Savor

May 1, 2022

A fan favorite on Bravo's Top Chef, Pakistani American chef/restaurateur Ali discovered before the show aired that she had a rare form of bone cancer, which soon became terminal. She dedicated the last year of her life to traveling the world, eating amazing food, spending time with loved ones, and writing this meditation on being a chef, a daughter, and a queer woman.

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Starred review from September 26, 2022
James Beard Award–winning chef Ali delivers a powerful ode to family and food in her posthumous memoir. Ali recalls her childhood interest in cooking as she battled cultural traditions: “Instinctually I always knew that I wanted something different from the life waiting for me in Pakistan.” In high school, Ali’s teachers encouraged her to apply to an Ivy League college, but her mother, Farezeh Durrani, insisted that cooking was her daughter’s calling. Their relationship temporarily broke down when Ali came out as queer, but Durrani and Ali’s brother supported Ali as she went to culinary school, became the first Pakistani woman to win the cooking competition show Chopped, became a fan favorite on Top Chef, and launched pop-up restaurants in Lahore and New York City. Her plans to open her own restaurant were derailed by a cancer diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma in 2017. After undergoing chemotherapy and surgery, Ali went into remission, but in the fall of 2018, her cancer returned. Doctors told 29-year-old Ali she had a year left to live, but she died four months later. Ali writes with an irresistible passion for food, friendship, and community, and contributions by Durrani beautifully complement Ali’s account. This portrait of a remarkable talent whose life was cut short is a tough one to forget. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME.

Starred review from October 15, 2022
A chef's memoir of a life lived with hard work and perseverance, tragically cut short by cancer. When Top Chef's "Fan Favorite" winner Ali was told her cancer had returned, she was given a year to live. Rather than giving up, she made a goal to travel around the world, eating at her fantasy restaurants and connecting with family and friends. This memoir was born from her dream to write about her adventures. Tragically, her year to live was reduced to four months, most of which were spent pain-ridden in hospital beds. Instead of traveling, she recounted from the hospital her memories of growing up in Pakistan, where she learned to cook with her Nano (grandmother), and subsequent years in culinary school in America, where she honed her craft, competed in national programs like Chopped and Top Chef, and dreamed of opening a restaurant to showcase her native country's cuisine. "I wanted a place where I could open people's minds about Pakistan through their taste buds--to serve the glorious, generous, hearty food of my youth, of my Nano, and interrupt Western assumptions of Pakistan being a place of bias, of oppression, of terror," she writes. This book shines with the author's irrepressible spirit, positivity, and tenacity. Told in her own words alongside chapters written by her mother, the narrative highlights Ali's ambitious and heartbreakingly short life. At 29, she was full of promise. Her love of food and people and belief in the future are evident throughout the text. Perhaps most striking are her determination and work ethic, as she recounts starting out as a chef working 16-hour days, seven days per week. In her battle with cancer, she displayed unwavering toughness and determination. Ali's adoration of the art of cooking is apparent, infectious, and often moving. Ali's irrepressible love of cooking will not just inspire a love of food, but a love of life.

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