Yes, Chef : : a Memoir

Locations
Call Number: 921 Samuelsson, Marcus
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Samuelsson, Marcus	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother's house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations. Marcus Samuelsson was only three years old when he, his mother, and his sister--all battling tuberculosis--walked seventy-five miles to a hospital in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Adaba. Tragically, his mother succumbed to the disease shortly after she arrived, but Marcus and his sister recovered, and one year later, they were welcomed into a loving middle-class white family in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was there that Marcus's new grandmother, Helga, sparked in him a lifelong passion for food and cooking with her pan-fried herring, her freshly baked bread, and her signature roast chicken. From a very early age, there was little question what Marcus was going to be when he grew up. Yes, Chef chronicles Marcus Samuelsson's remarkable journey from Helga's humble kitchen to some of the most demanding and cutthroat restaurants in Switzerland and France, from his grueling stints on cruise ships to his arrival in New York City, where his outsize talent and ambition finally come together at Aquavit, earning him a coveted New York Times three-star rating at the age of twenty-four. But Samuelsson's career of "chasing flavors," as he calls it, had only just begun--in the intervening years, there have been White House State dinners, career crises, reality show triumphs and, most important, the opening of the beloved Red Rooster in Harlem. At Red Rooster, Samuelsson has fufilled his dream of creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room--a place where presidents and prime ministers rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, bus drivers, and nurses. It is a place where an orphan from Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, living in America, can feel at home. With disarming honesty and intimacy, Samuelsson also opens up about his failures as a man--the price of ambition, in human terms--and recounts his emotional journey, as a grown man, to meet the father he never knew. Yes, Chef is a tale of personal discovery, unshakable determination, and the passionate, playful pursuit of flavors--one man's struggle to find a place for himself in the kitchen, and in the world"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

I can't put this book down! submitted by bookher on August 6, 2012, 9:09am This is one of the most interesting and unique food books I've read since Ruth Reichel's books! Anyone intersted in food with an international flavor will love this book. It's also a great reminder to us all for what it takes to be the best in any career - relentless HARD WORK! Great book!!

fascinating! submitted by pamhockey25 on September 4, 2012, 10:35am I just finished this book and absolutely loved it. It was well written, and interesting. I've seen Marcus Samuelsson on cooking shows and always wondered about his Swedish background, so when the book came out, I thought I would find out the rest of the story. His book is honest and candid. The journey he takes from his beginnings in Ethiopia to the Red Rooster in Harlem are clearly explained. His adoption at age three to a Swedish couple who wanted a son and who were willing to also adopt his sister to keep the children together is a life-changing event. His grandmother got him started with his love for food and food preparation. His journey from her kitchen to his own kitchen in New York is fascinating. The story is well-told, honest, and fascinating. It was hard to put the book down. It is not a book filled with recipes, but rather about his evolution as a chef as he learns about flavors and develops his own signature dishes. Professionally he talks about what it's like to be one of the few black chefs, and what it takes to become a successful chef. On a personal level he talks about his families--his biological family and the family who raises him, his child, his marriage. I came away with new knowledge about him personally, and more appreciation of chefs in general. Someday I hope to visit New York and try his restaurant. Meanwhile, I will enjoy watching him on cooking shows!

LOVED this book! submitted by Lilian Anderson on August 27, 2017, 5:27pm This is very well written and with lots of depth. It's not just about food, but so much more. Adoption, race, fitting in, taking risks, etc. Really enjoyed it and didn't want to put it down. What a delightful surprise!

Powerful memoir submitted by Bird on August 31, 2019, 5:34pm An interesting story about the Journey to become a chef and the walk between two worlds, as Chef Marcus Samuelsson balances the two cultures of his background and blending them with his love of food and cooking.