Why I Cook

De: Tom Colicchio

Narrado por: Will Damron, Tom Colicchio

Tom Colicchio cooked his first recipe at 13 years old—a stuffed eggplant from an issue of Cuisine magazine that he picked up out of boredom—and it changed his life.

Listeners are in for a treat as the talented Will Damron (who has read over 700 audiobooks) delivers an immersive account of Emmy Award-winning celebrity chef and beloved restaurateur Tom Colicchio’s life, challenges, and success.

With warmth and tenderness, Damron navigates the extraordinary personal journey that brought Tom from his working-class Italian background in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the award-winning kitchens of New York City’s best restaurants, to the set of Top Chef and the stage of the Emmy Awards.

Through 10 memoir chapters, 60 recipes, and expertise that spans more than 40 years behind the stove, Why I Cook is the most personal look into Tom’s life yet as it chronicles the dishes and memories that shaped him as a person and chef.

The audio edition of Why I Cook includes an accompanying PDF and more than 30 minutes of bonus content, where Tom shares additional reflections on his early life, its connection to his professional career, his culinary experiments, and much more.

Tom's journey

The long chapters. Listening to the book one chapter at a time, I could not put the book on hold in the middle of a long chapter.

Good story short on details, padded with recipes

The chapters where he tells his story are great but too short and scant on details. He alluded he neglected his son Dante, but does not say how or what happened as a result. There is little about top chef, which is part of 20 years of his life. I enjoyed his evocation of NYC in the 80s and his family stories and his description of his rise. He leaves a ton unsaid, and unexplored. By his own account, Danny Meyer tried to screw him over twice, but they departed amiably? Colin Powell said , If you are going to write a memoir, you have to put it all out there. Colicchio has put out a highly curated, abbreviated version of his life story. What’s there is very good, but leaves this reader feeling very short changed.

Honesty and openness from Chef Collichio is so real

Thank you, Chef for sharing your life and passion. Your openness about the struggles you faced while becoming an amazing chef are touching and real. Makes you more appealing and personable.

Not Just Recipes!

Tom gives us an inside look at his early days. Not only as a chef, but his early years growing up in New Jersey! Highly recommend this read!

Fell a little flat for me

It was probably a mistake to read this book immediately after finishing Ina Garten‘s recent memoir. I read both as audiobooks and Ana narrated her book beautifully, but Tom chose not to read his memoir and unfortunately the publisher selected a narrator who was totally absent of any warmth or humor in his delivery. I enjoyed learning more about Tom’s personal story, but overall was disappointed with the book.

Better as a paper or ebook rather than audio

Perfectly fine. His story is interesting. The recipes might be great for other media. Not so much for audio.

I was really disappointed in this book. I’m a huge Tom C fan but found it uninspiring at best

I wish he would have gone into more detail about his various projects and how did he get on Bravo. What is that like? Just awful

Not very interesting…

Four chapters of recipes that I did not find interesting, and a ho hum list of job changes and accolades. Just meh…

Chapter 6 and 7 are duplicates. It’s starts “4” but it’s not.

Chapter 6 and seven are duplicates. They start out four but it’s not supposed to be chapter 4.