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“One of my dad’s favorite sayings is ‘no wasted meals’ — after all, you have to eat, so why not make it an event?” writes author Grace Reilly
Food has always been personal to me. A sixth love language, a way to take care of others. Growing up, it was love, as present as physical touch and words of affirmation. I’m blessed to come from a family that takes food very seriously. One of my dad’s favorite sayings is “no wasted meals” — after all, you have to eat, so why not make it an event? Why not eat the good feta, get that deli sandwich, try that beef stew recipe your grandmother wrote down for you by hand?
My ultimate idea of a good time is a delicious meal with friends and family, so it’s no surprise that this passion led to a foodie romance: Yes, Chef, my love letter to this essential, wonderful and ultimately personal human experience.
There’s a scene in the book where the male lead, chef Jack Hartman, takes his love interest, Poppy Winfield, who’s with him to revive his late mentor’s restaurant, to an island off the Florida coast.
This grumpy/sunshine duo needs common ground if they’re going to continue to work together, and they find that in the form of one of my favorite topics: food memories.
“We need food to survive, right?” Jack tells Poppy as he cleans a freshly caught fish. “But we don’t view it as survival. Every culture in the world puts food at the center in some way. We celebrate with it. Mourn with it. Remember with it.”
Our sense of taste and smell, in particular, can bring forth incredibly strong memories. A piece of cake might transport someone back to their grandparents’ kitchen. Likewise, the smell of almond milk might turn someone’s stomach, reminding them of the time they had food poisoning thanks to a rogue latte. We remember the meals we’ve had many times — Mom’s Sunday sauce, Dad’s famous ribs — and the ones we had once upon a time, such as the perfect bite of In-N-Out right after a flight to California, or a bowl of pho from a Vietnamese place you stumbled upon one rainy afternoon that warmed you inside out.
In Yes, Chef, I reflect on this concept of food memories, and in the process, communicate my love for food, cooking, and the ways it connects us. After all, what better way to get to know someone than to share a meal with them? I wanted Poppy and Jack’s shared experiences in the kitchen to be intrinsically linked to their falling in love. I wanted the reader to leave them in their happily-ever-after thinking about their own food memories.
A lot of the research I did for Yes, Chef came through osmosis — everything from watching Food Network shows to helping my family with holiday meals to poring over editions of Cook’s Illustrated.
I also re-read Kitchen Confidential and other books by Anthony Bourdain — he was a big influence on Jack’s character—as well as memoirs like Sous Chef by Michael Gibney, Give a Girl a Knife by Amy Thielen, and Heat by Bill Buford. I gobbled up what real chefs have to say about FX’s The Bear, one of the foundational pieces of inspiration for the book, as well as The New York Times Cooking newsletter, a favorite of mine. All of these helped me decide which elements of the culinary industry to be faithful to, and what to fudge for the sake of storytelling and romance.
I consulted cookbooks, too, and a few of my favorites are mentioned in the book: Marcella Hazan’s, as well as Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook, and Julia Child’s The Way to Cook. In the Thanksgiving sequence in the book, Poppy uses Child’s recipe for her homemade turkey gravy, something that my family does too. It makes Thanksgiving into an experience I look forward to every year, and I loved being able to put it in the book.
Last month, I lost my grandfather, who used to be a staple at our table during this holiday, and while he’s not in my life anymore, I know that the first bite of stuffing and gravy this November will transport me back to years of memories with him and the rest of the family. Isn’t that a gift? One of the closest things we have to magic in this world?
If I sound a little too earnest, well, Yes, Chef is a love story, after all. It’s about two messy, underestimated-yet-determined people, finding connection in each other as much as they do in food. Jack introduces Poppy to the alchemy of turning ingredients into a dish, and as her love for cooking and confidence in the kitchen grows, so do her feelings for Jack. Jack, meanwhile, heals from a difficult past with each adventure in the kitchen. Cooking is the medium through which they begin to understand each other.
For me, food is one way I’ve been able to show my affection for friends and family, connect with strangers, and be curious about the world. It’s one of the best parts of life. Something we can all return to, time after time. After all, as Anthony Bourdain wrote in A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal, “Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.”
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Yes, Chef by Grace Reilly will hit shelves on July 21 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
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