Whats Good?, Peter Hoffman
Whats Good?, Peter Hoffman
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

What's Good?
A Memoir in Fourteen Ingredients

Author: Peter Hoffman

Narrator: Peter Hoffman

Unabridged: 16 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/12/2022


Synopsis

A culinary pioneer blends memoir with a joyful inquiry into the ingredients he uses and their origins

What goes into the making of a chef, a restau­rant, a dish? In his highly anticipated first book, influential chef Peter Hoffman offers thoughtful and delectable answers to these questions. Hoffman tells the story of his upbringing, professional education, and evolution as a chef and restaurant owner through its components—everything from the importance of your relationship with your refrigerator repairman and an account of how a burger killed his restaurant, to his belief in peppers as a perfect food.

Along with these personal stories from a life in restaurants, Hoffman braids in passionately curious explorations into the cultural, historical, and botani­cal backstories of the foods we eat. Beginning with a spring maple sap run and ending with the late-season, frost-defying vegetables, he follows the progress of the seasons and their reflections in his greenmarket favorites, moving ingredient to ingredient through the bounty of the natural world. Hoffman meets with farmers and vendors and unravels the magic of what we eat, deepening every cook's appreciation for what's on their kitchen counter. What's Good? is a layered, insightful, and utterly enjoyable meal.

About Peter Hoffman

Chef Peter Hoffman is a thinking cook. Recognized by Slow Food NYC with a Snailblazer Award, he served on the advisory boards of the Greenmarket and Chefs Collaborative, and his writing has been published in Edible Manhattan and the New York Times. For more than thirty years, he has been cycling to the Union Square Greenmarket to source the best in local and seasonal ingredients, the core of his cooking.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Randal on April 16, 2021

Hoffman relates the story of his growth as a chef, and the 26 years that he ran the NYC restaurant, Savoy. Interspersed in the story are his reflections on fourteen "ingredients", but more on that later. I would have to categorize the author as a "cerebral" chef. Always thinking, exploring, and experi......more

Goodreads review by Glenda on May 05, 2021

4 - 4.5 stars There were a lot of things I truly enjoyed about Hoffman's memoir.  Each chapter is its own little story, from childhood tales to the love and pain of owning a restaurant, and every little bit in between, all revolving around his passion for good food.  And then there's the actual food......more

Goodreads review by Zibby on August 22, 2021

The book is a memoir about the author's development from a cook to a chef to the owner of a restaurant. He has now been running Savoy restaurant and Back Forty for over two decades. Interwoven throughout his personal story are alternating chapters about ingredients that follow the progress of the se......more

Goodreads review by Amy on July 01, 2021

Peter Hoffman’s book is equal parts a touching memoir and an education in farm fresh locally sourced food. I savored reading this book and really connected with the heartfelt stories. When I picked up this book I went in assuming that my favorite parts would be the recipes. While I did love the reci......more

Goodreads review by Caroline on November 12, 2021

A very important, very witty, very real, very compassionate, very honest recount and reflection. Bravo to Hoffman to find the perfect balance between opening up about his way of work and life, about his personal and professional evolution without putting his ego or his face in the foreground yet sti......more