Culinary Biography

After 25 years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', Chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.

Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris and Shanghai to the stunning desert solitude of Oman’s Empty Quarter - and many places beyond. In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives listeners an introduction to some of his favourite places. Featuring essential advice on how to get there, what to eat, where to stay and, in some cases, what to avoid.

This is Gordon Ramsay’s autobiography – the first time he has told the full story of how he became the world’s most famous and infamous chef: his difficult childhood, his brother’s heroin addiction and his failed first career as a footballer: all of these things have made him the celebrated culinary talent and media powerhouse that he is today.

A rags-to-$9-billion-riches story. A crash course in Burger King history and fast food in America, The Burger King is McLamore's candid and conversational memoir. Written before his death in 1996, he talks of his life, the birth of the Whopper, and the rise of Burger King. McLamore's account of Burger King offers an instructive and inspiring tale to young entrepreneurs. Here's a story of entrepreneurship development from one of the top entrepreneurs of fast food chains.

Here is Anthony Bourdain's long-awaited sequel to Kitchen Confidential, the worldwide best seller. A lot has changed since then - for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business, and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present.

Julie Goodwin was catapulted into our hearts as the first-ever winner of MasterChef Australia. In many ways her win was unlikely. As a child Julie adored music and art, but her career began in youth work, including in a juvenile detention centre housing troubled boys and a toxic all-male staff. After her three sons were born, she and her husband started an IT business. Then came MasterChef - a record-breaking juggernaut of a show. It was by all appearances, a successful, rewarding life. But under the surface relentless pressure from Julie's outer and inner worlds was taking its toll.

From reckless drug addict to one of Australia’s top chefs and television stars: MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo's powerful life story will shock and inspire. Jock’s life spiralled out of control when he tried heroin for the first time as a teenager while growing up in 1980s Glasgow. For years he balanced a career as a rising star amongst legendary chefs with a crippling drug addiction that took him down many dark paths.

Chef and restaurateur Ben Shewry knows obsession well. Whether it's crispy-edged lasagne, saltwater crocodile ribs or the perfect potato, obsession is what motivates him and what makes him tick. It's also what has propelled his Melbourne restaurant Attica into the league of the most innovative, acclaimed dining experiences in the world, and one of the most vital in Australian history.

In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in Manhattan's East Village. Its young chef-owner, David Chang, served ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners whose idea of ramen was instant noodles in Styrofoam cups. It would have been impossible to know that he would become one of the most influential chefs of his generation. Full of grace, candour, grit and humour, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang's journey, laying bare his mistakes and feelings of otherness and inadequacy.

This memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia Child embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became.

When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain’s life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s long-time assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony’s orbit.

A poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hour.

In the nearly two years since Anthony Bourdain's death, no one else has come close to filling the void he left. His passion for and genuine curiosity about the people and cultures he visited made the world feel smaller and more connected. Despite his affable, confident, and trademark snarky TV persona, the real Tony was intensely private, deeply conflicted about his fame, and an enigma even to those close to him. Tony’s devoted crew knew him best, and no one else had a front-row seat for as long as his director and producer, Tom Vitale.

Eddie Huang is the 30-year-old proprietor of Baohaus - the hot East Village hangout where foodies, stoners, and students come to stuff their faces with delicious Taiwanese street food late into the night - and one of the food world’s brightest and most controversial young stars. But before he created the perfect home for himself in a small patch of downtown New York, Eddie wandered the American wilderness looking for a place to call his own. Funny, raw, and moving, and told in an irrepressibly alive and original voice, Fresh Off the Boat recasts the immigrant’s story for the 21st century.

For a man who has been firmly in the public eye for the past decade or more, Matt Preston has been very, very quiet about his past and private life. There are reasons for this. Now, in Big Mouth, Matt opens up about his early years for the first time—the good and the bad, the tragic and the ecstatic. Like the man himself, it's a story that's joyous, funny and larger than life. It's also, perhaps unexpectedly, filled with pathos and emotional depth, set to a pulsating 1980s soundtrack.

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent 20 fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than 100 friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became necessary to her.

In this captivating memoir, the man whom Julia Child has called "the best chef in America" tells the story of his rise from a frightened apprentice in an exacting Old World kitchen to an Emmy Award-winning superstar who taught millions of Americans how to cook and shaped the nation's tastes in the bargain. The Apprentice is the poignant and sometimes funny tale of a boy's coming of age. Beyond that, it is the story of America's culinary awakening and the transformation of food from an afterthought to a national preoccupation.

O lugar da Paola Carosella sempre foi a cozinha – até que a fama, a pressão do julgamento constante e a polarização política no país que ela escolheu para viver tiraram até isso dela. Na tentativa de achar um caminho de volta, a renomada chef de cozinha e apresentadora achou as respostas que ela procurava nos livros de uma ensaísta norte-americana: M.F.K. Fisher.

Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable middle-aged Minnesotan man who has always been desperately, pretentiously in love with France, more specifically with the idea of France. To follow that love, he and his family move, nearly at random, to the small, rural, scratchy-hot village of Autignac in the south of the country, and he immediately thinks he’s made a terrible mistake.

Food is a love language for me, and was also a way for me to prove my worth—to make up for a long held self-perception that I alone was not enough, that I needed to serve and cook to be worthy of my place and approval. I would often spend all day in the kitchen preparing decadent meals to show people that I care and prove myself worthy of their affections, sometimes people I barely knew or even liked. In the past few months of Sydney's second lockdown, I have found myself making beautiful dishes that I'd never imagined cooking for one person… me.