"Her entire capacity for love, selflessness, suffering, hope--the kitchen had commandeered these long before I ever met her, and what few loving resources that had managed to escape were reserved for her daughter."
A former commis chef recounts the life and career of La Cheffe, a once-famous chef whose assistant--and unrequited lover--he was for a long time. At the heart of this story is cooking experienced as a spiritual adventure. Not that the body and its pleasures are absent. Quite the opposite--they are tools for a journey of transcendence, La Cheffe pushing ever father in her quest for purity.