Saturday, July 14, 2012

Yes, Chef
by Marcus Samuelsson

Marcus Samuelsson was originally born in Ethiopia. When he was three, he contracted tuberculosis along with his sister and his mother. They walked seventy-five miles (Marcus was on his mother's back) to reach Addis Adaba for a hospital to treat all of them. Marcus and his sister survived but their mother died. The two of them would go into an orphanage and one year later be adopted by a Swedish family. Marcus thought that he would become a professional soccer player but he was considered too small. Instead, inspired by his grandmother's cooking, his passion for food would sustain him for the rest of his life. He went to cooking school and then apprenticed at restaurants in Switzerland and in France. Marcus ended up in New York and eventually opened up his own restaurant in Harlem.
There are so many cooking memoirs that are quite good but I can't say that about this book. I found the writing to be lacking in warmth and just stating facts. Marcus is not the true author because he used a ghost writer and it shows. He should just stick to cooking.