Celebrity Chefs

Anne Willan, multi-award-winning culinary historian, cookbook writer, teacher, and founder of La Varenne Cooking School in Paris, explores the lives and work of women cookbook authors whose essential books have defined cooking over the past 300 years. Beginning with the first published cookbook by Hannah Woolley in 1661 to the early colonial days to the transformative popular works by Fannie Farmer, Irma Rombauer, Julia Child, Edna Lewis, Marcella Hazan, and up to Alice Waters working today.

The first book in J Stephen Sadler’s Quest for the Best series explores how chance encounters can change your life if you are paying attention. He also shares how he overcame numerous challenges while building a brand based on the smallest detail to champion his unique family jewel: a crumb cake. This audiobook takes you on a magical journey to find out how he went from scratch to triumph, one cake at a time. Foodies and nonfoodies alike will celebrate, as they share in the adventure of one family’s artisan recipe that took on a life far beyond its humble roots.

After the celebrity chef rises from his grave, he aims to create a zombie army of chefs who will rule the world, using human species as the main ingredient in their cordon bleu meals. Can Floyd be stopped before it’s too late, or will we all end up roasted and then drizzled in a rich chasseur sauce?

From the reinvention of French food through the fine dining revolution in America, Daniel Boulud has been a witness to and a creator of today's food culture. A modern improviser with a classical foundation (a little rock 'n' roll and a lot of Mozart, he'd say), he speaks with the authority that comes from a lifetime of preparing, presenting, and thinking about food - an ancient calling with universal resonance. In Letters to a Young Chef, Boulud speaks not only of how to make a career as a chef in today's world, but also of why one should want to do so in the first place.

As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don't work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new - but simple - techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.

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.

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.

There's big trouble in Quincy's Gap when the "Diva of Dough" arrives to bake the wedding cake for Milla and Jackson's Christmas Eve wedding. The Diva, a celebrity television chef and cookbook author, is Milla's younger sister. And while her cakes are delectably sweet and incredibly beautiful, the Diva makes enemies wherever she goes. When one of the Diva's enemies decides to take her out, and Deputy Lucy Hanover finds the famous chef's body covered in cake batter, the Supper Club members find themselves up to their necks in suspects.

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.

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.

When Nigella Lawson’s first book, How to Eat, was published in 1998, two things were immediately clear: that this fresh and fiercely intelligent voice would revolutionise cookery writing and that How to Eat was an instant classic of the genre. Here was a versatile culinary bible, through which a generation discovered how to feel at home in the kitchen and found the confidence to experiment and adapt recipes to their own needs. This was a book about home cooking for busy lives.

Burn the Place is a galvanizing culinary memoir that chronicles Iliana Regan's journey from foraging on the family farm to opening her Michelin-starred restaurant. Her story is alive with startling imagery, raw like that first bite of wild onion, and told with uncommon emotional power. Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Indiana. Regan often felt that she "wasn't made for this world." She was a little girl who longed to be a boy, gay in an intolerant community, an alcoholic before she turned 20, a woman in an industry dominated by men.

Elaine's was a world-famous New York restaurant that became home to writers and celebrities. Owner Elaine Kaufman was known to be "New York feisty", controversial, often rude, always blunt, with the flare of Gertrude Stein and Dorothy Parker. Elaine was highly respected and frequently feared, and Elaine's the restaurant received the public's love and praise time and time again. Woody Allen held a regular table there, and Elaine's was even featured in Allen's Manhattan and Billy Joel's song "Big Shot".

Long based in Chicago, Iliana and her new wife, Anna, decided to create a culinary destination, the Milkweed Inn, located in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula, where much of the food served to their guests would be foraged by Regan herself in the surrounding forest and nearby river. Part fresh challenge, part escape, Regan’s move to the forest was also a return to her rural roots, in an effort to deepen the intimate connection to nature and the land that she had long expressed as a chef, but experienced most intensely growing up.

Slater writes about how his cooking has changed from discovering the best way to roast a chicken to the trick to smoky, smooth aubergine mash. He gives the tales behind the recipes and recalls the first time he ate a baguette in Paris, his love of jewel-bright Japanese pickled radishes and his initial slice of buttercream-topped chocolate cake. These are the favourite recipes Nigel Slater cooks at home every day; the heart and soul of his cooking. Chapters include: a slice of tart, a chicken in the pot, everyday greens, the solace of soup and the ritual of tea.

Cook, Eat, Repeat is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with narrative essays about food, all in Nigella's engaging and insightful prose. Whether asking 'What is a Recipe?' or declaring death to the Guilty Pleasure, Nigella's wisdom about food and life comes to the fore, with tasty new recipes that listeners will want to return to again and again.

Matty Matheson is known as much for his amazing food as his love for life, positive mental attitude, and epic Instagram account. This debut cookbook is about Matty’s memories of the foods that have defined who he is. With a drive to share his zest for life, he creates dishes within these pages that reinterpret the flavors of his youth in Canada, as well as the restaurant fare for which he has become so well-known. This book is like cooking alongside Matty, sharing stories that are equal parts heartwarming and inappropriate while helping you cook dishes that are full of love. 

Billy and his friends know that Waterfall Woods is out of bounds; strange things are rumoured to have happened there and no one in their village has ventured past its walls for decades. But when they discover a secret way in, Billy and his best friends, Anna, Jimmy and Andy, can't resist the temptation to explore! Only to quickly discover that the woods are brimming with magic and inhabited by all sorts of unusual creatures, including a whole community of sprites who need the children's help!

As kids, they hated each other. Macon Saint was beautiful, but despite his name, Delilah knew he was the devil. That he dated her slightly evil sister, Samantha, was no picnic either. When they broke up, it was a dream come true: Delilah never had to see him again. Ten years later, her old enemy sends a text. Delilah's sister has stolen a valuable heirloom from Macon, now a rising Hollywood star, and he intends to collect his due. One problem: Sam has skipped town.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is a gastronomic alchemist who sees the kitchen as a laboratory where he loves to experiment with new ways to tantalize diners' taste buds. The story of his life is every bit as colorful and attention-grabbing as his famous snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream. This biography traces his journey from a life-changing childhood holiday in France through to his brief apprenticeship in Raymond Blanc's restaurant, where he stood up to a kitchen bully. It follows him as - constantly pushing the boundaries of his work - he reached the top of his profession and was knighted by the Queen.