National Network for Equitable Library Service

Ruth Reichl knows that to be a good restaurant critic you have to be anonymous, but when she signs up to be the most important restaurant critic in the country, her picture is posted in every four-star, low-star, and no-star kitchen in town. What's a critic in search of the truth to do?

In French Lessons, Mayle broadens his horizons and sets out on a gastronomic voyage to every region of France, ready to eat and drink his way into blissful oblivion. Along the way, Mayle unearths rare local delicacies, irresistible recipes, and eccentric characters, while ingesting plenty of red wine, piquant cheese, and escargots.

Journalist Sarah Rose presents a dramatic historical narrative of the man who stole the secret of tea from China.

What foods did the human body evolve to eat, and why? How does the food we eat affect our genes and our minds? What foods are (and aren't) optimal for our everyday health? How can we use cutting-edge science to end world hunger? In these 36 lectures, get eye-opening answers to these and other perplexing questions about the evolution of the human diet and its relationship to our bodies.

As a teenager, French fell in love with food while working the line at her dad's diner. She found her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant tucked into a 19th century mill. In her memoir, Erin opens up to the challenges, stumbles and victories that have led her to the exact place she was ever meant to be, telling stories of multiple rock-bottoms, of darkness and anxiety, of survival as a jobless single mother, of pills that promised release but delivered addiction, of a man who seemed to offer salvation but in the end ripped away her very sense of self.

Dessert connects us heart-to-heart like almost nothing else. It brings us together in good times and bad, celebration and solace. It marks big and small milestones and creates memories of comfort and joy. And Christina Tosi, the founder and CEO of Milk Bar, believes it can save the world. Does the combination of sugar, flour, and butter have some magical ability to fix all the craziness of our modern existence? Of course not. Tosi knows a cookie is just a cookie--but bringing the joy a cookie holds into every area of your life most definitely can.

Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn't know much about wine--until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor.

How humankind first hunted and gathered explains our emergence as a new species and our earliest technology. Our first food systems, from fire to agriculture, tell where we settled and how civilizations expanded. The quest for food for growing populations drove exploration, colonialism, slavery, even capitalism. A century ago, food was industrialized. Since then, new styles of agriculture and food production have written a new chapter of human history, one that is driving both climate change and global health crises.

Food is in the eye of the beholder. This book assembles an amazing and often stomach-turning array of things people put in their mouths. Quite apart from delighting readers with exotic entrees, Joanna Emery asks the burning questions: - If you find Fluffy on your plate, does that qualify as pet food'? - Why do roughly 20 people a year die after eating the Japanese Seafood Special? - Why would someone pay more than $300 for bird saliva? - What's all the rage about Marmite and Vegemite? - Do you need to be from Transylvania to enjoy blood pudding and blood sausage?

Over the years, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business--and for Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present.