Burn the Place: A Memoir, Iliana Regan

Description

Burn the Place: A Memoir
by Iliana Regan
Paperback | August 4, 2020

Nominated for the National Book Award, Burn the Place is chef Iliana Regan’s luminous debut memoir, tracing her journey from a childhood spent foraging on a Midwestern farm to the rarefied world of Michelin-starred dining—and toward a hard-won sense of self.

Raised as the youngest of four strong-willed sisters on a small Indiana farm, Regan learned early to observe closely and trust her instincts. She could spot ripe raspberries and elusive chanterelle mushrooms where others could not, developing an intimate relationship with the land that would later define her culinary philosophy. But while food offered clarity and connection, people were more complicated. Regan grew up gay in an intolerant community, struggled with alcoholism before the age of twenty, and navigated the pressures of a male-dominated restaurant industry while searching for her own voice.

Through vivid, sensory prose, Regan charts her unconventional path: learning to cook in her family kitchen, working her first restaurant job at fifteen, hosting underground supper clubs, and teaching herself boundary-pushing cuisine that ultimately led to national acclaim. Food becomes both refuge and language, a way to survive, to heal, and to articulate desire, identity, and ambition.

Raw, poetic, and emotionally fearless, Burn the Place is a memoir of addiction and recovery, queer coming-of-age, and creative obsession. It is a powerful meditation on craft, belonging, and what it means to build a life that feels true.

This title is a remainder, offered at half the original cover price. Remainder copies are new and unread, but may show minor shelf wear.