Candyfreak : a journey through the chocolate underbelly of America
by Steve Almond
The candy-obsessed author visits the factories that produce the Twin Bing, the Idaho Spud, the Goo Goo Cluster, and a dozen other quirky bars. A sinfully sweet exploration of the role candy plays in our lives as both source of pleasure and escape from pain.

Cooking for Mr. Latte : a food lover's courtship, with recipes
by Amanda Hesser
Amanda Hesser's tantalizing tale of food, friendship, and romance in New York City chronicles her two heady love affairs: a courtship with "Mr. Latte" and a passion for food. In deliciously winning prose, Amanda tackles life and dating from a food lover's point of view.

Culinary boot camp : five days of basic training at the Culinary Institute of America
by Martha Rose Shulman
For anyone who's fantasized about attending culinary school—or any curious cook who wants to understand more about the fundamentals of fine cooking—this book offers a peek into an über-condensed, intensive version of Culinary Institute of America training for nonprofessionals.

Fast food nation : the dark side of the all-American meal
by Eric Schlosser
Schlosser argues that the fast food industry is responsible for the growth of malls, the widening wage gap, and the obesity epidemic. He discusses facts about food production and preparation, the ingredients and taste-enhancers in the food, the chains' efforts to reel in young, susceptible consumers, and other unsettling facts.

Heat : an amateur's adventures as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta maker, and apprentice to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany
by Bill Buford
Could loving to cook translate into being a professional under the tutelage of the famous chef of a three-star New York restaurant? Buford jumped at the chance to find out. This energetic account of his intense culinary education brings readers into the scalding kitchens where fine food is prepared by obsessive chefs for whom timing is critical and cooking is art. The author entwines the history of pasta with his preparation of it, and he visits the theory that it was the Italians who brought fine cooking to France rather than the other way around. Buford follows the example of his mentors as he travels to Italian villages to serve as kitchen slave to a master of pasta-making and as an apprentice to a butcher to learn to perfect that culinary craft. A journalist for the New Yorker, the author writes with the same gusto with which he cooks. Readers learn how physically demanding professional cooking is, how hard it is on the ego, and how satisfying it can be. This is the ultimate career book for would-be chefs, and a book that noncooks will savor until the last word.

In Defense of Food : an eater's manifesto
by Michael Pollan
In his 2006 blockbuster, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan gave voice to Americans' deep anxiety about food: What should we eat? Where does our food come from? And, most important, why does it take an investigative journalist to answer what should be a relatively simple question? In the hundreds of interviews Pollan gave following the book's publication, the question everyone, including me, asked him was: What do you eat? It was both a sincere attempt to elicit a commonsense prescription and, when it came from cynical East Coast journalists, a thinly veiled attempt to trap the author. "Oh! So he shops at farmers markets," we snipped enviously to one another. "Well, easy for him out there in Berkeley where they feast on peaches and cream in February! What about the rest of us?" In Defense of Food is Pollan's answer: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen : how one girl risked her marriage, her job and her sanity to master the art of living
by Julie Powell
Powell became an Internet celebrity with her 2004 blog chronicling her yearlong odyssey of cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. A frustrated secretary in New York City, Powell embarked on "the Julie/Julia project" to find a sense of direction, and both the cooking and the writing quickly became all-consuming. Some passages in the book are taken verbatim from the blog, but Powell expands on her experience and gives generous background about her personal life: her doting husband, wacky friends, evil co-workers. She also includes some comments from her "bleaders" (blog readers), who formed an enthusiastic support base. Powell never met Julia Child (who died last year), but the venerable chef's spirit is present throughout, and Powell imaginatively reconstructs episodes from Child's life in the 1940s. Her writing is feisty and unrestrained, especially as she details killing lobsters, tackling marrowbones and cooking late into the night. Occasionally the diarist instinct overwhelms the generally tight structure and Powell goes on unrelated tangents, but her voice is endearing enough that readers will quickly forgive such lapses. Both home cooks and devotees of Bridget Jonesstyle dishing will be caught up in Powell's funny, sharp-tongued but generous writing.

Kitchen confidential : adventures in the culinary underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
This amusing memoir describes the author's culinary career, exposing the seedier side of New York restaurants. Although a love of good food shines through, Bourdain is bluntly critical of food fads, vegetarianism, employees and himself.

No Reservations : around the world on an empty stomach
by Anthony Bourdain
More than just a companion to the hugely popular show, No Reservations is Bourdains fully illustrated journal of his far-flung travels. The book traces his trips from New Zealand to New Jersey and everywhere in between, mixing beautiful, never-before-seen photos and mementos with Bourdains outrageous commentary on what really happens when you give a bad-boy chef an open ticket to the world. Want to know where to get good fatty crab in Rangoon? How to order your reindeer medium rare? How to tell a Frenchman that his baguette is invading your personal space? This is your book. For any Bourdain fan, this is an indispensable opportunity to hit the road with the man himself.

Salt : a world history
by Mark Kurlansky
Kurlansky draws on culinary, political and scientific history to demonstrate the powerful role salt has played throughout the world from early times.

The apprentice : my life in the kitchen
by Jacques Pepin
The man whom Julia Child has called "the best chef in America" tells the story of his rise from a frightened apprentice in an exacting Old World kitchen to an Emmy Award-winning superstar who taught millions of Americans how to cook and shaped the nation's tastes in the bargain.

The Year of Eating Dangerously : a global adventure in search of culinary extremes
by Tom Parker-Bowles
Fugu. Dog. Cobra. Bees. Spleen. A 600,000 SCU chili pepper. All considered foods by millions of people around the world. And all objects of great fascination to Tom Parker Bowles, a food journalist who grew up eating his mothers considerably safer roast chicken, shepherds pie and mushy peas. Intrigued by the food phobias of two friends, Parker Bowles became inspired to examine the cultural divides that make some foods verboten or dangerous in the culture he grew up with while being seen as lip-smacking delicacies in others. So began a year-long odyssey through Asia, Europe and America in search of the worlds most thrilling, terrifying and odd foods.