Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits and Wanderers Created a New American Profession

Friedman (Knives at Dawn) has been writing about food and chefs for two decades. His newest book chronicles the rise of modern chefs in the 1970s and 1980s. Through conversations with chefs, critics, and friends, Friedman illuminates the evolution from laborer cook to celebrated chef. Contributors include famous names such as Wolfgang Puck, Alice Waters, and Mimi Sheraton, as well as some chefs who might be less familiar to readers: Bruce Marder (chef-owner of Capo, Santa Monica) and Sue Conley (cofounder of Cowgirl Creamery). Many profiled here share an unconventional career path that includes an influence of France's culinary techniques, some more directly than others. But all the chefs featured within this smooth narrative came to the realization that cooking in America could be an open book; creativity flowed as they experimented with techniques and food combinations. Friedman mostly focuses on New York and Los Angeles, where many of these chefs gravitated toward.