JEANNE BRAGG, Post Columnist
Posted: Sunday, April 11, 2010 10:26 am

I enjoy reading and cooking and have read several books that contain stories and recipes. I would like to share a few of my favorites with you.

The Cook and the Gardener (published 1999), by Amanda Hesser was the first book I read in this vein. Hesser, a former columnist for the New York Times chronicled her year of cooking in France in the shadow of a French gardener named Monsieur Milbert. Milbert was slow to befriend this American and the ensuing story is charming.

The recipes were a little ambitious (her approach to French vegetables is a little more sophisticated than mine) but Ms. Hesser made me want to sell everything I had to cook at a chalet in France for a year … a fun read.

Molly Wizenberg, an Internet blogger (Orangette.com) has written a book about cooking and family titled A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table.

Ms. Wizenberg has an unsophisticated, casual approach to life and her non-traditional family is at the heart of this story. I enjoyed the book more than the blog, and interrupted reading to go to my copy machine several times. It was lighthearted and fun.

The escapades of Ruth Reichl are delightful. Ms. Reichl, former food critic for the New York Times and editor of Gourmet magazine began her career in San Francisco.

Her first book, Tender at the Bone, comically depicts the role food played in her childhood. The others, Comfort Me with Apples and Garlic and Sapphires, chronicle her marriage(s), career moves and life around food. Of particular appeal are stories about restaurant dining in New York incognito when she was a critic. Her capers in restaurants make you wish you could have been her dinner partner and/or best friend (on the company account). She also wrote about the cavalier attitude displayed often towards single female patrons at high-end restaurants, which could strike a chord with many.

I loved each of Reichl’s books and her documented accounts on what constitutes good and bad. And I especially loved reading the uncomplicated recipes. I think Garlic and Sapphires may be my favorite.

Then came along Frank Bruni who was 40 when he was named food critic for the New York Times in 2004 (his last column was in Aug. 2009).

Mr. Bruni’s book Born Round follows his path from being one of four children raised in a Italian-cooking family in New England to his career as a news reporter in Rome. It was in Rome that he received a phone call asking him to come back to NYC to assume the job of food critic — his dream job. But along with the job came his life-long struggles with his weight, from bulimia to sensible methods.

Bruni’s book spent more time on his weight issu­es than his food escapades, and did not include recipes to my dismay, but his recounts of life with family and as a reporter for the campaign of George W. Bush make it a good read. In fact, I subsequently checked out Ambling into History: the Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush, which he also penned. It gave me a different perspective into former president Bush.

The biggest surprise came was The Pat Conroy Cookbook (2004). I assumed it was a only a cookbook, but after I checked it out from the library and enjoyed his narrative so much I couldn’t put it down. The recipes are good, I’m sure; typically Southern … but the piéces de resistance (“desserts”) were Conroy’s stories about food and accounts of his friend and family. It was a real winner.

Finally, one of my very favorite writers was Laurie Colwin, a novelist and former columnist for Gourmet magazine. I subscribed to Gourmet in the ’90s just to read Laurie’s entertaining column, but sadly she died of a heart attack in1992 at age 48. Laurie’s style of writing was happy and upbeat, as are her books about eating. Reading Home Cooking and More Home Cooking were like eating comfort food, and I only wish she were around to entertain me more.

If you’re in a quandary about what to fix for dinner and enjoy cooking and reading, check out one or two of these books. And if you REALLY want more information than you hoped to know, google Ruth Reichl, Frank Bruni, Amanda Hesser, et. al. and, voila, A whole new world will be opened to you.

But let notice be served: Keep a paper and pencil or lots of book-marks on hand. You’ll want to copy a few or some of their recipes.

Pat Conroy says, “Every recipe is a story.”

There are lots of stories and recipes here and many are delicious and delightful.

Happy reading, and let me know if these books and recipes did or did not work for you.

‘Til next week.