![]() But as his co-author, I was in some ways relieved. Shaw Bijou closed shortly after it opened under a hail of criticism. I knew immediately one of my challenges would be to help Kwame see-and to admit to and to explore the idea-that a) that smooth line was probably not an accurate representation of his life’s path and b) a compelling memoir a smooth line does not make.Īs it turns out, we didn’t have to work too hard to manufacture a more nuanced arc after all. (The original title was Chasing Happiness.) Naturally, as a writer, I worried about this. The general trajectory of the narrative was a steady triumphal slope upwards. When we began work on it, Kwame was in the midst of opening Shaw Bijou, his first fine-dining restaurant in Washington D.C. Notes started as one thing and became another. This, the actual seeing of another person, is perhaps the most necessary thing as a collaborator and one reason, I think, why Kwame and I have worked so well with each other for so long. One reason, I think, is because since I’d been around and writing about chefs for so long, I didn’t relate to him as a Bright Up-and-Coming Chef, which he was, but as a human being, as I came to find, a wonderful human and wonderfully complicated human being. ![]() Despite the inherent weirdness of the meeting-it’s like a first date but observed, high stakes and professional-we hit it off. The editors at Knopf and Kwame were looking for a co-author and called me so I met him on a hot Friday afternoon at the PRH tower in Midtown. I first met Kwame Onwuachi in August 2016, after he had sold what would ultimately become Notes from a Young Black Chef to Knopf but before the book had taken shape.
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