Summer book reading: new memoirs for foodies.
Plus media biographies including a whistleblower's eye-opening story. All newly published. And a few updates.
As this newsletter lands in your inboxes, we are ensconced in our new summer abode back home on the east coast of Cyprus working remotely. For the first time in 26 years of Dubai living, I have decided to jet off for more than my typical two-to-three-week stint. Let’s see how this trial run pans out! I hope you also manage to escape for a little respite.
Before we delve into this newsletter’s topic, a few updates:
Here are the results from the poll in my review of Maison Dali last week ⬇️ 91% of you agreed with me that the restaurant’s interior does not scream brasserie to you. Glad it wasn’t just me!
I bought several canvas prints from homegrown online Dubai business, Artworks, for our Cyprus home including this gem of a Frida Kahlo 🍉 design below. Brilliant search function on its website including food designs. Framed prints also available. UAE delivery only, but you can request flight-ready packaging for check-in with luggage.
Michelin is expanding its regional reach with the launch of a Saudi Arabian guide later this year. Unlike here, where the UAE is the only destination in the world to boast separate tourism-sponsored guides for Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia will have one guide covering the whole country, as it should be frankly. Arab News approached me for my opinion, which you can read here.
I was invited back on telly for a Dubai One TV #DXBToday episode chatting all things restaurant reviewing and our expansive homegrown scene. If you have a spare ten minutes, here’s a snippet from our hour-long discussion.
Since I moved my newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack in October 2023, I spend less time on Instagram and more time on here…and reading books. After training and dinner, I love nothing more than curling up on my sofa to immerse myself in a memoir, or my other obsession - health and wellness.
I am definitely a bookworm, with one rule. Anything non-fiction has to be a proper print book - hardback or paperback. For fiction, my Kindle.
Here are five relatively newly published chef, restaurateur and foodie memoirs that I have thoroughly enjoyed. Plus biographies from a media whistleblower, and another from a magazine editor. Your summer reading sorted, perhaps?
Keith McNally: I Regret Almost Everything
Keith McNally, an Irishman, is a prolific New York restaurateur, with Balthazar his most famous asset. He’s often coined as “the restaurateur who invented Downtown”. His newly published memoir is as irreverent and contrarian as his Instagram stories, which is how I first stumbled upon him. He’s honest. He’s humble. He’s self-deprecating. All delivered with a dose of deadpan humour. But it’s the sequence and pace of his storytelling that makes an already compulsive read, easy to lap up in one or two sittings.
Laurie Woolever: Care And Feeding
Laurie Woolever is a New York-based food writer, who was both the late Anthony Bourdain and previously Mario Batali’s assistant, so, as expected, the stories are scandalous. But that aside, this memoir is very much about her drug and booze-fuelled life until she reaches sobriety. Penned with refreshing candour and wit. Incidentally for new followers, I interviewed Anthony Bourdain back in 2014 here and here.
Stanley Tucci: What I Ate In One Year
This memoir from the charming Italian-American actor-cum-writer is so much more than a food diary. Stanley Tucci weaves in candid anecdotes of his family life (he’s married to Emily Blunt’s sister Felicity) and his work gigs with his go-to recipes. He loves nothing more than entertaining from their London abode and holiday homes, with a joie de vivre that is utterly contagious. Spoiler alert: expect heaps of pasta. A tale so captivating, you may as well have pulled up a chair at his kitchen table.
Fred Sirieix: Seriously British
Fred Sirieix is the UK’s most famous maître d' thanks to a strategic move into TV. He’s a Frenchman, and his sexy Franco-Brit accent jumps off the pages with his warm, witty writing. Penned as a love letter to his adopted UK homeland, he debunks French myths about the Brits with bundles of food, wine, culture and history lessons thrown into the stock pot, peppered with humour.
Ben Shewry: Uses For Obsession
I stumbled upon this memoir by New Zealander Ben Shewry, the chef of one of Australia’s top tasting menu restaurants, because of the backlash surrounding his distaste for food writers and international awards, the same crew who catapulted him to global stardom. Hypocrisy at its best? Yes, but he tells a raw story with life lessons and a blueprint for restaurateurs. Oh, and how to make crispy-edged lasagna, one of his many obsessions.
Sarah Wyn-Williams: Careless People
Another New Zealander, the diplomat and lawyer, Sarah Wyn-Williams is better known as the Meta whistleblower, who has penned this eye-opening book on her former role as head of global public policy at Facebook. Meta attempted to block publication, but only succeeded in halting any promotion. She was recently summoned by US Congress to testify on her claims in the book. One helluva brave lady. Anyone using social media, whether as an amateur or in a professional capacity needs to read this riveting book.
Graydon Carter: When The Going Was Good
The sole book in this pile of seven that had me struggling, but I do have friends who have enjoyed the read, so perhaps give it a go. Graydon Carter is the Canadian ex-editor of Vanity Fair during the hey day of New York magazine culture. He’s now the co-founder of digital entertainment weekly AirMail. As a writer, he should know how to spin a tale - but, surprisingly, his prose is stilted and lacks flow. A few juicy stories do creep in though.
I’d love your book recommendations please.
You may have missed…
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My 2025 Dubai restaurant guide to where I dine out. A record 47 homegrown concepts. Paid subscribers also receive a PDF of this guide and a private Google maps link with all restaurants mapped out.
My ten-page story celebrating Dubai’s homegrown restaurant scene, my favourite subject in the print issue of Conde Nast Traveler USA - and also repackaged for both the UK edition, and the Middle East.
I update My Little Pink Lifestyle Book with new finds every month.
A private one-hour Zoom call with me to pick my brains. More info here for F&B industry enquiries - and here for foodie/ diner queries.
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Cheers to a delicious weekend 😋
FooDiva. x
Lovely article , Samantha!
Great readings for this summer! I wrote 3 books about short foodie stories and the first one is in English too, in case you finish your books soon :) Have a great summer!