If the Michelin guide gave a star to memoirs of a life in food, Sánchez rates at least a pair.
Sánchez (Simple Food, Big Flavor, 2011, etc.) plates a taster's menu of personal and professional influences, not to mention a few culinary travails, in a memoir infused with succulence, revelation, and ethnic pride.
Son of a gustatory pioneer, the author is a seasoned chef, restaurateur, and TV personality (currently seen on MasterChef) whose Latin roots run deep. Born in El Paso, nurtured in New York, and now based in New Orleans, he shot to international fame as a regular on the Food Network. This chronicle of an adventurous life in and out of the kitchen is a love letter not just to expansive pan-Latin cuisine, but to the power of food to bring cultures together and discover the most nourishing qualities of each. The book is also a cautionary tale for the higher reaches of a hospitality industry often distracted by inessentials, risky behavior, and the traps of celebrity. Throughout the well-constructed narrative (which includes recipes), the writing is crisp, candid, and rich with emotion, the latter ingredient applied liberally. The author’s account of the evolution of Food Network is especially flavorsome. But Sánchez reserves much room in the pot for an inward and outward journey of self-exploration as a man of two worlds, Mexican and American. The “life lessons” of the subtitle are not original—whose are?—but they are certainly valid for those in the food industry struggling to balance family and sanity with workload and opportunity, and they are no less instructive for aspiring chefs or those dealing with chronic depression and anxiety. With a soupçon of sympathy, Sánchez can even make the painful palatable. Occasionally, the narrative is somewhat repetitive, and, though trivial, a too-liberal use of the F-word might be off-putting for some readers. Nonetheless, the author offers readers a delicious reading experience.
If the Michelin guide gave a star to memoirs of a life in food, Sánchez rates at least a pair.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3802-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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