Read This Book…

Like so many great novels, this one seems to take place at the end of the world. An environmental disaster has caused smog to cover much of the planet, killing off most of the crops and animals. Our unnamed protagonist, an Asian American chef living in Europe, finds herself in a dead-end job working with the limited ingredients left to the general populace.

Deciding she really has nothing better to do, the chef takes a job working for a billionaire living in a compound on the top of a mountain in Italy. High above the smog, the chef cooks in a kitchen full of now-rare ingredients like butter, strawberries, avocados, and chocolate. Aida, the billionaire’s genius daughter, heads up the research to preserve species dying off because of the smog. She also provides the chef with the rare ingredients that she’s been craving. Later, Aida shows her the lab and the hounds she’s been breeding. The chef can hardly believe her eyes.

Before long, the chef finds herself cooking for the richest people in the world, all of whom are being wined and dined by the billionaire and Aida in order to fund their research and planned move farther above the smog. The meals become more involved, more detailed, and more pageant-like. 

From the first few pages, I was smitten with the chef’s narrative voice. The way that she tells her story, carefully describing each ingredient she comes across, is mesmerizing. As the chef finds herself working with Aida, I began to feel the intense attraction that draws the two of them together. This novel centers these characters’ stories, their connection to food, and the simple enjoyments that make them human. I couldn’t help but hang on every word, desperate for them to stay together but also wanting the chef to run away as fast as she can.