Cooking As Fast As I Can: A Chef’s Story of Family, Food, and Forgiveness

In this witty and fast-paced memoir, Cora (Cat Cora’s Classics with a Twist), the first female Iron Chef, recounts a lifetime’s worth of difficulties and triumphs—an abusive Mississippi childhood, first loves, coming out, and attending the Culinary Institute of America. Cora has led an exceptional life, but it is her absorbing voice and eye for sensory detail and description that make this memoir succeed. On getting a second-degree burn: “I had a bucket of ice water on the floor beside me, and every five minutes or so I would unwrap my arm and plunge it into the bucket to draw the heat off the burn... Only after service was over and the kitchen was spotless did I take myself to the emergency room.” Thus she learns the extent of her dedication—enough to carry her all the way to becoming a celebrity chef; while on a book tour for her first cookbook, she is approached by a Food Network producer and asked if she’d like to be an Iron Chef. After she agrees, he tells , “Great. Your first battle is in two weeks.” Cora goes on to an astounding number of victories while outside of the kitchen, she juggles marriage with her wife, Jennifer, and their journey as the mothers of four boys. Whether cooking at the White House or getting a DUI, Cora spares no detail, no matter how unflattering, and she reveals herself as endearingly fallible and human. (Sept.)