Book Review: "Yes, Chef: A Memoir" by Chef Marcus Samuelsson

Months after purchasing Yes Chef! as an eBook for my iPad Kindle app, I traveled to the beautiful Barbados for my annual international birthday trip, to attend the Barbados Food+Wine+Rum Festival back in November of 2012.  I was moved to write this book review after Chef Marcus recently won the James Beard Foundation's 2013 Writing & Literature Award for Yes, Chef.  This will be added to several other JBF Awards over the years.

I made it a priority to purchase tickets to attend Chef Marcus Samuelsson's Cooking Demo as on of my events as well as a private dinner he hosted at the Barbados Food+Wine+Rum Festival!  I was fortunate enough to get a picture with and an autograph from Chef (on my notepad ;0) since my actual copy of the book was is electronic.

On a beautiful beach, I fell even more in love with Chef Marcus' talents and welcoming spirit!  He's funny and friendly, very open and humble.  Throughout the weekend, whenever I crossed his path, or attended another of his events, he was simply warm and inviting to all foodie fans and colleagues around.

Yes, Chef: A Memoir

The story begins with the equally endearing and heartbreaking story, set in his homeland of Ethiopia, about he and his sister's early childhood, battling tuberculosis along with his mother and charged with walking 75 miles to the closest hospital in Part One: Chapter One: Boy.  Following is a loving and redeeming story in Part One: Chapter Two: My Swedish Mother where his experiences cooking with his Swedish, retired domestic, grandmother truly moved him and grew him into the renowned chef we know today.  The reader has the opportunity to grasp a sense of of where such a balance of smartness, endurance, drive, and general joy has developed.  The book is his ode to a lifelong love of food and he humorously discredits his mother with spurring this passion, describing her handling of pasta as one that "not even a prisoner would tolerate...with tinny tomato sauce and mushy frozen peas".

We're taken on a tough winter journey to Smogen where he toiled with the men of the family, preparing fishing vessels for the upcoming season and enjoying an eye opening visit to his uncle's smokehouse.  No doubt this hard work lead to his ultimate respect for the protein of the sea.

So we journey into his restaurant experiences in both Switzerland and France, a stint on a cruise ship, to the beginning of his phenomenal work in NYC.

In Barbados, he told the story of how he ended up cooking for his first White House state dinner.  It was quite a tale and you can read all about it in Yes, Chef as well.

Yes, Chef is Samuelsson's heart and soul in black in white.  He readily opens and allows the readers to experience his history, his passions, his dreams.  Chef Marcus is one of the most inviting celebrity chefs I've ever had the pleasure to encounter.  His natural spirit is felt in his presence as much as through this spectacular memoir.


Pick up your copy of Yes, Chef: A Memoir at your local bookstore, through Random House, or Amazon.com.  It is available as an e-Book, hard, and soft cover.

Upcoming Book Review: Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Chef Marcus Samuelsson

Me and Chef Marcus Samuelsson at Barbados Food+Wine+Rum Festival 2012

Excited to be working on my second Book Review on my food blog for "Yes, Chef: A Memoir" by Chef Marcus Samuelsson who recently added to his James Beard Foundation Awards for this spectacular book by earning the Writing & Literature award May 2013! Be On the Lookout!

 

Book Review: Strange Foods: Bush Meat, Bats, and Butterflies; An Epicurean Adventure Around the World

 

Not a new book (November 1999), but new to my obsession of buying food-related book and even tons of Cookbooks, without plans to actually use the recipes in my own kitchen...I just love reading about food and honing food description tools for writing, Strange Foods: Bush Meat, Bats, and Butterflies; An Epicurean Adventure Around the World by Jerry Hopkins (author) and Michael Freeman (photos) has been a fun book to read!


Absolutely stunning yet not appalling colored images of "strange" foods:  a bisected Filipino belut egg with prominent feathers, beak and wings of the partially developed duck embryo; the smiling face of Dr. Li, an herbalist at a restaurant in Singapore, displaying a prized wine-infused deer penis; a rustic image of large rubber band bound waterbugs surrounded by fresh, brilliant, green Thai chili, deep lavender whole shallots, and lovely scallions, awaiting their transformation into a spicy dip.   

The photographs and the black and white sketches are intriguing and beautiful and somehow not extremely shocking.  The book is full of smiling and par-for-the-course faces of natives preparing, eating, or displaying delicacies.

The text:  Educational, low level scientific, and health-forward: calculating the fat content or protein yield of songbirds over red meat.

I do have one confession.  I consider myself an adventurous eater - I'll try anything twice, and I love snails (classic escargot, with garlic, butter, and parsley) - yet it was hard for me to stomach the page on 'creamed slugs in a mushroom cream sauce and the multi-step process for removing their protective slime.  Somehow, I was transported back to my childhood when I heartlessly poured table salt over these poor creatures inhabiting my grandmother's large wooden porch during summer months.  Perhaps it's just guilt.

I consider this book to be every "foodie's" must read, with attractive sub-chapters such as "Dirt", "Poisonous Plants",  "Genitalia", "Urine", "Butterflies & Moths",  this is sure to served as an entertaining read and hopefully inspiration to gourmands who love to travel the world or are willing to creep into the the secret places of their own metropolitan cities to discover something... exotic.

I purchased my copy of "Strange Foods..." on Amazon.com, here.

What's the "strangest" thing you've ever tried at the dinner table?  You can comment below.

Have you read this book?