Publishers Weekly
03/11/2019
In this biting debut memoir, Regan, chef and owner of Chicago’s Elizabeth and Kitsune restaurants, writes of growing up in a small Indiana town, where she struggled with gender identity and sexuality before finding herself as doyen of Chicago’s “new gatherer” culinary movement. Regan depicts her early life in an “outrageously enchanting” farmhouse with her parents and three sisters, including the day she “became a chef” after picking chanterelles with her father (they “smell like the earth but also sweet like apricots and spicy like peppercorns”), taking them home to sauté in butter and wine—experiences that later influenced the food served at her restaurants. After her parents divorced, Regan coped with the frustrations of growing up gay in a “Red state” by turning to alcohol; after graduating from high school she moved to Chicago, first delivering Chinese food, then hosting at high-end restaurants. After her sister died unexpectedly (she had a seizure while in jail for punching her husband), Regan began selling farm-to-table and foraged foods at farmers markets (“tortillas made with wheat I’d sprouted”). She became known citywide for her pierogis, and after becoming sober she opened her Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant, Elizabeth. Foodies will appreciate this blistering yet tender story of a woman transforming Midwestern cooking, in a fresh voice all her own. (July)
From the Publisher
Perhaps the definitive Midwest drunken-lesbian food memoir.”
—Kim Severson, The New York Times
"Remarkable... Burn the Place is a 'chef memoir' only in the sense that the author turned out to be a chef. More rightly, it belongs on a shelf with the great memoirs of addiction, of gender ambivalence and queer coming-of-age, of the grand disillusionment that comes from revisiting, as a clear-eyed adult, the deceptive perfection of childhood."
—The New Yorker
“This raw and emotional memoir testifies to the power of persistence and grit. With vivid description, we explore Regan’s almost inborn connection to food and the earth, her rise as a queer woman in a male dominated industry, and her journey to sobriety.”
—Real Simple
"Regan is a compelling narrator, serving up her life story with the same ease, deftness, and creativity she seems to apply to her cooking."
—The Atlantic
“With this deeply personal work, Iliana reminds us that there is great strength in vulnerability. Her story is one of resilience, determination, and vision.”
—René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of Noma
"Regan's story is a memorable tale, with prose that deeply conveys the resilience and intensity she needed to find her undeniable success. Burn the Place will serve as inspiration for those in and outside of the kitchen."
—Eric Ripert, chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin
"Iliana's perspective is honest and unprocessed and speaks true to her own experiences. Burn the PLace takes us through the incredible events that shaped her identity as a person and a chef. Iliana is one of the best chefs I've ever known."
—David Chang, chef and founder of Momofuku
“Regan writes the way she cooks: with a voice that’s bold and soulful, tender and tough, impossible to ignore, and utterly her own. Burn the Place is much more than an account of hustling in the kitchen. It’s a story about identity and addiction. It’s about getting creative and becoming a boss.”
—Jeff Gordinier, author of Hungry
“What bold new voice is this? Unexpected, flavorful, and distinctive, Burn the Place is a debut to savor.”
—Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
This memoir often sounds as if narrator Eileen Stevens has pulled up a chair at a farm’s kitchen table to tell stories. Her familiar tone and conversational cadence work. Though chef Iliana Regan’s story is fraught with bouts of alcoholism and self-destructive behavior, including sexual adventurism and tragic loss, her remarkable focus, drive, and farm-girl pluck win out. Her Indiana farm roots never leave her. There’s a remarkable chapter on hunting frogs and an ongoing celebration of farm cooking. This audiobook divulges an extraordinary life story as the narrative zigzags through the highs and lows of Regan’s rise to chef/owner of the Michelin one-star restaurant Elizabeth’s in Chicago. This coming-of-age story is also a self-portrait of overcoming addiction and embracing LGBTQ sexuality. BURN THE PLACE shows a survivor who prevails. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2019-05-07
A chef tells how she overcame family dysfunction and substance abuse to become the proprietor of a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Regan grew up a tomboy on an Indiana farm "dropped smack in 10 acres of cornfields, wild edibles, and Native American burial grounds with pulsating ghosts." From a mother who saw "food [as] love," she learned how to cook and can from scratch. From her father, whose mother owned a small cafe, she learned how to roast meat on homemade grills and forage for wild mushrooms. For most of her childhood, she lived with her colorful, raucous family, watching her parents grow apart, threaten divorce, and then come back together again. Relief at having her family back came at the cost of leaving the farm she loved but that her mother no longer wanted to maintain. Adolescence proved to be as painful as it was forgettable: "High school sucked a small flaccid dick." At first, Regan, who questioned both her gender identity and sexuality, tried to fit in. Then she rebelled, drinking, crashing cars, and going to jail twice before graduating high school and eventually going to live in Chicago. Up-and-down relationships and a string of restaurant jobs helped her survive the difficult years after her parents' divorce and her alcoholic sister's untimely death in a Florida jail. Wanting to do more with her life than "[wake] up in cells or beds or other places I didn't want to be," the author launched a successful restaurant business that she initially ran from her own home, featuring dishes she not only created, but for which she also foraged ingredients. The basic narrative elements that comprise Regan's story—a misfit hero fumbling and bootstrapping her way to culinary fame—are compelling. However, the temporally fractured nature of the story makes it difficult to follow, and the unevenness of the writing—sometimes lively, sometimes messy and unconsidered—makes for less than satisfying reading.
An interesting life rendered in a flawed manner.
