Notes From a Young Black Chef: A Memoir

"This riveting memoir from acclaimed chef Kwame Onwuachi chronicles his dizzying career rise and fall (his first D.C. restaurant, Shaw Bijou, was a highly publicized failure) – as well as his made-for-Hollywood comeback. (A film version is reportedly in the works.) Onwuachi grew up in a Bronx home where money was tight. At age 10 he was headed down the wrong path and was sent to live with relatives in Nigeria for two years. Cooking provided a way out, and eventually, he ended up working at Per Se and Eleven Madison Park, temples of American high cuisine, before opening his own D.C. restaurants. Onwuachi’s memoir is not only a story about triumph over adversity – it’s a reflection on what it means to be a black man in a profession where racism is still all too present."

"I think it's really important to read first person accounts of the way Black people are disadvantaged by the structures of American society. In the end, however, it's a deeply inspiring story from someone who was almost destroyed by the disadvantages piled onto them by society but who managed to rise up."