by Robb Walsh

Robb Walsh was in the advertising business when he started writing about food and restaurants on the side. Pretty soon, newspapers were paying him to travel to different parts of the world and review unusual foods. Not long after that, he lost his advertising job and his wife divorced him. He’s still writing about food, though, and according to his blog, he’s married again.

Are You Really Going to Eat That? is a collection of some of the articles he has written for various newspapers and magazines from 1993 to 2003. Don’t let the title fool you. While Walsh really has eaten bugs and other stuff that most people in the United States would find extremely unusual, that’s not what this book is about.

These articles are about more than just restaurants and food. Walsh gets a little bit of culture and history. He also introduces us to some interesting people like Jay, the owner of a Houston bagel shop who threatens him for taking notes in the restaurant. I doubt you’ll visit many of the places Walsh writes about, but the stories he tells are interesting enough to keep you reading.

Most of the foods Walsh tries aren’t that far out, especially if you live in California. You might learn about some new foods, but a lot of it is about fairly ordinary things like hot sauce, coffee, cheese, oysters, crabs, and bagels. However, Walsh always finds some interesting angle on his foods, and he often travels to various parts of Europe or the Americas to learn more.

For example, he goes to Switzerland and France to find out who really invented Gruyère cheese, since the two countries have been fighting over it for years and years. He heads down to Argentina to check out the pizza places in Buenos Aires.^* He visits Trinidad to find out about curry and hot sauce, and he goes to a prison to find a famous soul food chef.

Of course, he does spend some time looking at foods that some of you may not be familiar with. My favorite is the durian, a huge, spiky fruit that tastes delicious and smells like a herd of rotting cows. (It’s the fruit on the cover, right beneath the machete.)

As a bonus, Walsh includes twenty recipes that you might (or might not) want to try out.

You can read some of it online at Google Books. If you need more, you can check out the author’s blog.
* Sorry, Robb. The best pizza out there is Zuppardi’s Apizza in West Haven, CT.

Where to Find It

You can get it from the school library.

School	Location	Call Number	Status
Diablo Valley College	Stacks	TX649.W35 A74 2003	AVAILABLE

You can get it from the public library.

Library	Location	Call Number	Status
Danville	.	641.3 WALSH	In library
El Cerrito	.	641.3 WALSH	In library
Hercules	.	394.1 WALSH	In library
Oakley	.	641.3 WALSH	In library
Pleasant Hill	.	641.3 WALSH	In library

This list was last updated May 9, 2012 at 10:59 pm UTC. Click here to see newer information.

published by Lonely Planet

I love Japanese and Indian food, but I known next to nothing about any of it. What is “paneer” in my saag paneer? Where did Japanese curry come from, and why is it served on top of a pork cutlet? If you’ve ever wondered what some kind of food is or where it came from, you might want to check out the World Food series from Lonely Planet.

Each book covers one or two countries, or sometimes a specific region of the United States – there’s one for India, one for Japan, one for California, and one for New Orleans, for example. Each book is a little different, since it has different authors, but all of the books introduce you to the many different cuisines in a country, and you get to learn about different ingredients and traditions that go along with food. You’ll learn about the kind of food people eat in their houses, the kind they get in restaurants, and the kind they buy from street vendors. You’ll also get some of the history of different foods. I did, for example, learn how Japan got hooked on curry.

These are mostly books about food, but sometimes they contain a few recipes, as well. Some of the information will only be useful if you plan to visit that country, but some of it will help out eating in different local restaurants, and some of it is just plain interesting.

Where to Find Them

You can get them from the public library.

Library	Title	Location	Call Number	Status
Richmond	World Food Japan	Main Adult Books	641.3009 Ashburne	CHECK SHELF
Walnut Creek Park Place	World Food Turkey	.	956.1 VALENT	In library
Ygnacio Valley (Walnut Creek)	World Food Turkey	.	956.1 VALENT	In library
Ygnacio Valley (Walnut Creek)	World Food Malaysia & Singapore	.	641.3 TAN 2003	In library

Since Contra Costa libraries only have a few copies of World Food, you might want to request it through Link+. You get the book through your local library, so you will need to have a library card.

1. Read all the directions.
2. Click here to go to the Link+ search.
3. Click "Request this item."
4. Pick your local library. This will probably be "Contra Costa Public."
5. Give them your library card number and whatever else they need.
6. When the book comes in, your library will call you.

You might want to read the rules for borrowing books before you request anything.

If you want to check on the book or cancel your order, go here.
This list was last updated May 14, 2012 at 8:58 am UTC. Click here to see newer information.

by Aimee Major Steinberger

This is kind of a travel sketchbook, by a professional artist (she works on Futurama and other things you’ve seen) who’s really into Japanese stuff–costumes, anime, manga, kimono, dolls–and decides to go to Japan with two of her friends. She’s six feet tall and white, so she really stands out! Fortunately for her, and for the reader, she has a really good sense of humor. You can follow along with her as she and her friends experience Japanese trains, food, and hot springs; dress up like geisha; get lost; generally have a lot of fun. She uses her own style of drawing, which is heavily influenced by manga but still unique. The drawings are supplemented with lots of handwritten explanations about what’s happening, and you’ll learn a lot of interesting stuff about modern Japanese pop culture, because she generally knows what she’s talking about. This is really a one-of-a-kind book, giving you the feel of a trip to Japan with three fun, kind of geeky (in a good way!) girls the way a travel guide never could.

Go here for a preview, or click on “OMAKE” for 60 pages of bonus sketches and photos that weren’t included in the published book! (One page has a tiny amount of back nudity of a seated person.)

By the way, if you decide to look for this in a bookstore, it might be in the manga section, even though it’s not manga. It was published by Go!Comi, a manga publisher, so Borders puts it in manga, but a used bookstore might not. You may have to ask.

Where to Find It

You can get it from the public library.

Library	Location	Call Number	Status
San Ramon	Young Adult	YA 915.2 STEINBERGER	In library

This list was last updated May 18, 2012 at 5:03 am UTC. Click here to see newer information.