Best Cooking & Food Books

Bourdain's follow-up to Kitchen Confidential — a decade later, more famous, more conflicted, and harder on the food world and on himself.

Frances Mayes, a poet and university professor, buys a ruined villa in the Tuscan hills, restores it with her partner Ed, and discovers the rhythms of Italian rural life — its food, its seasons, its ancient craftsmanship, and its unhurried beauty.