January RandomKIT: Eat, drink and be merry

January is often a time when we decide to be more frugal in our eating after the excesses of the Christmas period. However, that doesn't have to extend to our reading! For this month's RandomKIT, I invite you to read a book about food or drink, or with a food or drink in the title.

There are lots of books to choose from - fiction-wise, it seems that every other romance book (at least this side of the Pond) is set in a coffee shop, cake shop, cafe, bakery, etc, and there are plenty of classic books referencing food in the title (eg Chocolat, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, Green Eggs and Ham, James and the Giant Peach, Like Water for Chocolate, and many more). An excellent graphic novel I read thanks to the LT Early Reviewer programme is Amla Mater by Devi Menon, about an Indian woman in the UK who tries to recreate the flavours of her childhood, particularly amla pickle, while waiting for her baby to arrive.

Non-fiction-wise, you could read the memoir of a celebrity chef or food writer, or a polemic about commercial food chains, or a celebration of a particular region's cuisine. Just looking on my e-shelves, I can see the following: Music to Eat Cake By (essays), Vegetables: A Biography (essays), Doughnut Economics, Ultra-Processed People (about ultraprocessed food), Taste: My Life Through Food (memoir), Food Isn't Medicine (polemic), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (memoir).

Or you could read one of the cookery books you got for Christmas, or that how-to book about canning and preserving you've always meant to get to! The possibilities are endless (and delicious!).

Don't forget to add your book to the wiki when you've read it: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2025_RandomKIT#January:_Eat.2C_Drink_and...

For a change (for me) I'm going for fiction this month. I'm looking forward to cosying up with Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

>2 Jackie_K: Great topic, Jackie!

I think I will go with a NF, How the Nazis Stole My Grandmother's Cookbook.

I already had Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci on my list for 2025, so this is a good opportunity to read it.

And I can highly recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It might be a little outdated by now, but still a wonderful book.

My next book up in the Southern Ghost Hunger Mystery Series is Sweet Tea and Spirits, so that will be perfect!

>4 dudes22: Yes, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a couple of years ago and really liked it.

>3 Tess_W: I have that one on my TBR too.

>3 Tess_W: That sounds fascinating.

I don't have many food-themed books, but I do have Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp, which should fit the bill.

I have Brighton Rock scheduled for colour cat, it may well be doing double duty here. Excellent topic!

Not sure yet what I'll be reading, but I've already done one this month and am in the middle of my food mystery for MysteryKIT this month, as well!

As a suggestion for a celebrity biography, it was one about Julia Child I listened to for this month. Others might be interested. The one I read was Julia Child: a Life. I've also (in the past) read her autobiography My Life in France.

I've read 2 of Jennifer Ashley's Below Stairs Mysteries this month, and will save the last two novels and one novella for next month. The sleuth is the cook in a Victorian household and she often talks about her work.

Lovely theme, I think I’ll continue with my culinary mysteries, of which I have quite a few...

At this point I think I am going to add to my 1,001 List with Cakes & Ale by Somerset Maugham.

I am hoping my hold on the audio of Be Ready When the Luck Happens comes in during January. It's unlikely so I will search for another..shouldn't be hard to find.

I plan to read Tiny Tilda's Pumpkin Pie since that will also work for a BingoDog square and the CoverCAT challenge.

I'm sure The chef by James Patterson will give me some good restaurant addresses in NOLA.

I'm not sure yet how many CATs/KITs I will be able to accomplish, or if my choices may change between now and reading, but right now I'm planning on Eats, Shoots & Leaves which has been on my list for a little while! And if that doesn't work out, Lynne Truss also published a children's picture book on the same topic, confusingly also titled Eats, Shoots & Leaves but with a different subtitle. I'm sure I'll be able to finish that one by January 31.

If I get to starting it and decide not to read about grammar, Who Cooked the Last Supper and Eating the Dinosaur are also under consideration.

I will be reading Anything that moves by Dana Goodyear (and I will also use this book for the CoverCAT tea party challenge.)

I'm planning on moving a cozy off of my TBR, it's been there since 2018! Coming Home to the Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson is the third in this series.