<p><i>Stories from the Kitchen</i> is a mouth-watering smorgasbord of stories with food in the starring role, by a rich variety of authors from Dickens, Chekhov and Saki to Isak Dinesen, Jim Crace and Amy Tan. The menu includes choice titbits from famous novels: the triumphant <i>boeuf en daube</i> served in Virginia Woolf''s<i> To the Lighthouse</i>, Proust''s rhapsodic memories of watching the family cook prepare asparagus in <i>Remembrance of Things Past</i>, Zola''s extravagant ''cheese symphony'' scene from <i>The Belly of Paris.</i><br><br>Here are over-the-top amuse-bouches by Gerald Durrell, Nora Ephron and T. C. Boyle; a short story by famous food writer M. F. K. Fisher; and a delightful account of the perfect meal by eighteenth-century epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who famously said ''Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.''</p>