Two Pastry Chef Auto Bios 🍲

Spiced – Dalia Jurgensen

Dalia Jurgensen’s breezy book is about prepping food, man. Learning the ropes. Keeping her station clean.  Maximizing her opportunities for growth to become a pastry chef in NYC kitchens.  Her family background and relationships are here but this book is about developing skills.  Anyone thinking about entering the culinary industry would benefit from this book.

The ethos behind her desserts, natural, not too much sugar, such as banana tarte tatin, sounds delish.

Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger – Lisa Donovan

Lisa Donovan’s book is much loftier, with more feeling and community than pastry. She entered the culinary industry using skills learned through her Mexican immigrant family on her mother’s side. She’s become known from a hyper local scene in a rising Nashville.  While she drinks a lot of artisanal, organic Kool-Aid (Saint Bourdain!), hers is a tale worth telling.

These two very different ladies are brass tacks with heart. 

I say goodbye to real, such as these, and imaginary characters, when I donate books to the local charitable used bookstore.