Food & Wine Reading List

F&W’s editors are always on the lookout for inspiring and insightful books about wine, food and more. This is their current reading list.

F&W’s reading list includes Daniel Duane’s How to Cook Like a Man.

How to Cook Like a Man by Daniel Duane

Duane decided to become the family chef when his daughter was born. His memoir chronicles his evolution from “the burrito years” to his sometimes-extreme efforts to learn to cook from the best—like Alice Waters and Thomas Keller.

Reading List Pick: Jasmine and Fire.

Photo published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Jasmine and Fire by Salma Abdelnour

Nagged by a lifelong sense of being an outsider in America, F&W’s onetime travel editor returned to Beirut, where she lived as a child, with a question: “Could I ever find ‘home’ there again?” Her Lebanese eating adventures figure large in the story.

Reading List Pick: Man Made.

Photo courtesy of Grand Central Publishing.

Man Made by Joel Stein

“I don’t think of myself as a man so much as a person who happens to have a penis,” writes humorist Stein, stricken with panic by fatherhood. In his hilarious quest to become a real man, he tries his hand at everything from roof repair to campfire cooking.

Reading List Pick: Birdseye.

Photo © Doubleday, Inc. 2012.

Birdseye by Mark Kurlansky

Kurlansky, the author of 20 books, including Cod and Salt, turns his attention to Clarence Birdseye. This is a fascinating look at the Birds Eye innovator, “a rare and original man,” who introduced frozen vegetables and convenience foods to America.

Reading List Pick: Culinary Intelligence.

Culinary Intelligence by Peter Kaminsky

When Kaminsky found out he was at risk for diabetes, the food writer was able to shed pounds by thinking more about food, not less. “I am no less a hedonist now, but a slimmer and fitter one,” he says. He shares his food-loving approach.

Reading List Pick: Drop Dead Healthy.

Photo courtesy of Simon and Schuster.

Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs

Jacobs chronicles his attempts, as a self-described “mushy, easily winded, moderately sickly blob,” to become “as healthy as humanly possible” after a near-death experience. It’s a comic misadventure through veganism, juice fasts and caveman workouts.

Published May 2012