Book cover of Cheffes de Cuisine: Women and Work in the Professional French Kitchen

Book description

Works of Distinction, LDEI M.F.K. Fisher Prize for Excellence in Culinary Media Content, 2022

A rare woman's-eye-view of working in the professional French kitchen

Though women enter France's culinary professions at higher rates than ever, men still receive the lion's share of the major awards and Michelin stars. Rachel E.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Cheffes de Cuisine as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Cheffes explores the lives and the challenges facing female chefs and chefs-in-training in Lyon, France.

It also provides compelling first-hand experiences of the author who went through training while pregnant as well. Black’s account of the tribulations of professional female "cheffes" against a background of prejudice and harassment seemed very relevant to our contemporary discussions.

But what really stood out for me about this is that she contextualizes the story within the history of Lyon, famous both for its cuisine and for its legendary female cheffes. Black ties together past and present beautifully in her account, giving a real sense…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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