David Lebovitz, What Are You Reading?

After working as a pastry chef at several restaurants in San Francisco, including almost thirteen years at Chez Panisse, David Lebovitz now lives in Paris where he leads culinary tours and writes books that we all know and love. A couple of the latest of those books are The Perfect Scoop, which is a favorite of mine, and The Sweet Life in Paris, which is a great read with great recipes like dulce de leche brownies. His brand new book is Ready for Dessert, and this one brings together the best of his desserts with new photos and additional recipes. On David’s blog, there’s always something entertaining, delicious, or informative and probably a combination of all three. I had to ask him, what are you reading?


David:

Right now I'm reading The Belly of Paris, a new translation, and what I'm particularly enjoying about it is that it brings the city of Paris from a whole different era back to life. The giant market, Les Halles, must've been amazing and the descriptions of the piles of food and the people who worked there are so vivid and make me a bit sad that the market was torn down in the name of "progress."

I recently read Kitchen Chinese, by Ann Mah, a novel about a young woman moving back to China and rediscovering her identity by becoming a food writer.

I also enjoyed The Tenth Muse by Judith Jones. A lot of people don't realize how important she's been to modern cooking; she discovered and was responsible for getting everyone from Julia Child to Marcella Hazan published. She lived in Paris, too, which made the book a nice reminiscence of a time when French cooking was still loaded with cream-soaked gratins and bustling bistros.

Am looking forward to baking my way through Farmers' Market Desserts, by Jennie Schacht. It's filled with things like cobblers and pies, using all those wonderful fruits that are starting to appear at my market this month.

On deck, is The Butcher and the Vegetarian by Tara Austen Weaver. Am looking forward to diving into her story about her conversion from vegetarian to meat eater. She's a great writer and when I pull myself out of the kitchen, I'm devouring this book next.








Thank you for participating, David! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.

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