Notes from a Young Black Chef

To boil this memoir down to ‘a tale of triumph over adversity' feels like a disservice to all that Onwuachi shared. To give it ‘happily ever after' vibes would, I think, risk readers closing the book and not thinking further about big problems that are not solved just  because one Black man made it out of obscurity, gang violence, drugs, financial uncertainty, unstable and/or dangerous home life (not to suggest that this is THE one and only Black American experience). 
I did look into the timeline between where the book ends and the publishing date, and the author bio included in the back of the book, which reinforces my belief that Onwuachi ended his story as written where and when he did to shine a stronger light on the racism, structural and individual, industrial and personal, that he has experienced. 
While I was glad to see my curiousity satisfied about the journey a person goes on, from an interest in cooking to qualifying as a professional chef, I think the big takeaway is there are a few different ways to get there, and in this case it's infuriating to contemplate how many extra barriers there were in Onwuachi's early and later education and professional life, how often a lack of understanding existed, how often opportunities were that much harder to come by, how endless hustle was required because support was unavailable.
On the lighter side, I am so happy Onwuachi could recognize the toxic patterns of behaviour, the violent rage in his father and traditional fine-dining head chefs, that he did not want to bring into his life, his generation, his kitchen. That he found healing in cooking, and saw in it the ability to care for others while doing something that also comforted himself. 😌
I am grateful to him and his co-writer for creating a book whose message will stick with me. 
⚠️ racism, mental/emotional and physical child abuse, animal death