This story first appeared in CityView magazine’s October 2026 edition.
Whether you enjoy dining out or prefer the comforts of home-cooked meals, the options available for both experiences are nearly endless.
Many of us like to explore new restaurants a few times a month, and Fayetteville boasts a wealth of choices featuring a multitude of cuisines. With so many options at your fingertips, you could spend an entire month trying to sample them all.
Or, if cooking at home is more your style, there are numerous cookbooks filled with delicious recipes to guide you through your culinary efforts. For those who value the dining experience, there are many food-related books to enjoy.
Beyond mere cookbooks, these are wonderfully entertaining stories written about food and its preparation, celebrating dining and sharing a table with others. Each of the following is a fun read sure to enhance your next dining experience.
1. The Art of Dining by Sara Paston-Williams
Williams carefully researched Britain’s National Trust homes and records to introduce us to an era of dining that is like nothing we have experienced. From the cavernous kitchens and great halls of early medieval homes through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, we see the scale and grandeur of food production in these homes. Each chapter includes historical recipes and modern adaptations so you can try some yourself. There are also images of period paintings, photographs, and historical pictures. The result is beauty for the eye, stories about the art of dining, and delicious recipes for your culinary delight.
2. Every Restaurant Tells A Story: Tales of Film, Food, and Fabulous Misadventures by Dianne Reeves Angel
Described as “autofiction”—a type of book that includes real parts of the author’s life with fictional events and characters—this collection of short stories follows protagonist Sally Trent as she attempts to build her film career through the maze of movie stars, directors, producers, and other dreamers. Like the author herself, Sally finds that many of the career-changing moments in her life occur in restaurants, whether she is in Hollywood, London, Europe, or South Africa. With similarities to the author’s own life, these delightful stories may inspire you, make you laugh, or send you out on an adventure at a new restaurant.
3. Dining with Divers: Tales from the Kitchen Table by Simon Pridmore and David Strike
In a nod to my husband (and my favorite scuba diver), I must highlight this book about divers and the wonderful treats from the sea they often bring home. For these explorers, nothing compares to the thrill of diving and later gathering at the dinner table to relive their latest experiences while enjoying meals prepared from their fresh catch. Stories of underwater adventures by well-known divers are paired with some of their favorite recipes. Whether you keep this book in the kitchen to help prepare a new recipe or place it by your bedside to read the incredible tales from diving around the world, you can experience some of the joys and camaraderie that divers share.
4. Comfort Me with Apples: Love, Adventure and a Passion for Cooking by Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl is an American chef, food writer, and editor. In this book, she shares her growth from being a chef to a food writer, and along the way, we follow her to restaurants around the world. During these adventures she learns lessons of life, love, and food. We laugh with her along the way from New York to China, then France, and back to Los Angeles. She shares some of her most famous recipes and a few stories of her personal life. As readers, we begin to feel like we are sharing an intimate dinner with a new friend.
5. Delicious!: A Novel by Ruth Reichl
Reichl expands her writing by bringing us this novel about a woman from California who moves to New York to work at Delicious!, one of the city’s best-known food magazines. Billie feels out of place at first, but this changes when she meets the publication’s cheerful and welcoming staff and becomes enchanted with the vibrant restaurant scene in the city. Then, an exciting discovery in a hidden room in the company’s library leads Billie to a group of letters from World War II by a spunky twelve-year-old girl to the famous chef James Beard. Through these letters, Billie is able to confront her own insecurities and open her heart to love.
6. Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship by Annabel Abbs
Before James Beard and Julia Child, there was Eliza Acton in her 1835 English kitchen. Already a writer of poetry, Eliza is encouraged by her publisher to write a cookery book. At first she refuses, but when her father is forced to leave the country because of bankruptcy, she changes her mind. Since she has never even been in a kitchen before, she begins reading recipes and teaching herself to cook. She works with exciting new ingredients, including rare spices and exotic fruits, learning to use them before anyone else does. She realizes she has a talent and a passion for the culinary arts. Eliza hires penniless Ann Kirby to assist her, and they develop a wonderful friendship that crosses class lines as they work together. As each develops a voice of her own, they learn more about each other and share secrets that in the end may challenge their friendship.
