Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat

Grant Achatz

“One of America’s great chefs” (Vogue), Grant Achatz, shares how his drive to cook immaculate food fueled his miraculous triumph over tongue cancer.

By 2007 chef Grant Achatz had been named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine, he had received the James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award, and he and Nick Kokonas had opened the conceptually radical restaurant Alinea, which was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine. Then, positioned firmly in the world’s culinary spotlight, Achatz was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma-tongue cancer.

The prognosis grim, Grant undertook an alternative treatment of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation that ravaged his body and left him without a sense of taste. Tapping into his profound discipline and passion, he trained his chefs to mimic his palate and learned how to cook with his other senses. As Kokonas was able to attest, the food was never better. Five months later, Grant was declared cancer-free and went on to achieve some of the highest honors in the culinary world. Life, on the Line is not only a chef’s memoir, it is also a book about survival, about nurturing creativity, and about profound friendship.

The Last Chinese Chef

Nicole Mones

This alluring novel of friendship, love, and cuisine brings the best-selling author of Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light to one of the great Chinese subjects: food. As in her previous novels, Nicole Mones’s captivating story also brings into focus a changing China — this time the hidden world of high culinary culture.

When Maggie McElroy, a widowed American food writer, learns of a Chinese paternity claim against her late husband’s estate, she has to go immediately to Beijing. She asks her magazine for time off, but her editor counters with an assignment: to profile the rising culinary star Sam Liang.

In China Maggie unties the knots of her husband’s past, finding out more than she expected about him and about herself. With Sam as her guide, she is also drawn deep into a world of food rooted in centuries of history and philosophy. To her surprise she begins to be transformed by the cuisine, by Sam’s family — a querulous but loving pack of cooks and diners — and most of all by Sam himself. The Last Chinese Chef is the exhilarating story of a woman regaining her soul in the most unexpected of places.

Several Chinese recipes can be found on Mones’ web site.

Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems Into Delicious Meals

Lindsay-Jean Hard

“A whole new way to celebrate ingredients that have long been wasted. Lindsay-Jean is a master of efficiency and we’re inspired to follow her lead!”
—Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, cofounders of Food52

In 85 innovative recipes, Lindsay-Jean Hard—who writes the “Cooking with Scraps” column for Food52—shows just how delicious and surprising the all-too-often-discarded parts of food can be, transforming what might be considered trash into culinary treasure.

Here’s how to put those seeds, stems, tops, rinds to good use for more delicious (and more frugal) cooking: Carrot greens—bright, fresh, and packed with flavor—make a zesty pesto. Water from canned beans behaves just like egg whites, perfect for vegan mayonnaise that even non-vegans will love. And serve broccoli stems olive-oil poached on lemony ricotta toast. It’s pure food genius, all the while critically reducing waste one dish at a time.

“I love this book because the recipes matter…show[ing] us how to utilize the whole plant, to the betterment of our palate, our pocketbook, and our place.” —Eugenia Bone, author of The Kitchen Ecosystem

“Packed with smart, approachable recipes for beautiful food made with ingredients that you used to throw in the compost bin!” —Cara Mangini, author of The Vegetable Butcher

We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time

José Andrés

The true story of how a group of chefs fed hundreds of thousands of hungry Americans after Hurricane Maria and touched the hearts of many more.

Chef José Andrés arrived in Puerto Rico four days after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island. The economy was destroyed and for most people there was no clean water, no food, no power, no gas, and no way to communicate with the outside world.

Andrés addressed the humanitarian crisis the only way he knew how: by feeding people, one hot meal at a time. From serving sancocho with his friend José Enrique at Enrique’s ravaged restaurant in San Juan to eventually cooking 100,000 meals a day at more than a dozen kitchens across the island, Andrés and his team fed hundreds of thousands of people, including with massive paellas made to serve thousands of people alone.. At the same time, they also confronted a crisis with deep roots, as well as the broken and wasteful system that helps keep some of the biggest charities and NGOs in business.

Based on Andrés’s insider’s take as well as on meetings, messages, and conversations he had while in Puerto Rico, We Fed an Island movingly describes how a network of community kitchens activated real change and tells an extraordinary story of hope in the face of disasters both natural and man-made, offering suggestions for how to address a crisis like this in the future.

Beyond that, a portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to the Chef Relief Network of World Central Kitchen for efforts in Puerto Rico and beyond.

Grilled: Turning Adversaries Into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry

Leah Garcés

This is the story of Leah Garcés’s fight for better treatment of farmed animals, as she works with farmers, suppliers and restaurant chains to end factory farming for good.

Leah Garcés has committed her career to fighting for the rights of the animals that end up on our plates. As President of the nonprofit group Mercy for Animals and former US Executive Director of Compassion in World Farming, she has led the fight against the sprawling chicken industry that raises billions of birds in cruel conditions–all to satisfy the American appetite for meat.

Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry is her story of working alongside the food and farming industry for animal welfare and ethical food. Instead of fighting and protesting and shaming–approaches that simply haven’t worked previously–Garcés has instead gotten to know the producers. She has worked alongside owners of the megafarms, befriending them, having frank conversations with them, and ultimately encouraging change through dialogue and discussion. Leah is changing the way America farms her animals through this bold approach, and is helping to directly improve the lives of millions of farmed animals.

When she started her journey, Leah did not have much empathy to spare for the chicken-contract farmer–until she actually met one and tried to understand the difficulties they faced. This is the story of what happens when we cross enemy lines to look for solutions. It’s a story of giving in to discomfort for the sake of progress. It’s a story of the power of human connection, and what happens when we practice empathy toward our enemies.

The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health

David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé

Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. The Hidden Half of Nature reveals why good health—for people and for plants—depends on Earth’s smallest creatures. Restoring life to their barren yard and recovering from a health crisis, David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé discover astounding parallels between the botanical world and our own bodies. From garden to gut, they show why cultivating beneficial microbiomes holds the key to transforming agriculture and medicine.

The Perfect Meal

John Baxter

John Baxter’s The Perfect Meal is part grand tour of France, part history of French cuisine, taking readers on a journey to discover and savor some of the world’s great cultural achievements before they disappear completely.

Some of the most revered and complex elements of French cuisine are in danger of disappearing as old ways of agriculture, butchering, and cooking fade and are forgotten. In this charming culinary travel memoir, John Baxter follows up his bestselling The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by taking his readers on the hunt for some of the most delicious and bizarre endangered foods of France.

The Perfect Meal: In Search of the Lost Tastes of France is the perfect read for foodies and Francophiles, cooks and gastronomists, and fans of food culture.