Shaya

January 1, 2018

James Beard Award winner and New Orleans restaurateur Shaya shares how food saved his life. As an Israeli immigrant child growing up in an unstable Philadelphia home, he bonded with his grandparents over traditional comfort foods and cooked for his divorced, working mother. As a teen, he held food-related jobs but was also doing drugs and engaging in crime when a home economics teacher helped get him get back on track. Readers follow Shaya's enlightenment at the Culinary Institute of America, sympathize as he copes with work (and Hurricane Katrina), and envy his exploratory excursions through Italy and Israel. Shaya's honesty and determination are engrossing, as he evolves from a jerky boss to a collaborative, innovative restaurateur embracing family life and his roots. More than 100 recipes are featured here, along with appealing sketches and color photos. This book has excellent modern Israeli recipes, similar to those featured in Michael Solomonov's Zahav, but it also has wider appeal to memoir fans and home cooks, as the dishes reflect influences from Southern, Italian, and Romanian cuisines. Unlike Zahav, there is no resource list, though the introductory text explains unique ingredients, mentions some sources, and suggests substitutes when appropriate. VERDICT Recommended for foodies.--Bonnie Poquette, Milwaukee

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2018
Two-time James Beard–award winner Shaya has written an excellent cookbook with a moving narrative about his journey from childhood as a young Israeli immigrant to the U.S., to days as a ne’er-do-well student championed by his high school home-economics teacher, to life as a chef in Las Vegas, New Orleans, Italy, and places in between. He recalls his final trip to see his dying grandmother—the one who nurtured him with food as a child. With her unable to speak well, and his Hebrew nearly nonexistent, he raced back and forth from the kitchen to her bedroom to have her taste and critique as he tried to capture the essence of her cooking before she died. He includes those recipes here, among them a chilled yogurt soup with walnuts; spanokopita made with collard greens; and lutenitsa, a tomato-pepper spread. Shaya’s infusions of Israeli flavors into American dishes are clever, such as in a labneh cheesecake with pomegranate caramel and candied nuts or a za’atar fried chicken. There are soul-warming dishes, such as ricotta cavatelli with white Bolognese, curried sweet potato and leek pie, and linguine and clams in a carbonara sauce. This is a must-read book for up-and-coming chefs, and a worthy addition to the chef-memoir genre.

February 1, 2018
Part autobiography, part cookbook, Shaya's culinary journey leaves readers astonished at a life lived seemingly perpetually at the edge. Born in Israel, Shaya immigrated to Philadelphia as a child. His parents soon divorced, but a grandmother nurtured his cooking talents, and the latchkey boy learned to replicate such classic Jewish foods as hamantaschen. Always something of a rebel, he fell into a life of petty crime and drug use. But his obvious talent for cooking focused his prodigious energy. So talented was he that he wrangled a scholarship to the Culinary Institute of America. After a stint in several Italian restaurants, he returned to America to open a lauded Italian dining room in New Orleans. Some return visits to Israel summoned him back to his Middle Eastern roots, and he opened an Israeli eatery in the Big Easy. Shaya's complex recipes record the disparate influences on his cooking style and offer plenty of worthy challenges for innovative home cooks.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)