For books with food that sounds amazing, I've liked the cozy mysteries by Mia P. Manansala, the Tita Rosie's Kitchen series. The main character is a baker whose family owns a restaurant. Said baker is always trying to come up with Filipina takes on "standard" (for contemporary US predominant culture) baked goods. Her web site has a bunch of recipes, though there's no section heading to link to. I still want to make the Lila's ubu crinkles (cookies) recipe for my holiday cookie swap.