A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain will do anything in his quest for the perfect meal, even it means traveling with gun-toting maniacs in Khmer Rouge territory in Cambodia, slaughtering a pig in Portugal, eating a beating cobra’s heart – even selling his soul to TV (in his own, albeit borrowed, words: “We’ve already established you’re a whore. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”) Keep reading…
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
If you’ve watched ‘No Reservations’, the television travel show hosted by Anthony Bourdain, you probably think of him as a chilled-out and somewhat zany seeker of gastronomic pleasures, willing to try anything once, and prepared to go to any lengths to try it.
What you probably don’t know (I certainly didn’t!) is that he is also a CIA-trained chef (not that CIA, dummy, the Culinary Institute of America) and a kickass writer. Kitchen Confidential is a no-holds-barred memoir of Bourdain’s journey from oyster-struck young boy to his ultimate goal: Chefhood. Keep reading…
Climbing The Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey
If you’re a fan of Madhur Jaffrey‘s cookbooks, you’re familiar with her inimitable ability to evoke almost tangible images of good food, the people who cook it, and the places she travels in search of it.
Unlike Jaffrey’s previous works, however, Climbing The Mango Trees is not a cookbook. It’s a memoir peppered with evocative imagery, black and white photographs from the family album, and personal anecdotes that transport you to another time and place.
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Eating India by Chitrita Banerji
As the name suggests, Chitrita Banerji’s “Eating India” speaks of the author’s voracious appetite for all that’s desi – not just the food, but also the history, the culture, the sights, sounds, and colors, the religions… you get the picture.
Part travelogue, part treatise, Eating India traces Banerji’s personal journey in quest of culinary “truth.” Instead of simply documenting India’s multitudinous regional cuisines, she poses a question: in today’s global context, how exactly do we define the term “authentic”? Keep reading…
