Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef (Brigid Washington)

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SHIPS MAY 15, 2026

Rich with detail, Salt, Sweat & Steamtakes readers inside America’s top culinary school and shows what’sreallyrequired to become a chef: from brutal unpaid internships and gruelling practical exams to late-night vending machine dorm-room dinners while trudging through the rarefied world of fine wine. As editor of the school’s newspaper, “La Papillote” Washington, a Trinidadian student, meets and interviews food-world luminaries such as Jerome Bocuse, Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller and savors the joys of a life devoted to food. She puts us all in her kitchen clogs as shefinallyachieves the perfect mise-en-place both in and out of the dignified kitchen of The Culinary Institute of America.

Unwilling to accept a future that was anything but delicious, readers follow along Washington’s high-octane journey through the rigors and rewards of the countrys most elite cooking school.