With more than one million copies in print, chef/food writer Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything books are a mainstay of the modern kitchen. Bittman writes on food policy for the Opinion section of the New York Times; is a columnist for the New York Times Magazine; and is featured regularly on the Today Show in "How to Cook Everything Today" segments; and stars in The Minimalist on the Cooking Channel. He wrote "The Minimalist" NYT column for 13 years. The flagship book in his How to Cook Everything series won both the IACP and James Beard Awards, and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian won the 2008 IACP Award. He is also the author of Food Matters, Food Matters Cookbook, Fish and Leafy Greens. Wiley will publish How to Cook Everything The Basics on March 19, 2012.
On your nightstand now:
Arguably by Christopher Hitchens, To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Depends on the definition of "child." But let's say A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Or Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. (One grows up quickly in N.Y.C.)
Your top five authors:
Can't do that one, I don't like favorites. I'd have to do 50.
Book you've faked reading:
Never have.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Can't say I've done that either. I've bought many for the title and never read them, but books are a little like shoes; they might look good in the store, but that doesn't mean you'll fall in love with them.
Book that changed your life:
The House of India Cookbook, a 1960s paperback (you'll never find it).
Favorite line from a book:
"All morons hate it when you call them a moron." --Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Human Stain by Philip Roth.
photo by Romulo Yanes