Convictions of a Chef: Cooking for the Counterculture and the One Percent

by Evan Marcus-Rotman

Overview

Convictions of a Chef is a prison memoir, a travel memoir and a chef’s memoir all rolled into one. Filled with fascinating and fun anecdotes about overcoming adversity, culinary challenges and health issues, it’s the story of how one boy grew into a man in the trenches of a cruel and senseless drug war, and embraced food, music and travel with all that he had. Gritty, vulnerable and humorous, Chef Evan delves into the ethics of the drug war with the same sense of adventure he uses to embrace culinary, cultural and psychedelic exploration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771806565
Publisher:	Iguana Books
Publication date:	08/24/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Evan Marcus-Rotman grew up in Southern California and has traveled to nearly 50 countries. After cutting his teeth in restaurants and hotels and catering, he worked as a private chef on yachts, private islands, estates and on the road with rock bands, before spearheading a successful private chef business in the Silicon Valley. These days he can be found cooking on the South Maui shores, and is happiest when he’s eating, dancing or 53 feet underwater breathing compressed air while neutrally buoyant.

Editorial Reviews

A rocky ride from start to finish, Evan Marcus-Rotman's Convictions of a Chef is part Fear and Loathing and part Anthony Bourdain foodie travel guide. Busted for LSD in his early twenties, Marcus-Rotman ... sets off on an epic journey ... searching for a settling presence in his transient life. Aided by magic mushrooms and the music of the Grateful Dead, Marcus-Rotman finally finds what he's been looking for.

-Steve Bloom, co-author Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide Stoner & Life; former High Times editor; current CelebStonr.com publisher

Evan Marcus-Rotman shares a deeply raw and honest journey that opened my mind about many things. It was refreshing that he was so open and transparent about his drug experiences. I found his exploits of being a chef on yachts worldwide vastly entertaining and educational. I also learned more about the drug wars and how many people were caught up in its web, leading to severe punishments and overcrowding in the jail systems. Convictions of a Chef is a fast-paced and enjoyable read that was exciting and fun!

4/5 Stars

-Christine Nguyen for Readers' Favorite

From the Publisher

2023-12-21
Marcus-Rotman chronicles his time in prison for selling drugs and his adventures as a freelance chef in the wake of his release in this memoir.

In 1992, the author, then 23 years old, was arrested for selling LSD, a single event that would forever transform his life. Because his trial coincided with the height of the war on drugs, he was punitively sentenced to 151 months in prison: 12.5 years, or what he ruefully calls “604 Mondays.” As the author vividly portrays, his time behind bars was a hellish period that would haunt him forever after. (“Nearly thirty years after my arrest, not a day goes by that I don’t think of my experiences in prison.”) Those days of darkness had two bright spots—the author discovered the spiritual balms of yoga, mindfulness, and meditation and learned how to cook in the prison kitchen. After finally regaining his liberty, Marcus-Rotman enrolled in the California Culinary Academy and embarked upon a globe-trotting career as a freelance chef, working on yachts, serving as the private chef for the likes of John Mayer and the Grateful Dead, and running a camp at Burning Man. In a familiar, unpretentiously anecdotal style, the author takes readers on a fascinating tour of his career and provides a unique glimpse into a world of extraordinary privilege. He also reflects soberly on the contradictions and cruelties embedded within the war on drugs, which sent him to prison for a transaction that had netted him $150. But this is a mostly personal memoir, one that focuses on the author’s attempt to fashion a meaningful life after the terrible blows of incarceration and a troubled childhood. Marcus-Rotman’s remembrance can sometimes get lost in the thicket of minute detail, especially regarding his work in various kitchens. Still, in the main, this is a fascinating recounting of an unusually dramatic life.

A well-told account of a venturesome personal history.

Kirkus Reviews