Achatz "Life, on the Line" Available for Pre-Order

By Anthony Todd in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 25, 2011 5:00PM

If you're a Grant Achatz groupie, or a fan of chef memoirs, mosey on over to your favorite book-ordering location and order "Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way we Eat." Only short excerpts are available, but go read them anyway - stories of the moment Ruth Reichl told Achatz that Alinea was #1, of the day he realized he had cancer and of his tryout for Thomas Keller at the French Laundry. It's unlikely that this will be as lurid as Kitchen Confidential, but we think it might be one of the most touching and informative culinary stories ever told.

Michael Ruhlman, one of our favorite food writers, comments on the "honesty and jarring frankness" in every aspect of the story, and Time Magazine warns that this is not the typical cancer memoir. "This is not the cancer story in which the disease makes the guy realize he needs to stop focusing on his work and finally spend time with his two young sons, see his parents more, and reconnect with his former sweetheart. No, this is the cancer story that makes a man realize that his screaming ambition was right the whole time and that if he had only a month to live, he’d better get some stuff done.”

We're pre-ordering our copy right now.