Review of Care and Feeding: A Memoir by Laurie Woolever

Woolever's experiences working for Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are fascinating--and, in the case of Batali, often disturbing. The food-focused writing and restaurant workings are the highlights; the author also recounts the implosion of her personal life, addiction, and extramarital affairs as well as shaping a new normal for herself.

Laurie Woolever is fresh from culinary school and realizing that she doesn't want to be a chef when she stumbles into a position as an assistant to Mario Batali at his revered restaurant Babbo.

His personality is overbearing, and he is frequently sexist, verbally abusive, groping, petty, and prone to childish power plays. Yet his connections and opportunities allow "Wooly," as he immediately decides to calls her, to coauthor a cookbook with him and to meet various players in the food community, eat ridiculously wonderful food, and learn the workings of a busy kitchen.

Woolever also recounts her time as assistant to the kind, passionate Tony Bourdain until the time of his death, and in between accounts of her wild work duties and schedule, she takes the reader through her unrelenting alcohol- and drug-induced hazes, hangovers, regrettable decision-making, extramarital affairs, and doubts about her mothering abilities.

Her accidental revealing of her cheating creates a crisis point for her marriage, and she ultimately gets sober, then, later, also stops smoking pot. Her romantic partners often feel manipulative, involve gaslighting, and keep her on edge and unsure of herself.

I was most interested in the travel, food-focused writing, eating accounts, and breakneck-speed, often outrageous assistant duties than I was in Woolever's snowballing personal missteps, lies, self-destruction, and, for most of the book, her inability to recognize how dangerous her lifestyle is.

I listened to this memoir as an audiobook.

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