My favorite books about food

These are some of the food books I really love. Amazing life stories, food travel guides and fiction books that connect food to people's feelings in a way that I start believing these are not really separable. Be careful with them. You might end up believing it too.

Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food (Colman Andrews)
Ferran Adrià was the chef of elBulli, a 3 star Micheline restaurant near Barcelona, judged to be the best in the world by the Restaurant Magazine for the record 5 times. He is someone who created the New Nouvelle cuisine and forever changed the world status of Spanish food. The book is a story of the restaurant and Ferran's food revolution.





The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City (David Lebovitz)
David Lebovitz, who hardly needs my introduction, moves to Paris after being a pastry chef in California and becomes a food book writer and blogger. This is his transition and how he saw Paris life, people, traditions and food. It gave me great support, while I was trying to adapt to living in France. Do I need to say that I ended up loving Paris, after seing it from David's point of view? Each essay has a recipe in it, but it is more a story then a cookbook. Ready for Dessert, one of David's amazing cookbooks is also on my bookshelf.



My Life in France (Julia Child)
Life story of the great Julia, first American food writer who brought French cuisine into American home kitchens. With her husband she moved to Paris and found her passion for cooking. They were eating so well and travelling so beautifully. She was coming to endless early morning Le Cordon Bleu classes, coming back home, cooking lunch for Paul, coming back to school to listen to guest lecturers. Reading I was only wishing I could once live one of her days.

The Patisseries of Paris: Chocolatiers, Tea Salons, Ice Cream Parlors, and more (Jamie Cahill)
A brilliant guide to Paris sweet cafes. While I was in Paris I experienced lots of happy moments holding this book in my hands and eating something it guided me to. I wish I could once come back and spend some 2-3 weeks just accurately exploring it step by step. From arrondissement to arrondissement, from French to British and Arabic sweets, from pain au chocolat to palmier, to sablees, to marshmallows, to maracons, from one cup of delicious hot chocolate to the next one.

Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies (Laura Esquivel)
Beautiful romance about Mexican food traditions, love and hunger. Read more in my post about Like Water for Chocolate.



Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (Jorge Amado)
Historical novel about Brazil cocoa plantations, Gabriela's skin with clove and cinnamon aroma and her food which was changing lives.

My cookbooks shelf