Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris by Lauren Shockey

It's ironic that I ended up becoming a food writer. As a child, I was certainly one of the pickiest eaters around. What I didn't like constituted a veritable universe of the edible: hot dogs, chicken legs, salmon, broccoli, olives, sushi (save for cucumber rolls), Brussels sprouts, oranges, cabbage, beans of any kind, apple juice, fish sticks, spinach, hard-boiled eggs, tofu, shrimp, and even peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (though peanut butter alone, on white bread with the crusts cut off, was acceptable). Plus a slew of others, but you get the idea.

But cheese topped my list of despised foods, especially those malodorous varieties, like Roquefort, Taleggio, and Limburger. And melted cheese was even worse—how the smell amplified when it was cooked! I considered a night at a fondue restaurant equivalent to child abuse. I even turned up my nose at pizza—at slumber parties I peeled the mozzarella off my slice, delicately placing it in a small congealed heap at the edge of my plate. When I went to Italy with my parents as a middle-schooler, I mastered the phrase “senza formaggio,” or “without cheese.” Imagine the laughs the Italians got out of that one!

Yet a funny thing happened around the time I hit adolescence: my tastes began to evolve slowly. I became a little more adventurous. Shrimp scampi suddenly didn't look so scary, and who knew—Brussels sprouts actually tasted great if they weren't overcooked. Seduced by its warm creaminess, I even began leaving the cheese on my pizza.

“It's a slippery slope once you start eating mozzarella,” cautioned my father. “Next you'll be showering your pasta with Pecorino.”

“No, that'll never happen,” I said.

But, of course, he was right, and not only about the Parmesan. By the time I started college, I was spreading chunks of chevre on crackers at parties and no longer withholding the grated Parmesan in my Caesar salads. And the more I freed my palate, the more I realized just how much I'd been missing out on. I also discovered that I loved the thrill of experimenting with new and exotic ingredients in the kitchen. This was a big reason why I went to culinary school and not long after set out on a year-long journey to write Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris.

I hope in reading the book, you'll share my joy at the stove and at the table as I explore a world of new tastes. That you'll share my wonder as I apprentice at wd~50, a restaurant that serves kooky dishes like cubes of fried hollandaise sauce and Tater Tots made not from potatoes but green tomatoes. That you'll fall, like I did, for the verdant herbs gracing the tables of roadside restaurants in Hanoi. That you'll be want to stock your kitchen with zaatar, a musty spice blend I discovered in Tel Aviv that goes amazingly with anything from roast chicken to velvety sweet potato and feta soup (recipe included in the book!). And that you'll appreciate the dedication and impossibly long hours it takes to be a chef in a top Parisian restaurant.

And, most importantly, I hope it will inspire you to follow my lead and open yourself to new edible adventures. Your taste buds will thank you. Trust me, mine did.–Lauren Shockey