I love reading almost as much as I love cooking. Long before I was a private chef, long before I cared about feeding others, long before I knew what it meant to eat with the seasons… there were books. (I was the seven-year old who carried books to gym class.) I love words. I love how they string together in infinite ways to create endless meaning. I love how stories can transport us to different countries, different ways of being, different worlds.

As such, the intersection of the culinary world and the word world is enthralling to me. I recently read Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir: Blood, Bones, and Butter. I’ve started inhaling MFK Fisher’s memoirs as well. I will devour anything written by Ruth Reichl and would give my chef’s knife to sit across the table from her.

To me, reading these stories remind me that other people feel the way I do about food. Food is so much more than a meal; it’s a culture, a language, a way to make sense of the world. When I read the works of these Great Chefs, I feel connected to a way of being. I feel understood.

I’m aware that my path to becoming a private chef is somewhat non-traditional, and yet I don’t feel that matters. I deeply believe that cooking well is about sourcing the best possible ingredients and honoring the story they wish to tell. When I purchase local carrots to glaze with local honey and top with freshly whipped goat cheese, my felt experience is that I am stewarding these ingredients and arranging them in a way that allows them to shine and be more than the sum of their parts.

Reading memoirs written by Great Chefs is a sweet reminder that food is connection. When I read about MFK Fisher’s culinary experiences in France many decades ago, Ruth Reichl’s journey from communal living to food critic, or Gabrielle Hamilton saying “yes” to opening Prune long before she knew what she was doing, these Great Chefs remind me that food invites us into deeper intimacy with ourselves. Food is connection to one another, to the natural world that we are of, and to the great mysteries within self that eagerly await…

All we have to do is say yes with an open heart (and mouth).