In 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.

This book contains scenes that depict sexual assault.

Anyone who knows me well knows that if there’s one thing I love more than books, it’s food. In another life you could probably catch me authoring an amateur cookbook or attempting to make my mark on the culinary world in a chef’s uniform. I actually worked in food service for a few years, and I’ll never forget all of the unique, hidden qualities that distinguish restaurant kitchens—the energy, the humor, and of course, the frequent disasters.

In the memoir Care and Feeding, author Laurie Woolever delivers all of these elements in spades, describing her journey from NYC college grad to chef to successful food writer. She serves as assistant to the notorious Mario Batali and the revered Anthony Bourdain; she writes cookbooks, travels the world, and gets herself into a fair amount of trouble along the way. I haven’t read a memoir this honest, entertaining, or gritty in a very long time. It hit all the right notes, reminding me of the joys and hazards of one of the world’s most famous—and infamous—industries.

While reading this epic story, I alternated between fits of laughter, shock, and extreme hunger. I expect you’ll experience the same. Above all, I highly recommend stocking your refrigerator before digging into this one.