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Ever since the success of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and Ruth Reichl’s Comfort Me With Apples, food memoirs have become a bestselling literary genre. Especially with the advent of celebrity chefs! What’s better for the mind and the palate than reading about delicious, exotic locales and foods? They often combine juicy tidbits about the culinary set as well! Here are our top food memoir picks, both old and new.

The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry – Kathleen Finn (Penguin)
Finn takes big risks when she ditches her corporate job in London to pursue her dream of attending culinary school at the esteemed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Think Eat Pray Love, but sassier and more mouth-watering! Finn is the perfect, relatable heroine. A fun and soul-searching traipse through the triumphs and travails of French haute cuisine.

Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone – ed. Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Riverhead)
Musings from some of the country’s most established writers (and foodies!) on the delights and taboos of dining for one, this collection of essays is heartfelt and relatable. No matter the celebrity status of the writer, like Haruki Murakami or M.F.K. Fisher, anyone can relate to the tales. At the end of a trying day, it’s nice to know that even the pros find comfort in preparing a timeless staple dish, rather than whipping up something sophisticated.

Best Food Writing 2008 – ed. Holly Hughes (Da Capo Press)
Hughes delivers the annual anthology of the best culinary prose. Particularly great about this compilation is that it includes work from emerging culinary voices alongside the usual gourmet extraordinaires. Our favorite essays are by Barbara Kingslover and Jess Thomson.

Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table: A Collection of Essays from the New York Times – ed. Amanda Hesser (W.W. Norton)
This nostalgic collection of essays from The New York Times Magazine explores how veteran writers like George Saunders and Billy Collins reflect on their most powerful memories associated with food. Watch out for Ann Patchett’s essay on a momentous fight with her husband at a fine Parisian restaurant!

Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess – Gael Greene (Grand Central Publishing)
Gael Green is arguably New York City’s most famous restaurant critic. In her cheeky memoir, Green chronicles the adventures and mishaps that arise from her love of food. Green’s tales are a bona fide insider’s view into the VIP culinary sphere: she recounts the atmosphere at Le Cirque in 1977 and even her affairs with Clint Eastwood and Elvis Presley! This is one saucy account that any pop culture aficionado will devour.

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