Notes from a Young Black Chef is The Common Read selection for the 2023-24 school year that weaves the threads of food, culture, identity, nation, race and family to offer a coming-of-age story that resists a linear path in favor of dream chasing, failing, and rebuilding. The text offers contemporary pop-culture references drawn into historical conversations of migration, civil rights, and liberation, along with recipes that mark major turns in Onwuachi’s life.
Onwuachi is now a celebrated chef, made famous as a contestant on the reality show “Top Chef” on Bravo, and the owner of Tatiana’s in NYC. His memoir speaks to all the ways this success was built on a trail of movement across geographies, communities, and people, and remembered through the food that was imagined, passed down, and shared.
For more information about The Common Read book and upcoming events visit https://library.ctstate.edu/manchester/notesyoungblackchef/1.
