Why am I passionate about this?

I have always loved books that weave food into the narrative. From essays to novels, I'm interested in the way food informs relationships and memories in stories. When Nancy Garfinkel and I created The Recipe Club, we shared a lot of our own food-related memories and passions. After the novel was published, we formed Recipe Clubs with devoted readers across the country. We traveled all over, hearing real-life stories related to food and friendship, love, and family. Recipes almost always carry stories with them, and the telling of these stories becomes a conduit for expressing our most authentic selves. I think this is why our book has had such great appeal.


I wrote

The Recipe Club

By Nancy Garfinkel, Andrea Israel,

Book cover of The Recipe Club

What is my book about?

Lilly and Val are lifelong friends. In childhood the girls form an exclusive “Recipe Club,” which continues for decades, through…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Heartburn

Andrea Israel Why did I love this book?

Nora Ephron’s book Heartburn is a funny, short, smart novel about food and relationships. The book explores adultery, revenge, group therapy, weaving in a number of recipes to highlight the emotions as the story charts a fictionalized version Ephron’s real-life marriage imploding when she discovers her husband, journalist Carl Bernstein, is having an affair. Ephron perfectly captures this, extolling the comforting virtues of buttery spuds: “Most people do not have nearly enough mashed potatoes in their lives, and when they do, it's almost always at the wrong time."

By Nora Ephron,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked Heartburn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma ... I picked up the pie, thanked God for linoleum floor, and threw it'
Rachel Samstat is smart, successful, married to a high-flying Washington journalist... and devastated. She has discovered that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, 'a fairly tall person with a neck as long…


Book cover of The Joy Luck Club

Andrea Israel Why did I love this book?

Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is comprised of sixteen interwoven stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. One of The Joy Luck Club’s key components is the way in which food is intertwined with cultural identity and family dynamics. For the characters, food drives memory, sense of identity, nostalgia, and love. Food becomes the bridge between generations, symbolic talismans of good luck and fortune. Food is also the vehicle to express love, exert power, and celebrate life in a continuous struggle among the women characters to maintain relationships, and to make sure there is a connection between past, present, and future. 

By Amy Tan,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked The Joy Luck Club as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The Joy Luck Club is an ambitious saga that's impossible to read without wanting to call your Mum' Stylist

Discover Amy Tan's moving and poignant tale of immigrant Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters.

In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club.

Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives - until their own inner…


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Book cover of The Blighted Mission

The Blighted Mission by E. Chris Ambrose,

Disgraced British anthropologist Nigel Rowe hopes his YouTube adventure channel will be just the treat to redeem him, but vengeful treasure hunters have other plans! Seeking a legendary Jesuit mission in Baja, Nigel saves his producer’s life when the man takes a bullet meant for him. 

When an ex-Marine strolls…

Book cover of Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies

Andrea Israel Why did I love this book?

Like Water for Chocolate is a blend of romance and magic realism in which food is integral to the story. Each section begins with a beloved Mexican recipe that is woven into the story. The novel takes place in the early 1900s and follows a fifteen-year-old girl seeking true love and independence. While pursuing her adoration of a young man, her mother’s disapproval gets in the way and the girl finds her way toward independence as she cooks. The themes of coming of age, revolting against constraints, following one’s bliss, and cultivating passion—all the while cooking

By Laura Esquivel,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Like Water for Chocolate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INTOXICATING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ABOUT LOVE, COOKING AND MAGIC. PERFECT FOR FANS OF JOANNE HARRIS AND ISABEL ALLENDE.

'This magical, mythical, moving story of love, sacrifice and summering sensuality is something I will savour for a long time' MAUREEN LIPMAN

Like Water For Chocolate tells the captivating story of the De la Garza family. As the youngest daughter, Tita is forbidden by Mexican tradition to marry. Instead, she pours all of her emotions into her delicious recipes, which she shares with readers along the way.When Tita falls in love with Pedro, he is seduced by the magical food she cooks.…


Book cover of Chocolat

Andrea Israel Why did I love this book?

Chocolat by Joanne Harris is a novel about the awakening of sensuality in a small French Catholic village in France, where change is largely unwelcome and conservative religious views govern behavior. Enter a stranger, a woman who indulges in witchery and bonbons, who opens a chocolate shop, and in so doing goes up against the local priest and alters the fabric of their society. The sumptuous descriptions of chocolate will turn just about anyone into a chocoholic. Chocolat has themes of religion, superstition, prejudice, and finding carnal enjoyment all blended into what so many readers consider a confection of a novel. 

By Joanne Harris,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Chocolat as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Even before it was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, Chocolat entranced readers with its mix of hedonism, whimsy, and, of course, chocolate.

In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows.

Each box of luscious bonbons comes with a free gift: Vianne's uncanny perception of its buyer's private discontents and a clever, caring cure for them. Is she a witch?

Soon the parish no longer cares, as it abandons itself to temptation,…


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Book cover of An Italian Feast: The Celebrated Provincial Cuisines of Italy from Como to Palermo

An Italian Feast by Clifford A. Wright,

An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.

An Italian Feast is…

Book cover of Stories from the Kitchen

Andrea Israel Why did I love this book?

Stories from the Kitchen is a celebration of food in fiction, an anthology of short stories combined with tidbits from novels. The authors are well known, ranging from Charles Dickens’ “Love and Oysters,” about oysters upending the life of a man and his dependable routines, to Isaak Dineson’s “Babette’s Feast,” in which a lavish dinner served by a French cook transforms the hearts and souls of the most austere members of an isolated Danish community. Another story of particular interest: M.F.K. Fisher’s heartbreaking “A Kitchen Allegory.” As in Fisher’s gastronomical non-fiction writing, in which food is her greatest metaphor, this slice of fiction uses food as a source of empathy for a woman who has to reckon with no longer being needed. Reading this entire collection underscores how my own book—though unprecedented in its number of recipes tucked within a novel— stands on a long tradition of food as a character in imaginative writing. 

By Diana Secker Tesdell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stories from the Kitchen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Stories from the Kitchen is a one-of-a-kind anthology of classic tales showcasing the culinary arts from across the centuries and around the world.

Here is a mouthwatering smorgasbord of stories with food in the starring role, by a range of masters of fiction—from Dickens and Chekhov to Isaac Bashevis Singer, from Shirley Jackson to Jim Crace and Amy Tan. These richly varied selections offer tastes as decadent as caviar and as humble as cherry pie. They dazzle with the sumptuous extravagance of Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast” and console with a prisoner’s tender final meal in Günter Grass’s The Flounder. Choice…


Explore my book 😀

The Recipe Club

By Nancy Garfinkel, Andrea Israel,

Book cover of The Recipe Club

What is my book about?

Lilly and Val are lifelong friends. In childhood the girls form an exclusive “Recipe Club,” which continues for decades, through which they exchange favorite recipes and deep secrets. Readers can cook along as Lilly and Val grow into complicated women who must face the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.

No matter what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart, Lilly and Val always find their way back together through their Recipe Club…until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal. The Recipe Club is a “novel cookbook,” a pastiche of letters, emails, documents, illustrations, and more than 80 delicious recipes.
Book cover of Heartburn
Book cover of The Joy Luck Club
Book cover of Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies

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