Best Southern Cookbooks Novels & Stories

"I used a chocolate wine to sauté the chicken. "Interesting. I love what it does to the taste." Dad winked at Brynne. "So you're a gourmet?" "Thank you, but not really a gourmet. I enjoy it and learned to cook for my dad when my parents split. I have these marvelous cookbooks by Rhonda Plumhoff on my e-reader. She links her recipes to popular books. She's famous from where I'm from. I just adore her recipes." He tilted his head at me. "Smart son I raised."

And then she saw the books. She gasped, her eyes widening and her hand covering her mouth. Leather-bound volumes with gold-embossed titles: Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, a culinary Bible. She knew the name. Every chef did. More treasures followed: Essentials of Italian Cooking, and tomes of French, Japanese, African, Latin American cuisine. The collective knowledge of culinary masters from around the world. A lifetime of learning, pressed into the spines right before her eyes. She felt her throat tighten so much that she was breathless for a moment.

He was intently studying me, dark blue eyes steady on my face and I had a feeling nothing got past his watchful gaze. “Nineteen.” “Did you learn cooking from anywhere?” “No. I just picked it up as a hobby. The little I know is from watching my grandmother.” “Do you have a job currently?” “Yes, as a stocking clerk slash cashier at a bookstore a few blocks down from where I stay.” “Hmm.” He hummed, seeming deep in thought. Then he suddenly got up. “Come with me.”