SAVOR

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.