For personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution, contact Dow Jones Reprints & Licensing at (800) 843-0008 or www.djreprints.com. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, September 5 - 6, 2020 | C11 The Wall Street Journal - 09/05/2020 BOOKS Page : C011 ‘I love the intensity of the fine-dining kitchen, but loathe the fine-dining experience....Iwanttomakesimplefoodnew.’—DAVID CHANG Requiem for the Celebrity Chef EataPeach By David Chang with Gabe Ulla Clarkson Potter, 290 pages, $28 BY RIEN FERTEL HE CELEBRITY CHEF is dead. His reign, at least in the United States, was short-lived but spectacular. THe—and it was almost always a he—first emerged out of California in the mid-1970s, topping pizzas with smoked salmon (Wolfgang Puck), and by the ’90s was dunking oysters and caviar in tapioca pudding (Thomas Keller). He wrote books that stood out as literature (Anthony Bourdain), became more notable for his television appearances than his restaurants (Bobby Flay) and arguably kicked the American culinary lexicon down a notch (Emeril Lagasse). More recently—and no doubt further hastening his demise—he has been called out for misbehavior, misconduct and worse. Perhaps no celebrity chef changed the way Americans eat more than David Chang. He opened his first restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar, in New York’s East Village in 2004. Less than a decade later he was on the cover of Time magazine, alongside two international celebrity chefs, above the caption “The Gods of Food.” You might never have dined at one of the many restaurants in Mr. Chang’s Momofuku empire, but you’ve no doubt eaten Momofuku- derived dishes, such as his ramen or his steamed pork buns, copy-and-pasted by lesser cooks in every corner of the country; or devoured a Compost Cookie from his stoner- dessert emporium Milk Bar or a deadpan impression of a Chick-fil-A sandwich from his JENNIFER S. ALTMAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS Fuku fast-casual chain; or binged on his shows COUNTER CULTURE DavidFor Chang atpersonal, his Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2007. “The Mind of a Chef” and “Ugly Delicious.” Momofuku, in Japanese, means “lucky sister restaurant, Momofuku Ssäm Bar, the if the kitchen felt slighted, might be instructed There was a time when such a book might peach.” But in “Eat a Peach,” Mr. Chang’s dishes prepared by his kitchens typified a to “go fuck yourself.” For years, Mr. Chang inspire a generation of young cooks to sharpen memoir, co-authored with Gabe Ulla, the fuzzy new way of eating: Asian-inflected eclecticism survived on sleepless nights fueled by high- their knives and move to New York, much like fruit becomes a Sisyphean rock. With humor, unafraid to pummel our tastebuds with fat, end bourbon, Russian novels, prescription similar chefs-behaving-badly memoirs, pathos and heaping spoonsful of self- salt, spice and a mélange of textures. I’ll never drugs and suicidal thoughts. “Conflict was including Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” deprecation, Mr. Chang covers the ins and forget my personal favorite dish from that fuel,” he writes, “and Momofuku was a and Bill Buford’s “Heat.” But “Eat a Peach” outs, the fires and floods, that come with gas-guzzling SUV.” reads like a requiem, the last gasp of the running a restaurant—while constantly “Eat a Peach” is an honest, ugly, raw dish celebrity chef. “Do not open a restaurant questioning his place in the constellation of Chang writes about the boys’ of a book. Mr. Chang writes about his struggles unless you must,” he advises the next gener- celebrity chefs. “I’m literally one of the poster non-commercialwith bipolar disorder use and depression. only. Of ation of chefs, when he should have written: children for the kitchen patriarchy,” he writes, club of high-pressure kitchens, reluctantly signing partnership deals and Do not operate a restaurant like I did. despite being a Korean-American among a sea about struggles with bipolar expanding the Momofuku brand to Las Vegas, Mr. Chang’s memoir will no doubt add of white stars. Yet he’s frequently miserable. disorder and depression, and Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia. Of the more fuel to the funeral pyre. He might be “I’ve created my own prison,” he confesses. debauchery that surrounds the international called out for his episodes of bad behavior. “I just don’t understand my appeal. I’m not about finding peace in family. celebrity-chef boys’ club. Of the litany of He might be forced to divest his restaurant supposed to be here.” punched walls and unhinged meltdowns, holdings, as has happened to other mis- Mr. Chang covers his rise, beginning with including threatening an employee with a knife. behaving celebrity chefs. Or he might take a his suburban Washington, D.C., childhood, period, an apple-and-lychee salad with smoked Of his fraught relationship with Peter Meehan, different tack and use his capital and charisma “embarrassed by the smell of our kitchen and bacon and chili nuts. his close collaborator on the Momofuku cook- to speak out about sustainable and equitable the look of our Korean food.” He traces his I’ll also not soon forget Mr. Chang’s book and Lucky Peach, their quirky, genre- farm, health and wage-earning systems, meteoric trajectory from prep school (“the presence in his restaurants’ open kitchens, smashing magazine. (Mr. Meehan recently like his mentor Tom Colicchio. Or, like same school,” he writes, “as PJ, Tobin, Squee, visible for all patrons to see, a presence he resigned from his Los Angeles Times editorial José Andrés, he might help feed the nation’s and Justice Brett Kavanaugh”) to prep cook at describes as a “combination of fear and fury” position, announcing that “in my tunnel-vision neediest. In the wake of Covid-19, Mr. Chang Craft, one of New York’s trendiest restaurants, and “unchecked insanity and abuse.” He writes commitment to making the best thing we has joined forces with other New York restau- for six months without pay—a cultural hold- about having treated the restaurant business could, I lost sight of people and their feelings.”) rant owners to address wage inequality in the over from the French stagiaire system—to with the same mentality and intensity that Of blaming himself for the overdose death of city’s restaurant industry. But customers and opening a ramen shop despite lacking any Francis Ford Coppola notoriously brought to a bright young chef’s apprentice. Of finding critics will surely demand more. Whatever noodle-making know-how. (He hired translators the filming of “Apocalypse Now”: Prepare as some semblance of tranquility in therapy happens next, Mr. Chang knows that as the on Craigslist to decode Japanese cookbooks.) if for an actual war. “Cooking brings out the and with a high-end life coach. Of finding hill stretches ever higher, the Sisyphean peach “Nothing we cooked was authentic,” he writes. best and worst in me,” Mr. Chang admits. refuge and peace in marriage and fatherhood. that is his burden grows heavier by the day. Yet for anyone who lined up during those Employees were hazed, physically punished Mr. Chang apologizes for his behavior, but early years for a seat on one of the infamously and psychologically tortured. At Momofuku, only broadly, abstractly, never directly to Mr. Fertel is the author of “The One True uncomfortable stools at the Noodle Bar and its the customer was regularly wrong and, the individual workers he’s harmed. Barbecue.” This copy is for personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution: The BeckoningContact Dow Jones Light Reprints & Licensing in the at (800) 843-0008 Clock or djreprints.com Tower Copyright (c)2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 09/05/2020 Powered by TECNAVIA IN HANS CHRISTIAN Ander- muffled chime of a church bell grows into a woman of “The Last Tiger” (Eerdmans, “The speed of life since the sen’s 1861 tale “The Ice Virgin,” and sees a bluish light in the steadfastness and valor. 36 pages, $17.99) tells a story girl was born is fast fast fast,” a young man is pulled from clock tower. With the inexor- Mr. Lynch’s writing here of wisdom drawn from thinks the age-racked pro- the brink of romantic joy and able pull of a nightmare, the doesn’t sing, but his pictures adversity. The pages all but tagonist of “This Old Dog” dragged down into the cold young man pursues the light are masterly. Readers ages 7-12 vibrate with rich color: blues (Levine Querido, 32 pages, watersofaSwisslakebya and finds himself drawn down will not soon forget these and greens and the flaming $17.99), a picture book by glacier queen with “long white- into a murky green realm creepy and stirring scenes. orange of a great cat who Martha Brockenbrough for green hair [and] dead eyes like thronged by specters. He meets Deep in the ground beneath disdains to run when hunters children ages 4-8. Leisurely two gun-barrels.” Something a woman, “pale and beautiful,” the Perfect Pets store, where enter his leafy realm. “I’m not walks have become a thing of of the same dark dynamic plays with flashing eyes and floating children can buy genetically scared,” the tiger tells a the past for our shaggy gray CHILDREN’S out in P.J. Lynch’s illustrated flawless companions, there lies monkey. “I’m the strongest, friend, now that he shares his BOOKS fantasy “The Haunted Lake” THIS WEEK a secret laboratory. In that most powerful animal in the household with a baby.