Spiced: A Pastry Chef's True Stories of Trials by Fire, After-Hours Exploits, and What Really Goes on in the Kitchen (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Your lack of experience doesn't bother me, Jurgensen's first boss in a restaurant kitchen told her. It just means... you haven't learned any bad habits yet. From that auspicious beginning, Jurgensen, pastry chef at Dressler in Brooklyn, makes a few mistakes along the way (one time, she managed to burn a hole in the bottom of a pot while trying to melt chocolate), although she steadily improves, landing jobs at several impressive Manhattan restaurants (with an interlude as a chef for Martha Stewart's TV show). In this amiable narrative, she describes various pitfalls: a hookup with one of her bosses eventually settles into a dating relationship; when they break up, it's right back to work for Jurgensen ever the professional. The edgy backstage atmosphere will be instantly familiar to fans of chef memoirs, but Jurgensen's promise of a feminine perspective to the sexist environment is barely fulfilled by the indifferent telling of a few raunchy anecdotes and her insistence that she got over it because she had no other choice. Individually, the stories are never anything less than entertaining, but when they're put together it feels like there's one more ingredient missing—an elusive something that would make a good dish great. (Apr.)
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Review

"Great insider stuff and a valuable addition to the annals of first-person culinary history."
-Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential

"This is a personal memoir of a young chef's experience in restaurant kitchens. It is funny, interesting and - for me, as a chef and owner of a restaurant - an illuminating insight into how other kitchens work. I loved reading it and plan to give this book to all my chefs."
-Ruth Rogers, Chef Owner, The River Café, London

"Never anything less than entertaining.... In this amiable narrative, Jurgensen describes various pitfalls: a hookup with one of her bosses eventually settles into a dating relationship; when they break up, it's right back to work for Jurgensen, ever the professional. The edgy 'backstage' atmosphere will be instantly familiar to fans of chef memoirs."
-Publishers Weekly

"Everything you always wanted to know about working in a high-powered restaurant kitchen. She has experienced nearly everything in and out of a high-end kitchen: on-the- job romance, getting freaked out by a visit from New York Times review goddess Ruth Reichl and, of course, being privy to some brilliant food. Despite the up-and- down wackiness of the restaurant world, Jurgensen loves her lot in life, and her debut memoir reflects great affection for the professional kitchen. Jurgensen does a nice job with the female perspective in the testosterone-centric kitchen culture. She gently dishes on former part-time employer Martha Stewart, and her experience as a pastry chef puts a slightly different slant on the proceedings."
-Kirkus

"Jurgensen's book takes readers on a culinary adventure through her rise as a pastry chef at New York's best restaurants. A quick read, this book will appeal to those interested in chef stories and what happens behind the scenes in the kitchen."
-Library Journal

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399155619
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155611
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #400,759 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Slight Variation on The Same-Old Chef Memoir, March 7, 2009

By	Amy Senk "Read it, Loved it" (Orange County, CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

I love cooking, books about cooking, chef's autobiographies, television shows about kitchens and cooks. If it's chef-restaurant related, even if it's not top-quality, I'll likely give it a chance and enjoy it on some level.

Spiced, the story of a New York pastry chef's rise from student to hugely successful, seemed a book right up my alley. Not only was the book going to take on the perspective of a woman in the kitchen, but it also was going to focus on desserts. Women and desserts famously don't get a lot of foodie respect. What would Dalia Jurgensen have to say for herself?

Well, honestly, nothing too surprising. The book seemed to cover a lot of the same ground of the hard work and burn marks that were covered better in books like Heat, or those by Michael Ruhlman. And guess what? Restaurant kitchens are full of sexism and hostility toward women.

The best part of the book was discovering how she learned the art of pastry and dessert making at Nobu,
and then built on that knowledge until she was able to create her own dessert menus that earned her national acclaim at restaurants she helped open.

The worst part of the book was the sexual talk that didn't seem to add to the story and seemed out of place.
Dalia had a lesbian affair with a waitress? So what? Another chef talked in graphic terms about his previous evening? Allrighty then. I am not sure why the out-of-the-blue sex talk bugged me, but I think it's because they didn't seem to add to the story and therefore struck a weirdly false note.

Maybe this isn't the best chef memoir ever. But certainly, if you have the food fascination that I have, you'll enjoy enough of the book to make it a worthwhile read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Insider's view of the kitchen, April 4, 2009

By	gotta run now (Seattle) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

Dalia Jurgenson takes a chance with her life, and abandons a sure-thing job to attempt a career where her true passion lies--in the kitchen. Sacrificing money, security, and most of her social life, she is thrown into a completely foreign atmosphere: one where sexism, disrespect, and rudeness seem to prevail. All for the love of cooking! Her memoir takes the reader right along on this journey and it is a fairly bumpy ride.
Jurgenson's writing style is easygoing and intelligent. Restaurant kitchens are an intimidating place, and we cringe alongside her during her early days. She is able to make us feel as if we are standing alongside her, with burned forearms and the stress of a full restaurant, with VIP's waiting for food, and the possibility of a food critic arriving at any moment.
After giving up her old life, that included friends, the occasional boyfriend, and regular nights out, Jurgenson finds a new social life, typical of restaurant workers that includes many late nights, and few traditional dates. Not to say she lacks a social life altogether.
While Spiced is an enjoyable fast read, I was left somewhat wanting. There's a few teasers thrown out there that make the reader believe her career is about to turn another corner, but the corner is more of a curve. The sexual tidbits thrown in seem a bit gratuitous, as though she was encouraged to include it in her memoir even though she is more comfortable keeping her private life to herself. Those anecdotes would not be missed should a stricter editor get ahold of this book.
Overall, a nicely written memoir, suitable for a cross country flight.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Spiced: A Flavorless, Insipid Recitation of a Life..., July 8, 2009

By	Chris B "zerocard13" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

After years of overly dramatic and overdrawn autobiographical stories chock full of addictions, self loathing and suicidal tendencies, I suppose it was only a matter of time (and some well publicized falsehoods a la James Frey) before publishers turned their attentions towards books that told similar stories but without the drama, the purple prose and mostly illicit activities. This is how I explain the existence of Spiced, the safer, nicer cousin to Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential.

It's a too familiar tale told poorly and without conviction or spirit. Indeed, I never felt any kind of drama or drive at all, just a steady stream of events: She quit her job to take classes and started working at Nobu until she figured it was time to move on and so on and on. She talks about quitting her job to go to culinary school with all the energy that I'd talk about renewing my driver's license. One chapter ends with her feeling overwhelmed by the challenge of a new job and the next opens eight months later and she's utterly in control, complaining about some other new hire. What was that learning process like? We'll never know because we're instead treated to a recitation of insults from the cooking staff at the next restaurant.

And after this steady stream of recent kitchen autobiographies, is anyone really surprised to learn that kitchens are rife with sexism and generally brutish behavior?

So taking away the trite story, we're left with her exploits which wouldn't be out of place in a bad romance novel and are written with about as much grace: she had a fling with a female coworker (which comes off as a rather college age event) and then later fell in to a relationship with her boss, which is dealt with awkwardly and ends abruptly. I'm sure they were important but I was embarrassed to read about them, hoping that they'd drop from the main thread of the book and we could go back to the cooking.

Spiced? Exploits? Hardly. This is a thin gruel that left me hungry for a proper story with more meat on its bones. If you must be titillated by food, skip this and pick up a cook book.