The Sweet Life in Paris
David Lebovitz
Only recently did I get with the program and start reading David Lebovitz's blog — I've tried to make up for lost time by making his butterscotch pudding several times in the last few weeks. I assumed this book would basically be a printed "best of" the blog (which would further help me catch up on what I've been missing), but actually the essays are original to the book, though many of the topics were probably mentioned..
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The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan
I read The Botany of Desire years ago and since then it seems like Pollan has been popping up everywhere, both due to this book and last year's In Defense of Food.
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Bottomfeeder
Taras Grescoe
A few years ago I abandoned my vegetarianism and started adding fish to my diet. Mostly I felt like I needed variety in my protein sources, but also there are a lot of nutritional benefits to eating fish. I've looked at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sustainable Seafood Guide many times, but have always found it difficult to consistently remember what to avoid.
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Julie and Julia
Julie Powell
I was fairly excited about this book when I first heard about it. I never read the blog that started it all, but I went through a month or two of entries on a slow day at work. It seemed pretty entertaining. Plus, I have a certain affinity for Julia Child since we shared the same birthday; I like the idea of projects like making all the recipes in one cookbook; and the book has a cute cover to boot.
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The Botany of Desire
Michael Pollan
Starting off with the question of whether gardeners could be "human bumblebees," essentially goaded into spreading plants around much like bees assist in pollination, Pollan continues on to examine the histories of four key cultivated plants under the shadow of this question. He organizes them into categories of desire: sweetness (the apple), beauty (the tulip), intoxication (marijuana), and control (the potato).
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Fast Food Nation
Eric Schlosser
incredibly in-depth and well-focused, this bestseller looks at the influence of fast food in the US (and, to a certain degree, beyond). Schlosser starts with a solid foundation of the history of fast food companies and afterwards builds a framework of how the companies and the companies they control run today. only a small amount of this is about the food itself and why it's unhealthy. most of it is really the role the fast food industry has played in the corporatization of the US—and why that is unhealthy.
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