Book Lists

Food, Food, and More Food

Posted onAuthorCrystal
a wooden bench has two cups of boba tea. One is mango and the other taro. They match the cups in the hands of the young man and woman on the cover of the book sitting behind them. That is the book a taste for love.

Not long ago we had a booklist involving tea and then it occurred to me that we hadn’t gathered books about food yet. I love a good book about food, baking, cooking, or just enjoying food. Here are a few enjoyable stories revolving around yummy meals and treats.

Young black woman has her curls tied up with a shiny hot pink wrap. She is staring out at reader with a serious expression. She has a large hoop earring in the visible ear.There are various fruits on either side of the book.

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Quill Tree Books [Our Group Discussion]

Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

Illustrated book cover of two teenage boys looking at each other. One is Asian and the other is Puerto Rican. Between them and above them is a collage of baked goods, coffee, and boba tea.Café con Lychee by Emery Lee
Quill Tree Books [Audrey’s Review]

Sometimes bitter rivalries can brew something sweet.

Theo Mori wants to escape. Leaving Vermont for college means getting away from working at his parents’ Asian American café and dealing with their archrivals’ hopeless son Gabi who’s lost the soccer team more games than Theo can count.

Gabi Moreno is miserably stuck in the closet. Forced to play soccer to hide his love for dance and iced out by Theo, the only openly gay guy at school, Gabi’s only reprieve is his parents’ Puerto Rican bakery and his plans to take over after graduation.

But the town’s new fusion café changes everything. Between the Mori’s struggling shop and the Moreno’s plan to sell their bakery in the face of the competition, both boys find their dreams in jeopardy. Then Theo has an idea—sell photo-worthy food covertly at school to offset their losses. When he sprains his wrist and Gabi gets roped in to help, they realize they need to work together to save their parents’ shops but will the new feelings rising between them be enough to send their future plans up in smoke?

a wooden bench has two cups of boba tea. One is mango and the other taro. They match the cups in the hands of the young man and woman on the cover of the book sitting behind them. That is the book a taste for love.A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen
Razorbill [My Review]

To everyone else, high school senior Liza Yang is practically perfect. Pretty, smart, and well-liked, she’s salutatorian of her class and starting a prestigious university in the fall. To her ultra-traditional Taiwanese mom, however, Liza is stubborn and rebellious, unlike her older sister Jeannie. She won’t even date a proper Asian boy! The only thing mother and daughter agree on is Liza’s talent for baking. With Mrs. Yang’s annual junior baking competition on the horizon, Liza’s determined to prove she’s more than Jeannie’s shadow. If only she knew her mother has plans of her own…

Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food and Love edited by Caroline Tung Richmond & Elsie Chapman
Simon Pulse [My Review]

From some of your favorite bestselling and critically acclaimed authors—including Sandhya Menon, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Rin Chupeco—comes a collection of interconnected short stories that explore the intersection of family, culture, and food in the lives of thirteen teens.

A shy teenager attempts to express how she really feels through the confections she makes at her family’s pasteleria. A tourist from Montenegro desperately seeks a magic soup dumpling that could cure his fear of death. An aspiring chef realizes that butter and soul are the key ingredients to win a cooking competition that could win him the money to save his mother’s life.

Welcome to Hungry Hearts Row, where the answers to most of life’s hard questions are kneaded, rolled, baked. Where a typical greeting is, “Have you had anything to eat?” Where magic and food and love are sometimes one and the same.

Told in interconnected short stories, Hungry Hearts explores the many meanings food can take on beyond mere nourishment. It can symbolize love and despair, family and culture, belonging and home.

A young man is standing with a leg crossed behind him. He is wearing an apron and holding a bowl of vegetables. To the right of the title is a young woman in a red apron. She's hold a bowl in one hand and a tray of stacked used bowls in the other. A Phở Love Story by Loan Le
Simon Pulse

If Bao Nguyen had to describe himself, he’d say he was a rock. Steady and strong, but not particularly interesting. His grades are average, his social status unremarkable. He works at his parents’ pho restaurant, and even there, he is his parents’ fifth favorite employee. Not ideal.

If Linh Mai had to describe herself, she’d say she was a firecracker. Stable when unlit, but full of potential for joy and spark and fire. She loves art and dreams pursuing a career in it. The only problem? Her parents rely on her in ways they’re not willing to admit, including working practically full-time at her family’s pho restaurant.

For years, the Mais and the Nguyens have been at odds, having owned competing, neighboring phở restaurants. Bao and Linh, who’ve avoided each other for most of their lives, both suspect that the feud stems from feelings much deeper than friendly competition.

But then a chance encounter brings Linh and Bao together despite their best efforts and sparks fly, leading them both to wonder what took so long for them to connect. But then, of course, they immediately remember.

Can Linh and Bao find love in the midst of feuding families and complicated histories?

Korean American young woman stands with her hand partially covering her face. She's in a tshirt advertising a food truck business. She has long, dark, straight hair over one shoulder.The bottom of the book is hot pink which fades toward the top and there is a blue background there. The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) [Jessica’s Review]

Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn’t so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

Batter Royale is sitting next to a plate. There is a blueberry scone on the plate. The book cover has a young boy with short red hair wearing a backwards cap and wearing a white chef coat. He's looking over his shoulder at a young black woman who is also in a chef coat. She is carrying a cake with three tiers. There is a flower at each level. They are both smiling. In the background is one more person in white who is carrying a cake of some kind.Batter Royale by Leisl Adams
Abrams [My Review]

In Leisl Adams’s debut graphic novel, Batter Royale, an aspiring amateur baker enters the toughest, ugliest, most fearsome fight she’ll ever experience: a baking reality show.

When seventeen-year-old small-town waitress Rose impresses a famous food critic, she and her best friend, Fred, find themselves thrust into the tough world of competitive baking. The contest is an intense ten days of bizarre challenges, and the competition is cutthroat. Some competitors are willing to lie, cheat, and sabotage their way to the top. Rose may be in over her head, but she is determined to show that she can become a top chef. Batter Royale is a fish-out-of-water style romantic comedy about climbing out of the circumstances you’re in and making your dreams come true. [It includes recipes!!]

Young man and young woman are sitting on a picnic blanket and are staring into each other's eyes.A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Teenage master of Cuban cuisine, Lila Reyes, is eager to inherit her family’s Miami bakery along with her sister, Pilar. But between spring and graduation, Lila’s abuela dies, her best friend abandons her, and her long-time boyfriend dumps her. Fearing Lila’s emotional health, her parents defy her wishes and entrust her summer to family and their Winchester, England inn. Even though she’s given a space to cook at the inn, she longs for Miami, the seat of her Cuban roots. Being a Miami Cuban baker is her glorified past and destined future, forged by years of training by her loving abuela.

Days into her stay, Orion Maxwell barges into Lila’s inn kitchen with a delivery from his family’s tea shop. A nuisance at first, opposite ingredients soon learn to blend. Orion befriends Lila, introducing her to his mates and devouring her food––comida Cubana.

Orion entertains her with his mental collection of superstitions and sweeps her onto his vintage motorbike. He wraps cold, underdressed Lila in his wool cardigan and becomes her personal tour guide. His mum’s early-onset (FTD) Dementia gives Orion a unique outlook––he never asks too much of the world, accepting what he can’t control. Lila soon discovers this British boy brings empathy to her loss because he’s living his own.

Before long, Lila can’t control the route of her own heart as she begins to fall for more than a new love. England has charmed her. And a special opportunity in London tempts her. As her return ticket looms, Lila feels impossibly caught between two flags. Hearts aren’t supposed to split like this––between a beautiful boy and a beautiful family. Between exploring an uncharted future in a rich new place, and honoring Abuela’s treasured legacy.

Here are a few more that are on my TBR list:

If you know of others we’ve missed, please let us know the titles. Happy reading and possibly eatiing.