Author: Lisa Stalvey

Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency

Published: 2014-11-17

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1631353632

As I was being rushed to the hospital staring at three of my severed fingers floating in ice water, I couldn’t believe what just happened. At age twenty-four, I was pretty, thin, and working as a line cook among Hollywood’s elite. I was about to get married, but it all came to a screeching halt in 1980, when I severed three of my fingers in an industrial Cuisinart in the kitchen where I worked. I describe my journey through the most difficult time of my life: suffering from anorexia and living with a disability. How could my life continue after losing three of my precious fingers, and on my right hand, no less? Miraculously, I pulled myself out of anorexia by finally seeing my body as it really was. I began to slowly heal, though it took almost thirty-one more years. I read self-help books, recited affirmations, and began to seriously search for the missing piece of my heart. This is my account of being a woman in a male-dominated industry, complete with a complicated relationship with food and a man, resulting in a long self-destructive streak. I have been cooking for thirty-eight years professionally, including an apprenticeship in 1980 with Wolfgang Puck, ultimately becoming his head chef at Spago, Sunset. “I can’t wait to read anything that she writes.” – Marc Vetri, Philadelphia restaurateur, named one of the Top Ten Chefs in America