Summer is fast approaching and for me that means lining up my summer reads. I try to read at least one book over the course of a week or two but with my wedding around the corner I’ll be happy to read one book per month! During the summer, especially when I can’t get away, I like to read books that take place in both places around the world and around the dinner table. From cookbooks with detailed narratives to accompany old family recipes to novels about love lost surrounded by fragrant lemon trees in the Adriatic coast – here are some excellent summer reads that should inspire you to travel even if it is just to your kitchen. Here are my top 10 summer reads for wanderlust foodies 2016 edition.
Audrey at Home: Memories of my Mother’s Kitchen
CANADA / USA
Any fan of Audrey Hepburn will would want this book to adorn their shelves. Compiled by her son Luca Dotti, it is a sort of scrapbook for fans to revel in anecdotes and stories about her time in Holland, Hollywood, Rome and traveling around for UNICEF. Recipes included! Think Boeuf à la Coullière (Givenchy’s favourite dish) to falling in love over Turkish-style Sea Bass. If you have yard I’d make an evening of this book with Roman Holiday projecting on an old sheet hung from a tree and a table set with Hepburn’s favourites! One can dream.
The World on a Plate: 40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes and the Stories Behind Them
CANADA / USA
Ever wanted to know both the recipe for Kimchi and how the delicious condiment all began in Korea? Want to know how Camembert came to be with the help of a priest? Or the difference between a Bordeaux wine as compared to a Burgundy wine? Stories and recipes are interlaced together creating a fascinating fabric of cultures and the food they are renown for.
Eight Hundred Grapes
CANADA / USA
Living in the Okanagan Wine Country I would be remiss to not include a book about a vineyard. But this particular novel is also about secrets, love and family converging during the harvest season in Sonoma Valley. Pour yourself a glass or two of wine and enjoy on a patio in the sunshine.
Only in Naples: Lessons in Food & Famiglia from My Italian Mother-in-Law
CANADA / USA
Love found in the chaotic and rowdy city of Naples turns into a 3 month initiation as she explores the city with her new mother-in-law to be. Learning to loosen up and embrace life as only Neapolitans can. This novel sounds like a lot of fun and should be consumed on a beach perhaps with a Campari in hand.
Apricot Kisses
CANADA / USA
Apricot Kisses is a lighthearted read with a culinary journalist at the helm. After writing a belittling review of a small restaurant in Tuscany’s countryside the elderly owner dies. The magazine is then sued by the deceased owner’s grandson in which case the magazine prompts the writer to go apologize and convince him to drop the case. The grandson agrees but on one condition…she marry him in order to gain ownership of his grandmother’s restaurant – a stipulation in her will. Cute and silly but the definition of an easy summer read.
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The Sweetness of Forgetting
CANADA / USA
A Cape Cod bakery owner has lost everything – recently divorced, her daughter struggles with change and teenagedom, her mother passed away from breast cancer and her grandmother is in a dementia care home. On top of all this she is on the verge of losing her family’s bakery and is deep in debt. But when she discovers that her grandmother has a secret in Paris that could change her life she is desperate to find her way there. Sprinkled with bakery recipes in between every few chapters.
Tequila Mockingbird
CANADA / USA
Cocktails with a literary twist, this book features a drink for all your classic favourites or those books forced upon you by your professors and teachers throughout school. From Romeo & Julep, Vermouth the Bell Tolls, Dorian Grey Goose, and a Rum of One’s Own – a cocktail menu featuring 65 drink paired books that should be on your shelf.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
CANADA / USA
A girl with a special ability to taste the feelings of those who make the food she eats. With this gift, or curse, she begins to see the inner feelings of her family – her mother’s depression, father’s aloofness and her brother’s anger. Those who enjoyed Like water For Chocolate are fans of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.
The Book of Salt
CANADA / USA
Told from the perspective of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolklas’ personal chef, Bình, this book covers takes a look at one of literature’s most interesting lesbian couple in Paris during the 1920s.
Pomegranate Soup
CANADA / USA
I wanted to end with something a little different than the usual summer read you’d expect: a bakery, a woman in peril, a family secret and a potential for love…
I like those books and I’ve even recommended them above – they are a fun read. But this book is out of the ordinary because it features main characters we aren’t always used to seeing on the page: three sisters escape Iran on the verge of revolution to find themselves trying to make a home in a small Irish village who’s inhabitants aren’t all that welcoming. But alas, food conquers all prejudices around a kitchen table.
Great list. I love non-fiction books about food origins and history. I’ll be checking some of these out, Murissa!
Thanks Ria! So happy to have “met” you on the Facebook group and thank you for stopping by.
Happy writing!
Murissa, what a wonderful list of books for food lovers to read this summer. I’ll start with Apricot kisses (love the premise) and Audrey at home. I just watched an old movie of hers the other day: Sabrina. It was so much fun. Thanks for posting this, fun to see what food and travel bloggers are reading.
I am a huge fan of Audrey! Planning my “night before the wedding events” and one of them is to sip champagne and watch either Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Roman Holiday. Thank you for stopping by and hope all is well with you!
Good article, thanks! The World on a Plate looks interesting, definitely adding that to the reading list. We love doing a cooking class in each country we visit so we can try and recreate some of those flavours back home.
I’ve only done one cooking class before, at Mission Hill Winery, and it was a lot of fun. Usually I do food tours when I go to a new city or country but I’ve been reading a lot of interesting articles about cooking classes in Mexico and Tuscany. Something I definitely want to do someday!