Care and Feeding, Laurie Woolever
Care and Feeding, Laurie Woolever
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Care and Feeding
A Memoir

Bestseller

Author: Laurie Woolever

Narrator: Laurie Woolever

Unabridged: 12 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/11/2025

Synopsis

An Instant New York Times Bestseller! A candid, funny, and occasionally devastating memoir of a woman making her way through the food world, navigating addiction, a cultural reckoning, and an unexpected tragedyIn this moving, hilarious, and insightful memoir, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there’s more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain.Behind the scenes, Laurie’s life is frequently chaotic, an often pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and wryly self-deprecating, Laurie attempts to carve her own space as a woman in this world that is by turns toxic and intoxicating. Laurie seeks to try it all—from a seedy Atlantic City strip club to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, from a hippie vegetarian co-op to the legendary El Bulli—while balancing her consuming work with her sometimes ambivalent relationship to marriage and motherhood.As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie’s mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life’s work that she truly values: care and feeding.

About Laurie Woolever

Laurie Woolever is a writer and editor. She spent nearly a decade assisting Anthony Bourdain, with whom she coauthored the cookbook Appetites and World Travel. She’s written about food and travel for the New York Times, GQ, Food & Wine, Lucky Peach, Saveur, Dissent, Roads & Kingdoms, and others, and has worked as an editor at Art Culinaire and Wine Spectator. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Care and Feeding and Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lauren on March 12, 2025

When it was actually the musings of what it was like to be an assistant to Mario and Tony — what the days entailed of and the wonderful descriptions of the massive amounts of food they ate — this was incredibly enjoyable. Unfortunately, that only comprised of about 30 percent of the book with the ma......more

Goodreads review by Dave G on January 15, 2025

This is a pretty good memoir. Woolever writes about the good and bad in her life, and there is a lot of bad in her life coupled with a lot of good. The writing seems genuine and not all whiney, a common problem with memoirs from privileged people. Woolever may not think she is, but she is, compared......more

Goodreads review by Allison on January 13, 2025

I always have the hardest time reviewing memoirs. It’s someone’s account of their life and the events that made them. This one was wonderfully written, to the point it was pretty easy to get lost in the author’s words and play a movie in your head. Highly enjoyed and recommended to anyone who is int......more

Goodreads review by Emily on March 19, 2025

I purchased this as one of my March BOTM selections. Historically, I love a food industry memoir and so I snatched this up. Before I get into the review, I’m going to personally say that Mario Batali can kick rocks with open toed shoes on forever. Even if all she did was share her own experience, th......more

Goodreads review by Bailey on March 10, 2025

This book is a memoir about Laurie Woolever's adult life. It's bookended, as you've probably heard, her work with Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. The book is about her lived experience, mistakes, wins, growth, and smallness. If you want this book to center the men she. worked for and explain thei......more

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