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    Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat
    Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat
    Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat
    Audiobook12 hours

    Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat

    Written by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas

    Narrated by Johnny Heller

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 2007, chef Grant Achatz seemingly had it made. He had been named one of the best new chefs in America by Food Wine in 2002, received the James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award in 2003, and in 2005 he and Nick Kokonas opened the conceptually radical restaurant Alinea, which was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine. Then, positioned firmly in the world's culinary spotlight, Achatz was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma-tongue cancer.

    The prognosis was grim, and doctors agreed that the only course of action was to remove the cancerous tissue, which included his entire tongue. Desperate to preserve his quality of life, Grant undertook an alternative treatment of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. But the choice came at a cost. Skin peeled from the inside of Grant's mouth and throat, he rapidly lost weight, and most alarmingly, he lost his sense of taste. Tapping into the discipline, passion, and focus of being a chef, Grant rarely missed a day of work. He trained his chefs to mimic his palate and learned how to cook with his other senses. As Kokonas was able to attest, the food was never better. Five months later, Grant was declared cancer-free, and just a few months following, he received the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef in America Award.

    Life, on the Line tells the story of a culinary trailblazer's love affair with cooking, but it is also a book about survival, about nurturing creativity, and about profound friendship. Already much-anticipated by followers of progressive cuisine, Grant and Nick's gripping narrative is filled with stories from the world's most renowned kitchens-the French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, el Bulli-and sure to expand the audience that made Alinea the number-one selling restaurant cookbook in America last year.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 25, 2011
    ISBN9781452671277
    Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat

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    Reviews for Life, on the Line

    4/5

    84 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Very engaging, heartfelt account of the evolution of a creative chef and his trials with cancer.
    • 2/5
      I chose to listen to this book because it was described as a man's struggle with cancer. The problem was that I read 20 chapters that were devoted to his history with working at his goal to run his own restaurant. When reading 20 chapters waiting for his health to be brought up one tends to get a bit annoyed. It wasn't until the 21st chapter that the last 9 chapter were devoted to his diagnosis + treatment. And we were left hanging as to whether he ended up, as we expected, to have the rebuilding of his affected areas.
      The book should be for those interested in becoming owner of their own restaurant + one man's story.
    • 4/5
      Great book. I really enjoyed the story of Achatz's life, the process of opening his restaurants and his fight against cancer. The only issue I had with this book was the transition between sections written by Achatz and those written by Kokonas. The transitions weren't very well done and made a lot of the book feel very disjointed and confusing.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this read about Achatz & Kokonas, and their drive to build their dream.
    • 3/5
      I heard about Achatz from my ex-caterer husband. My current husband, who used to be a caterer, I mean. He's still a foodie, and tends to come up with the oddest trivia- in this case, he was all excited about Achatz's cold griddle, which freezes foods the way a hot griddle cooks them. Then my stepmom, who is something of a connoisseur of memoirs by people who are facing some terrible medical issue, read and loved this book. So I sought it out.

      Achatz is an interesting character- intense, driven, and not the kind of guy you'd want to date. (Paraphrasing: "It's Wednesday, I've been here for 17 hours and have 70 hours in this week already") His philosophy of food is fun to read about, as is his relationship with Thomas Keller of The French Laundry. Some of the things he does with food sound purely goofy- and he's aiming for goofy, so that's okay. There's a playfulness about the food I'm reading about here that makes me want to taste it and see for myself. The part about his tongue cancer treatment was less engrossing for me, but I'm glad it seems to have worked out well for him.

      Recommended for foodies and/or cancer memoir junkies.
    • 5/5
      This is easily the best biography I've read. Honest, engaging, and so NOT whiny, I stayed up late to finish it.
    • 5/5
      An absolutely fascinating book about an almost painfully addictive passion for the development of food that is really far beyond the word "creative." It's hard to even begin to imagine how Chef Achatz's mind works but it most certainly sounds exhausting, exhilarating, and any of a number of other adjectives all mixed together! The book is extremely descriptive of a very young man's overly full life, who is suddenly faced with a horrendous cancer that nearly destroyed his career and his life. His concentration on the presentation and taste of food in combinations he originates is just incredible. It's not that it is necessarily food "I" would want to eat but his dedication to it and to his restaurant dream is almost super human. His achievements are astounding but I had to look him up to see his "Next" restaurant----when you reach one goal it is almost personally devastating until you can find another one.
    • 3/5
      Grant Achatz is an extremely talented chef and an extremely mediocre writer. The book delivers what it says it will - a clear explanation of the drive and inspiration that shaped Achatz's culinary career, and a chronicle of the cancer that nearly took his life. The book is at its best when Achatz shares the details of his illness, but it's also plagued by stylistic problems throughout. Most annoyingly, about halfway through the book, the narration begins switching randomly between Achatz and his business partner, Nick Kokonas. Since there's no warning when the narrator changes, reading sometimes became a very confusing experience. Beyond that, Achatz's prose is lackluster, and his writing often fails to convey any emotion. Still, the book was a quick enough read, and Achatz's career is genuinely interesting. You will probably enjoy this book if you are a serious foodie and feel a bit bored if you are not. Achatz's cancer story is genuinely moving, but it occupies only the last few chapters, so I wouldn't recommend reading the book just for that.