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It look me a looonnngg time to read The Seasoning of a Chef: My Journey from Diner to Ducasse and Beyond. Food and cooking memoirs are totally my thing–I COULD NOT put Garlic and Sapphires down–but…
It’s a great premise (the subtitle sums it up pretty well) and it pulled me in at the beginning. Psaltis’ diner-owning grandfather, the people who worked for him, and Psaltis’ own beginning mistakes make for an interesting start. And the end, where he’s a well known chef looking for the right opportunity–that was interesting, too. As for the middle? Psaltis spends it working in this, that, and the other restaurant, learning this, that, and the other from those restaurant’s chefs. On his days off, he works for free at this, that, and the other restaurant, learning this, that, and the other from, well, you get the idea. He doesn’t write much about the actual food, which I would have enjoyed, and his workaholic, extremely confident personality makes him seem sort of one dimensional. I like to cook, and I waitressed for a year, but that wasn’t enough for me to feel like the book’s intended audience. If you are in the industry, it would probably grab you more. For me, well–I read the middle 140 pages 1-2 at a time (which is as much time as I can sometimes steal for myself in the bathroom), and that worked well.
You’ll have to decide what that means for you.