An Instant New York Times Bestseller! A candid funny and occasionally devastating memoir of a
woman making her way through the food world navigating addiction a cultural reckoning and an
unexpected tragedy In this moving hilarious and insightful bestselling memoir Laurie
Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food
publications alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the
business. But there’s more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario
Batali and Anthony Bourdain. Behind the scenes Laurie’s life is frequently chaotic an often
pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and
wryly self-deprecating Laurie attempts to carve her own space as a woman in this world that is
by turns toxic and intoxicating. Laurie seeks to try it all—from a seedy Atlantic City strip
club to the Park Hyatt Tokyo from a hippie vegetarian co-op to the legendary El Bulli—while
balancing her consuming work with her sometimes ambivalent relationship to marriage and
motherhood. As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie’s mentors face
their own high-profile descents she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and
how to hold on to the parts of her life’s work that she truly values: care and feeding.
