Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table: A Collection of Essays from the New York Times

New York Times Magazine food editor Amanda Hesser has showcased the food-inspired recollections of some of America's leading writers-playwrights, screenwriters, novelists, poets, journalists-in the magazine. Eat, Memory collects the twenty-six best stories and recipes to accompany them.Ann Patchett confronts her stubbornness in a heated argument she once had with her then-boyfriend, now husband, over dinner at the famed Paris restaurant Taillevent. Tom Perrotta explains how his long list of food aversions almost landed him in an East German prison. Gabrielle Hamilton finds that hiring a blind cook leads her into ethical terrain she wasn't prepared to navigate. And poet Billy Collins muses over his relationship with a fish he once ate.Also included are stories by Chang-rae Lee, Patricia Marx, John Burnham Schwartz, George Saunders, Colson Whitehead, Kiran Desai, Pico Iyer, and Heidi Julavits, among others.

Amanda Hesser has been a food columnist and editor at the New York Times for more than a decade. She is the author of The Essential New York Times Cookbook, the award-winning Cooking for Mr. Latte and The Cook and the Gardener, and editor of the essay collection Eat, Memory. Hesser is also the co-founder of food52.com. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Tad Friend, and their two children.