Eat a Peach by David Chang (Used – Very Good)

In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in a tiny, stark space in Manhattan’s East Village. David Chang, worked the line, serving ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners.

Chang grew up the youngest son of a deeply religious Korean American family in Virginia. Graduating college aimless and depressed, he fled the States for Japan, hoping to find some sense of belonging. While teaching English in a backwater town, he experienced the highs of his first full-blown manic episode. Chang began to think that the cooking and sharing of food could give him both purpose in his life.

Full of grace, candor, grit, and humor, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang’s switchback path. He lays bare his mistakes and wonders about his extraordinary luck. Change recounts the improbable series of events that led him to the top of his profession. He wrestles with his lifelong feelings of otherness and inadequacy, explores the mental illness that almost killed him, and finds hope in the shared value of deliciousness. Along the way, Chang gives us a penetrating look at restaurant life, in which he balances his deep love for the kitchen with unflinching honesty about the industry’s history of brutishness and its uncertain future.
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