I bought 'Potatoes Not Prozac' in 2003 when I wanted to get to the bottom of my sugarsensitivity/cravings and learned a lot about how body chemistry affects mood, and how food affects body chemistry. My three meals a day and protein at every meal habit came from reading this book - no more mood swings and sugar highs and lows. Excellent, and groundbreaking at the time.
The Slow Food movement began with a protest against McDonald's opening a branch by the Spanish Steps in Rome in 1986. The book I bought in 2005 is called 'In Praise of Slow' - charming and persuasive - quotes William Dean Howell - 'People are born and married, live and die, in the midst of an uproar so frantic you would think they would go mad of it'. The surprise is that he wrote that in 1907 - so nothing new there then! (There is a nice chapter on Raising an Unhurried Child....)
The third book is one I don't own yet. It is called 'Venezia: Food and Dreams' and is so gorgeous! Gold edged pages, sumptuous photographs, part diary, part travelogue, part cook book. I saw it in the wonderful shop and cafe Kember and Jones in Byers Road in Glasgow - itself a feast for the eyes, where everything seems to be made with such care, and look so exquisite....the book is as tempting as the food - an indulgence! Good for the soul now and then.
Do you have any recommendations for me?
next posting - a fun manifesto