Everything Is Under Control

A Memoir with Recipes

By: Phyllis Grant

Narrated by: Kristin Atherton

‘Grant whips up moments of intense emotion and life with the briefest of words and images. Throughout it all, food is the life source, comfort, energiser and inspiration bursting from the pages a la Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential.’ Stylist

Bake. I bake for others. Belgian waffles, French toast, crêpes, chocolate chip cookies. When I cook, I am calm, I am confident. There is comfort in the logic.

Chef and award-winning writer Phyllis Grant’s life has been defined by food.

First, as a dancer struggling to find her place at Julliard, when banana muffins with inch-thick streusel are the fuel for another day of training. Then, a lowly junior chef in high-pressure NYC four-star kitchens, as she masters the tarte Tatin and ice cream custard.

Falling in love with her future husband and the garlicky tomato sauce he makes in his bare apartment.

The quesadillas she can’t stop eating in LA before she realises she’s pregnant.

These are the recipes that have accompanied Phyllis throughout the smooth and jagged stages of her life as she navigates the highs and lows of young adulthood, being a mother, and a career in the kitchen.

Written with the transparency of a diarist and including tried-and-true recipes from her chef’s table, Everything Is Under Control is a raw and riveting story about food, family, love and loss.

©2020 Phyllis Grant (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"What a beautiful, rich, and poetic memoir this is. Phyllis Grant writes of longing, suffering, celebration, family, and food with such delicate power. Like the best chefs, she knows how to make a masterpiece from a few simple ingredients: truth, taste, poignancy, and love. This is a wonderful book." (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

“Phyllis Grant has the voice of a poet and the sensuality of a cook. This very brave book makes you want to experience the world with equal intensity. As for the recipes...completely irresistible.” (Ruth Reichl, author of Garlic and Sapphires and Comfort Me with Apples)

"Everything Is Under Control is a beautiful paradox - the book moves expansively, generously across the decades, in prose as clean and economical as a chef's knife dicing an onion. The result is addictively readable and ultimately wise, true, and real." (Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses)