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Summary
Summary
Nominated for the National Book Award, chef Iliana Regan's debut memoir chronicles her journey from foraging on her family's Midwestern farm to running her own Michelin-starred restaurant and finding her place in the world.
Iliana Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Indiana. While gathering raspberries as a toddler, Regan learned to only pick the ripe fruit. In the nearby fields, the orange flutes of chanterelle mushrooms beckoned her while they eluded others.
Regan's profound connection with food and the earth began in childhood, but connecting with people was more difficult. She grew up gay in an intolerant community, was an alcoholic before she turned twenty, and struggled to find her voice as a woman working in an industry dominated by men. But food helped her navigate the world around her--learning to cook in her childhood home, getting her first restaurant job at age fifteen, teaching herself cutting-edge cuisine while hosting an underground supper club, and working her way from front-of-house staff to running her own kitchen.
Regan's culinary talent is based on instinct, memory, and an almost otherworldly connection to ingredients, and her writing comes from the same place. Raw, filled with startling imagery and told with uncommon emotional power, Burn the Place takes us from Regan's childhood farmhouse kitchen to the country's most elite restaurants in a galvanizing tale that is entirely original, and unforgettable.
Author Notes
Iliana Regan is the Michelin-star chef and prior owner of Elizabeth restaurant, which she turned over to her employees in 2020 in order to run the Milkweed Inn bed and breakfast in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Her debut memoir, Burn the Place, was longlisted for the National Book Award, the first time a food writer has been nominated since Julia Child. In addition to working as the chef and owner of Milkweed Inn, she recently earned an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is the author of Fieldwork .
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this biting debut memoir, Regan, chef and owner of Chicago's Elizabeth and Kitsune restaurants, writes of growing up in a small Indiana town, where she struggled with gender identity and sexuality before finding herself as doyen of Chicago's "new gatherer" culinary movement. Regan depicts her early life in an "outrageously enchanting" farmhouse with her parents and three sisters, including the day she "became a chef" after picking chanterelles with her father (they "smell like the earth but also sweet like apricots and spicy like peppercorns"), taking them home to sauté in butter and wine-experiences that later influenced the food served at her restaurants. After her parents divorced, Regan coped with the frustrations of growing up gay in a "Red state" by turning to alcohol; after graduating from high school she moved to Chicago, first delivering Chinese food, then hosting at high-end restaurants. After her sister died unexpectedly (she had a seizure while in jail for punching her husband), Regan began selling farm-to-table and foraged foods at farmers markets ("tortillas made with wheat I'd sprouted"). She became known citywide for her pierogis, and after becoming sober she opened her Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant, Elizabeth. Foodies will appreciate this blistering yet tender story of a woman transforming Midwestern cooking, in a fresh voice all her own. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Michelin-starred chef Regan grew up in a farmhouse in rural Indiana, where her mother was famous for her pierogi and her father taught her how to forage for chanterelle mushrooms. In this memoir, Regan recounts her upbringing as the much-younger child in a family of sisters. She started her first restaurant job at age 15. From her hometown, Regan moved to Bloomington and later to Chicago, where she worked in innovative restaurants such as Trio and Alinea. In 2010, she began hosting pop-up dinners at her home with food she'd grown in her backyard or foraged herself. In 2012, she opened Elizabeth, a restaurant named for her sister who passed away suddenly when Regan was 22. Beyond an origin story of her life as a chef, Regan delves into her parents' separation, her gradual acceptance of her sexuality, and her struggle with alcoholism that started in her teen years. Told without skirting around darkness and with an engrossing narrative style, Burn the Place brings readers into Regan's life and dreams.--Laura Chanoux Copyright 2019 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Regan's debut memoir is an unusually poetic journey from her early years living in a small town in Indiana to her current position as owner of the Chicago-based restaurants Elizabeth and Kitsune. Growing up on a farm, Regan knew at an early age that she loved food and wanted to make it her life's work. From tales of picking raspberries as a child to crafting eclectic and foraged cuisine at her two restaurants, it's clear that food is one of Regan's passions. She warmly tells about her life with her three sisters and parents, and how they accepted her even though she was unsure of her identity, longing to be a boy, and later identifying as a gay woman. Regan explains how her father taught her to forage and hunt, and that she learned to make meals, such as simply sautéed chanterelle mushrooms, with their finds. Addictions came early, as she started drinking and abusing drugs to cope with the difficulties in her life. Struggling to be sober and successful, she eventually rose to the top of her field in a male-dominated industry. VERDICT A well-written and honest chef memoir, both rough and charming.--Holly Skir, Broward Cty. Lib., FL