Cooking bestsellers

“Kwame Onwuachi’s story shines a light on food and culture not just in American restaurants or African American communities but around the world.” —Questlove
 
By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi had opened—and closed—one of the most talked about restaurants in America. He had launched his own catering company with twenty... Read more »

“Food, for me, is a constant pleasure: I like to think greedily about it, reflect deeply on it, learn from it; it provides comfort, inspiration, meaning, and beauty…More than just a mantra, ‘cook, eat, repeat’ is the story of my life.” 

Cook, Eat, Repeat is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with narrative essays about... Read more »

An instant New York Times bestseller

From the bestselling author of The Cost of These Dreams

The story of how Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the most coveted cult Kentucky Bourbon whiskey in the world, fought to protect his family's heritage and preserve the taste of his forebears, in a world where authenticity, like his product, is in... Read more »

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Los Angeles Times • NPR • Men’s Journal • BookPage • Booklist • Publishers Weekly

In the fall of 2009, the food world was rocked when Gourmet magazine was abruptly shuttered by its parent company. No one was more stunned by this unexpected turn of events than its beloved... Read more »

A radically practical guide to making food choices that are good for you, others, and the planet.  
 
Is organic really worth it? Are eggs ok to eat? If so, which ones are best for you, and for the chicken—Cage-Free, Free-Range, Pasture-Raised? What about farmed salmon, soy milk, sugar, gluten, fermented foods, coconut oil, almonds? Thumbs-up,... Read more »

“The ultimate truffle true crime tale”*: A thrilling journey through the hidden underworld of the world's most prized luxury ingredient.

*Bianca Bosker, New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork

Beneath the gloss of star chefs and crystal-laden tables, the truffle supply chain is touched by theft, secrecy, sabotage, and fraud. Farmers patrol... Read more »

Culinary historian Anne Willan “has melded her passions for culinary history, writing, and teaching into her fascinating new book” (Chicago Tribune) that traces the origins of American cooking through profiles of twelve influential women—from Hannah Woolley in the mid-1600s to Fannie Farmer, Julia Child, and Alice Waters—whose recipes and ideas... Read more »

From the author of Away with Words, a deeply hilarious and unexpectedly insightful deep-dive into a cultural and culinary phenomenon: cheese.

“Who knew it was possible to enjoy reading about cheese as much as eating it? Remarkably entertaining, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious, American Cheese goes far beyond the plastic yellow slices... Read more »

Read Kathleen Flinn's posts on the Penguin Blog.

This is the funny and inspiring account of Kathleen Flinn’s struggle in a stew of hot-tempered chefs, competitive classmates, her own “wretchedly inadequate” French, and the basics of French cuisine. Flinn was a thirty-six-year-old middle manager trapped on the corporate ladder—until her boss... Read more »

From the author of Fresh Off the Boat, now a hit ABC sitcom, comes a hilarious and fiercely original story of culture, family, love, and red-cooked pork

Eddie Huang was finally happy. Sort of. He’d written a bestselling book and was the star of a TV show that took him to far-flung places around the globe. His New York City restaurant was... Read more »

From Margaret Dilloway, author of Summer of a Thousand Pies, comes a heartfelt and funny story about a shy eleven-year-old who learns to manage her anxiety through improv classes—and discovers her activist voice. Perfect for fans of Sharon Draper, Lynda Mullaly Hunt, and Holly Goldberg Sloan.

Eleven-year-old Ava Andrews has a Technicolor... Read more »

“You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France.” —The Wall Street Journal

What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old... Read more »

Now a Netflix series!

New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2018 James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook and multiple IACP Cookbook Awards

Named one of the Best Books of 2017 by: NPR, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Rachel Ray Every Day, San Francisco Chronicle, Vice Munchies, Elle.com, Glamour, Eater,... Read more »

Part memoir, part manifesto, in Eat Like a Fish Bren Smith—a former commercial fisherman turned restorative ocean farmer—shares a bold new vision for the future of food: seaweed.

Through tales that span from his childhood in Newfoundland to his early years on the high seas aboard commercial fishing trawlers, from pioneering new forms of ocean... Read more »

JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“One of the great culinary stories of our time.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
 
It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother’s house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for... Read more »

No two curries are the same. This Curry asks why the dish is supposed to represent everything brown people eat, read, and do.

Curry is a dish that doesn’t quite exist, but, as this wildly funny and sharp essay points out, a dish that doesn’t properly exist can have infinite, equally authentic variations. By grappling with novels, recipes,... Read more »

In his second in-depth foray into the world of professionalcooking, Michael Ruhlman journeys into the heart of the profession. Observingthe rigorous Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America,the most influential cooking school in the country, Ruhlman enters the livesand kitchens of rising star Michael Symon and the renowned... Read more »

Prohibition has long been portrayed as a "noble experiment" that failed, a newsreel story of glamorous gangsters, flappers, and speakeasies. Now at last Lisa McGirr dismantles this cherished myth to reveal a much more significant history. Prohibition was the seedbed for a pivotal expansion of the federal government, the genesis of our... Read more »

A vivid memoir of food and family, survival and triumph, Love, Loss, and What We Ate traces the arc of Padma Lakshmi’s unlikely path from an immigrant childhood to a complicated life in front of the camera—a tantalizing blend of Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone and Nora Ephron’s Heartburn

Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television... Read more »

A spirited narrative on the fascinating art and science ofalcohol sure to inspire cocktail party chats on making booze, tasting it, andits effects on our bodies and brains.

Drinking gets a lot more interesting when you know what’sactually inside your glass of microbrewed ale, single-malt whisky, or NapaCabernet Sauvignon. All of them begin with... Read more »

Named a Favorite Book for Southerners in 2020 by Garden & Gun 

"Donovan is such a vivid writer—smart, raunchy, vulnerable and funny— that if her vaunted caramel cakes and sugar pies are half as good as her prose, well, I'd be open to even giving that signature buttermilk whipped cream she tops her desserts with a try.”—Maureen... Read more »

An affecting memoir from the country’s youngest sommelier, tracing her path through the glamorous but famously toxic restaurant world

At just twenty-one, the age when most people are starting to drink (well, legally at least), Victoria James became the country’s youngest sommelier at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Even as Victoria was selling... Read more »

Helen Thorpe, author of a trio of award-winning books about the experiences of immigrants, refugees, and veterans, shares seven essays she has written on the related themes of her own family's story, the labor that goes into producing local food, and the intersections of migration, race, and privilege.

In the first essay, Thorpe takes us to the... Read more »

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK

“Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo élan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she’s not wrong, though Bill Buford’s Heat is probably a shade closer.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York... Read more »

In her own words, here is the captivating story of Julia Child’s years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found her “true calling.”

From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre, en route to Paris, in the fall of 1948, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who... Read more »

A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifting odor—peaches, old garlic. M is for Medlar, name-checked by Shakespeare for its crude shape, beloved by gardeners for its flowers. Q is for Quince, which, fresh, gives off the... Read more »

NOW AN ORIGINAL SERIES ON ABC • “Just may be the best new comedy of [the year] . . . based on restaurateur Eddie Huang’s memoir of the same name . . . [a] classic fresh-out-of-water comedy.”—People
 
“Bawdy and frequently hilarious . . . a surprisingly sophisticated memoir about race and assimilation in America . . . as much James Baldwin and... Read more »

What is American cuisine? What national menu do we share? What dishes have we chosen, how did they become "American," and how are they likely to evolve from here? In Food Americana, David Page answers all these questions and more. America is more than just a fast food nation. Food Americana is the inside story of how generations of Americans... Read more »

A story about the trials and triumphs of a Black chef from Queens, New York, and a White media entrepreneur from Staten Island who built a relationship and a restaurant in the Deep South, hoping to bridge biases and get people talking about race, gender, class, and culture.
 
“Black, White, and The Grey blew me away.”—David Chang 

In this dual... Read more »

Comedian Jim Gaffigan reveals his most intimate food memories, opinions, and fantasies that will keep you laughing all the way to the refrigerator. 

“What are my qualifications to write this book? None really. So why should you read it? Here’s why: I’m a little fat. If a thin guy were to write about a love of food and eating I’d highly recommend... Read more »

The inspiring and deeply personal memoir from highly acclaimed chef Dominique Crenn

By the time Dominique Crenn decided to become a chef, at the age of twenty-one, she knew it was a near impossible dream in France where almost all restaurant kitchens were run by men. So, she left her home and everything she knew to move to San Francisco, where... Read more »

Twelve-time New York Times bestselling author Mark Hyman, MD, presents his unique Pegan diet—including meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists.

For decades, the diet wars have pitted advocates for the low-carb, high-fat paleo diet against advocates of the exclusively plant-based vegan diet and dozens of other diets leaving most of us bewildered... Read more »

A cookbook and culinary memoir about growing up as the daughter of revered chef/restaurateur Alice Waters: a story of food, family, and the need for beauty in all aspects of life.

In this extraordinarily intimate portrait of her mother--and herself--Fanny Singer, daughter of food icon and activist Alice Waters, chronicles a unique world of food,... Read more »

“Not since Michael Pollan has such a powerful storyteller emerged to reform American food.” —The Washington Post

Today’s optimistic farm-to-table food culture has a dark secret: the local food movement has failed to change how we eat. It has also offered a false promise for the future of food. In his visionary New York Times–bestselling book,... Read more »

The true adventures of David Fairchild, a turn-of-the-century food explorer who traveled the globe and introduced diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes—and thousands more—to the American plate.

“Fascinating.”—The New York Times Book Review • “Fast-paced adventure writing.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Richly descriptive.”—Kirkus •... Read more »

From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen.

Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the... Read more »

“A big-hearted story that’s as sweet as it is awesome.” —R.J. Palacio, author of Wonder
“An honest, emotionally rich take on disability, family, and growing up.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In the tradition of Wonder and Out of My Mind, this big-hearted middle grade debut tells the story of an irrepressible girl with cerebral palsy whose... Read more »

Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Includes dozens of new recipes.
 
When David Lebovitz... Read more »

From civil rights to Ferguson, Franchise reveals the untold history of how fast food became one of the greatest generators of black wealth in America. Often blamed for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, fast food restaurants like McDonald's have long symbolized capitalism's villainous effects on our nation's most... Read more »