Hughes, Holly, ed. Best food writing 2004. New York: Marlowe, 2004. 374pp.

This is a quick recommend. Who doesn't like food, after all? And don't assume that this is just a recipe book (not that there's anything wrong with that) because there are only a few in this book. No, it's a book about the celebration of food: cooking, researching, buying, going to restaurants, writing, travelling, sampling and especially eating. A treasure trove of food writing, this collection is made up of various articles from newspapers and food magazines as well as excerpts from various foodie books. The highlights of this book are easy to spot: a paen of that most humble yet most delicious of foods, the meat loaf ("Meat loaf mania" by James Villas) and an excerpt from the book Candyfreak by Steve Almond profiling a, get this, chocolate engineer.

A number of books that I'm going to track down inspired by this one:

• Eating my words by Mimi Sheraton
  
• Cooking by hand by Paul Bertoli
  
• Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
  
• Between bites and Stalking the green fairy by James Villas
  
• Crazy in the kitchen by Loiuse DeSalvo
  
• Perfection salad and Something from the oven by Laura Shapiro
  
• Candyfreak by Steve Almond
  
• American pie by Peter Reinhart (about pizza, natch)

Oh yeah, and my fave recipe blog is Simply Recipes. The 2005 edition is already out.