What's Good: A Memoir in Fourteen Ingredients

(Paperback)

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A culinary pioneer blends memoir with a joyful inquiry into the ingredients he uses and their originsnow in paperbackWhat goes into the making of a chef, a restaurant, a dish And if good ingredients make a difference on the plate, what makes them good in the first place In his highly anticipated first book, influential chef Peter Hoffman offers thoughtful and delectable answers to these questions. "A locavore before the word existed" (New York Times), Hoffman tells the story of his upbringing, professional education, and evolution as a chef and restaurant owner through its componentseverything from the importance of your relationship with your refrigerator repairman and an account of how a burger killed his restaurant, to his belief in peppers as a perfect food, one that is adaptable to a wide range of cultural tastes and geographic conditions and reminds us to be glad we are alive.Along with these personal stories from a life in restaurants, Hoffman braids in passionately curious explorations into the cultural, historical, and botanical backstories of the foods we eat. Beginning with a spring maple sap run and ending with the late-season, frost-defying vegetables, he follows the progress of the seasons and their reflections in his greenmarket favorites, moving ingredient to ingredient through the bounty of the natural world. Hoffman meets with farmers and vendors and unravels the magic of what we eat, deepening every cooks appreciation for whats on their kitchen counter. Whats Good is a layered, insightful, and utterly enjoyable meal.

Author Bio

Chef Peter Hoffman is the curious cooks cook. As the former chef-owner of Savoy and Back Forty restaurants, he trailblazed farm-to-table cooking in New York City. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, Edible Manhattan, and Food & Wine. Hoffman served on the boards of the Greenmarket and Chefs Collaborative and received the Slow Food NYC Snailblazer Award. On most market days he can be found on his bicycle, foraging the Union Square Greenmarket for the best in seasonal ingredients and partaking in its village green community life.