesser has been writing about food forever, despite her young age (The Cook and The Gardener, Cooking for Mr. Latte, the food column for New York Times Magazine).  And she's been recently named the new food critic for The New York Times!  So who better than to edit this collection?  These short, easy-to-read essays brings together great writers and their unforgettable stories about food: Ann Patchett writes about Paris, Patricia Marx tells why sheloves hors oeuvres and Pico Iyer explains food in Japan.  You'll experience a range of emotions reading this one.  And isn't that just one of the many joys of reading a collection?