Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:53:55 GMT

Chef Marcus Samuelsson was adopted from Ethiopia to Sweden when he was two years old, along with his older sister. His mother had died of tuberculosis, and her children were incorrectly believed to be orphans. (I'm using the passive voice because Samuelsson never found out exactly how this came about, or if any of his living relatives would have been willing or able to take him in had they known what was going on or, for that matter, if any of them did know.)

Growing up, he wanted to be a professional soccer player but was too small (later, he discovered that he was a year younger than everyone thought), so he turned to cooking, eventually becoming a successful chef in New York. Due to his sister's detective work, as an adult he discovered that their father, whom he had thought was dead, was alive, and that he had something like a hundred relatives he'd never known about. His visits to Ethiopia inspired him to start cooking Ethiopian food. He won Top Chef Masters with an Ethiopian meal.

Great story. Samuelsson is an excellent writer, and his story is atmospheric, thoughtful, and honest. He's definitely of the "warts and all" school of memoir writing, which I appreciate. He's particularly good on his cross-cultural experiences, the complexity of his unusual racial and cultural status, and the connections between food, family, and culture.

Yes, Chef: A Memoir

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Rainbow Mistake Cake

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:42:21 GMT

In addition to making a raspberry cake for the dinner tonight, I decided to surprise my Queer Narrative class with a special Rainbow Pride Cake, inspired by a jar of decorative rainbow ball thingies I spotted next to the baking powder.

It turns out that if you fold rainbow balls into white cake batter, you do not get white batter speckled with rainbow balls. You get purplish-brown batter, the color of a nasty bruise, speckled with white balls. If I'd had chocolate, I'd have dumped some with the hope of it turning into a normal chocolate cake (with white balls.) But I don't have chocolate.

I am going to ice it, dump the remaining rainbow balls on top of the icing, and bring it on on the theory that students will prefer funny-looking homemade cake to no homemade cake.

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Dangerous Jam

Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson

Rainbow Mistake Cake