num_pages: 320
description: JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE  A sharply crafted and unflinchingly honest memoir about gangs drugs cooking and living life on the lineboth on the streets and in the kitchenfrom one of the most exciting stars in the food world todayAs compelling or more so than Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society . . . When Corbin writes about his life it burns with the intensity of the best pulp fiction but it isnt fictionits the life he lived. Los Angeles TimesONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE SalonChef Keith Corbin has been cooking his entire life. Born on the home turf of the notorious Grape Street Crips in 1980s Watts Los Angeles he got his start cooking crack at age thirteen becoming so skilled that he was flown across the country to cook for drug operations in other cities. After his criminal enterprises caught up with him though Corbin spent years in Californias most notorious maximum security prisonswitnessing the resourcefulness of other inmates who made kimchi out of leftover vegetables and tamales from ground-up Fritos. He developed his own culinary palate and ingenuity creating spreads out of the unbearable commissary ingredients and experimenting during his shifts in the prison kitchen.After his release Corbin got a job managing the kitchen at LocoL an ambitious fast food restaurant spearheaded by celebrity chefs Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson designed to bring inexpensive quality food and good jobs into underserved neighborhoods. But when Corbin was suddenly thrust into the spotlight he struggled to live up to or accept the simplified gangbanger redemption portrayal of him in the media. As he battles private demons while achieving public success Corbin traces the origins of his vision for California soul food and takes readers inside the worlds of gang hierarchy drug dealing prison politics gentrification and culinary achievement to tell the story of how he became head chef of Alta Adams one of Americas best restaurants.
language: English
title: California Soul: An American Epic of Cooking and Survival
publisher: Random House