Julia Turshen is a prolific food personality who’s authored five solo cookbooks and collaborated with everyone from Hawa Hassan to Gwyneth Paltrow, but for her latest project, she’s stepping out of her culinary comfort zone and into the booming world of literary romance.
Turshen’s 831 Stories novella Down to Earth, a rollicking, tender, and sexy read about a single mom who moves to the fictional upstate New York town of Sungold and falls for a vegetable farmer, came out this week. Below, find the six books that helped Turshen craft the inimitable and gloriously queer world of Down to Earth, from a food-centric romance novel to a classic restaurant cookbook with a killer roast chicken recipe.
Jasmine Guillory’s books were the first romance novels I ever read, and not only did they introduce me to the genre, but they also instantly made me love it and seek out more. All of her books are so wonderful and feature so much food, but the enchilada scene in The Proposal might be one of my favorite food scenes ever in a romance novel. It’s fun and playful and a great example of how she uses food to bring the reader into the present moment. She even shared the recipe on her Substack!!
I love all of Casey McQuiston’s books. Their writing opened my eyes to queer romance. There’s quite a bit of food in all of their books, but The Pairing really stands out for me because it showed me how fun it is to read a queer love story that’s told through great meals and moments in and around food.
