Laurie Woolever with Tiffani Faison: Care and Feeding

A candid, funny, and occasionally devastating memoir of a woman making her way through the food world, navigating addiction, a cultural reckoning, and an unexpected tragedy

In this moving, hilarious, and insightful memoir, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there’s more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain.

Behind the scenes, Laurie’s life is frequently chaotic, an often pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and wryly self-deprecating, Laurie attempts to carve her own space as a woman in this world that is by turns toxic and intoxicating. Laurie seeks to try it all—from a seedy Atlantic City strip club to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, from a hippie vegetarian co-op to the legendary El Bulli—while balancing her consuming work with her sometimes ambivalent relationship to marriage and motherhood.

As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie’s mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life’s work that she truly values: care and feeding.

Laurie Woolever is a writer and editor. She spent nearly a decade assisting Anthony Bourdain, with whom she coauthored Appetites: A Cookbook and World Travel, both New York Times bestsellers. She’s written about food and travel for the New York Times, GQ, Food & Wine, Lucky Peach, Saveur, Dissent, Roads & Kingdoms, and others, and has worked as an editor at Art Culinaire and Wine Spectator. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography.

Chef, Restaurateur and TV personality Tiffani Faison has made a name for herself nationwide for her dynamic personality, culinary prowess, and fierce work ethic. Big Heart Hospitality, her Boston based restaurant group, she creates restaurants that are warm, inspired and instantly loveable. These include Sweet Cheeks Q, Fool’s Errand, both located in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. In 2022 Tiffani opened Dive Bar, Tenderoni’s, Charming Gardener and Bubble Bath, within Downtown Boston’s High Street Place food hall.

Tiffani is also a star on The Food Network. In 2022, she won Season 3 of Tournament of Champions, beating 32 of the world’s greatest chefs. She is a judge on Chopped, Guy’s Grocery Games, Wild Card Kitchen and co-hosts Beat Bobby Flay and Best Bite in Town. Boston magazine awarded her “Best Chef: General Excellence” in 2016 and 2022. In 2016 and 2019, the Boston Business Journal named Tiffani to its “Power 50” list and in December 2019, The Boston Globe named Big Heart Hospitality as “Restaurateurs of the Year” and Eater named Tiffani “Empire Builder of the Year."

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EVENT ACCESSIBILITY

This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at [email protected] as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!

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