‘Perhaps if parents could look at their children and ask, ‘Are they kind? Are they giving? Are they honest?’ And finding that they are, feel there’s reason enough to love them, no matter what else they are, then there would be less suffering.’

A wonderful memoir/biography by the late Fatima Ali co-written with her mother's recollections. Fatima's childhood, personal development, and love of food and cooking all come through in fine storytelling.

Pakistani-born Culinary Institute of America valedictorian Fatima Ali (“Chef Fati”) was an award-winning Manhattan Chef, winner of the television show “Chopped,” fan favorite contestant on “Top Chef,” and James Beard Award-winning essayist for “Bon Appetit” magazine. Chef Fati was a hard-working executive sous chef for “Stella 34” and “Fonda Del Sol” restaurants. She commanded and earned respect and loyalty both in and out of the kitchen, made lifelong friends, and had a close-knit family whose love is palpable, and evidenced throughout the filled-in chapters by Fati’s mom, Farezah Durrani, and acknowledgements by her brother, Mohammed Ali (“Mo”). Fati was a survivor from the day she was born in August, 1989, defying death with inhaled amniotic fluid that caused pneumonia and left her clinging to life in the Newborn ICU. She also survived the bullying by the students in her class when her parents divorced and Farezah took Fati and Mo to Texas. Moving back to Lahore, Pakistan, Farezah met and married Fati and Mo’s stepfather. Fati experienced the trauma of being sexually abused at a young age, an issue which her parents never addressed or sought counseling for to prevent the family from gossip and shame. Busy working trough the gnawing ache in her shoulders which she assumed was from work, the searing, burning pain she began to suffer then made it impossible to ignore. Her bartender friend told her she had a plum-sized lump on her shoulder, which after delays for insurance reasons was finally diagnosed as Ewing’s Sarcoma, a bone and soft-tissue cancer which usually afflicts young boys. After many rounds of chemotherapy and surgery, Fati was told she was in remission, only to find about a month later that she was, in fact, riddled with sarcoma throughout her body. She was given a year to live, and planned to travel to experience the cuisine of world-class chefs and their restaurants, and realize her dream of going on a safari. Unfortunately, Fati’s disease progressed rapidly and aggressively, leaving her only a short time. She then decided it was time to write her memoir, choosing writer Tarajia Morrell as her memoirist. She wanted to tell her story, the story of the young, queer, brown, female chef who wanted to be on television, to open her own restaurant, and introduce the world to the beauty of Pakistani cuisine. On her deathbed, Fati called everyone out for the hurts they inflicted upon her, and made amends to all whom she hurt, giving her the ability to pass away in peace at age twenty-nine in January, 2019.

This is an incredibly powerful book, summoning a host of emotions for the reader: joy, pain, anger, empathic heartbreak, admiration, awe, fascination. Fatima Ali was an incredible woman whose too-short life is celebrated and mourned by those who knew her, and those of us who wish we did. The writing from her interviews is exquisite, her incredibly well-versed mother filled in all the pieces to honor her daughter and make her story complete, and her brother’s acknowledgements are so tender and personal, that I felt Fati speaking through them and through the pages. It’s so much more than a memoir, it is the story of a strong, brave, powerful woman who didn’t have time to actualize her dream to own her own restaurant and feed hungry children. I sobbed for so long throughout and at the end of the acknowledgements that I had to step away from the book for a couple of days to digest it in order to have the ability to put my thoughts into words. We can all glean something important through the story of Fatima Ali’s life, whether it’s realizing that we don’t have unlimited time here on earth, the value of hard work, finding peace within is always possible, or the ability to be strong, this inspirational story has merit and value for all readers.

I’d like to thank NetGalley, Fatima Ali and Tarajia Morrell, The Durrani and Ali Family, and Ballantine Books/Random House for the ability to read and review this ARC.

Internationally beloved chef, Bon Appetit guest writer, and Top Chef "fan favorite" Fatima Ali shares her stories and joie de vivre in the memoir "Savor: A Chef's Hunger for More" (Ballantine Books, 2022). With assists from coauthor Tarajia Morrell and interspersed chapters from Ali's mother, Farezeh Durrani, Ali reflects on her Pakistani upbringing, educational experiences, and chef training at the Culinary Institute of America.

(Not a spoiler. I promise!) Readers unfamiliar with the general outline of Ali's life may not recognize the need for writing support or the double entendre of the title "Savor." Fatima Ali was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma in her late twenties. After successfully completing surgery and treatment her aggressive cancer returned within the calendar year, and she died just over one year after diagnosis at the age of twenty-nine.

Fatima's global, supportive food community so dedicatedly and creatively contributed to flows throughout these communal pages. Deeply reflective of the food-immersive, ambitious, adventurous person Ali was, Savor embraces every bite of the story she has to offer.

Fans of “When Breathe Becomes Air,” “The Bright Hour,” Ruth Reichl, Kwame Onwuachi, Marcus Samuelson, and “Blood Bones and Butter” may enjoy familiar narrative threads in Ali’s book.

Thank you to Fatima Ali's family, Tarajia Morrell, Netgalley, and Penguin Random House for the digital ARC.

I went into reading this completely blind. I didn’t know who Fatima Ali was, but I chose it because it was a memoir of a woman who achieved much in a short time of life. I was familiar with the name Fatima Ali and knew her as a famous chef, but I have never seen a single episode of Top Chef, Chopped or any other shows she was featured on.

Knowing that Fatima Ali died much too young from a rare and aggressive bone cancer made reading her story even more heartbreaking and unbelievable. She was an amazing chef, a loyal daughter and sister, and a loving friend to nearly every person she ever met. The food world lost a great resource and a woman who knew how to savor every bite of life. She was on the brink of huge success and it just seemed so unfair that her life was taken at the age of 29.

"Kitchens were where the love began. That much was already clear to my seven-year-old mind.
The essential question was already nascent in me: What greater expertise could one possess than to feed those they loved?"
Fatima Ali

Fatima Ali grew up in Pakistan and loved watching food shows in their own living room. She became curious about creating amazing dishes and mixing spices and flavors that left those relishing in the joy of her food. She dreamed of attending the most prestigious culinary school in the US and she did, attending the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and training under some of New York City’s top chefs.

Fatima decided to write this book after being diagnosed with cancer, so her time became limited and she needed to find someone else to finish writing her story. She chose Tarajia Morrell as well as Fatima’s mother and brother sharing chapters in the book. She doesn’t just share about her life as a chef, but as a child growing up in Pakistan and her struggles within her family.

"…my family was a new shape, a table missing its fourth leg. My father had vanished from our lives.
Still, although ours was now a three-legged table, we balanced quite sturdily."
Fatima Ali

Fatima’s story is quite amazing and all along I just kept thinking, how could this story be over for her? How could she not get the chance to go back to her home country and make food more accessible for the people there? How could such an amazing person not get the care she so desperately needed? Due to insurance issues and being passed around by doctors her cancer was allowed to grow and spread until a time when there was nothing that could be done. I cringed at her descriptions of pain and her inability to eat the food she wanted to. Even though she wasn’t able to travel the world, enjoying the wide variety of dishes she dreamed of eating, she spent her final days tasting food from local chefs and friends who made special meals just for her.

"It wasn’t just the achievement of cooking that made me so elated; it was the triumph of feeding people. That was my moment of epiphany: I’m going to be a chef."
Fatima Ali

Her story is absolutely inspiring but also heartbreaking. The ending is deeply sad and my heart broke for her family as they had to say goodbye to their special Fatima. But, I am certain that anyone who met her or loved her is far better for having done so.

"The vocabulary to describe the dread you feel when you know your child is deeply unwell has not been invented yet. Maybe because parents who have experienced it do not wish to revisit that moment ever again if they can help it. It is fear incarnate. It is an undoing."
Farezeh, mother of Fatima Ali

First, thank you to NetGalley for the e-book copy of this delightful read.
This is the incredible story of Fatima Ali who grew up in Pakistan, and trained at the Culinary Institute of NY as a chef. She was very well-known for her culinary talents at many of the greatest restaurants and television shows. Her life ended much too soon from cancer, and this is her story, told before she died for all of us to enjoy.

Though I am a huge fan of all types of cooking and restaurant shows, I was only passingly familiar with Fatima Ali, Chopped's youngest professional champion, and competitor/fan favorite on Top Chef. The story of her much-too-short life is one of personal fortitude, intelligence and ambition, combined with a lifelong passion for food. Faced with a year to live, she designed a bucket list of eating around the world, but the realities of her illness made even that meager hope impossible. Instead, Ali spent her last weeks talking with her family, friends, and writer Tarajia Morrell, who crafted this book to tell her story. The food world friends and luminaries who helped make those last few months bearable are testament to her meteoric rise in such a difficult industry, and the impact Ali had in her 29 short years on this planet. Her story is perfect reading for any foodie, but even more than that, it is perfect for anyone considering a life that challenges societal norms. A must read.

This book broke my heart. The book is really about grief. Fatima's grief that she won't be able to accomplish everything she dreamed of because of her life being cut so short. Her mother's grief over trying so hard to save a daughter that death was stealing away. Her brother's grief over losing his best friend. For as much sadness as there is in this book, there is equal or even more hope. I found so much joy in learning about Fatima's culinary awakening and all of the wonderful things she was able to do. I loved seeing how close she was to family and how she made friends with people wherever she went. She had such a fire inside of her and I cried at the end of this book when she dies. Her story is told from her own perspective and that of her mother. The writing was beautiful and I know she had some help getting the words on paper, but her spirit shines through this book. Her mother's final chapter was lovely and her brother's acknowledgments were touching. She had SO MANY people who loved her. This was a gorgeous book from start to finish. My only criticism is that sometimes her mom's sections didn't always feel like they aligned with Fatima's. It was a little disjointed, but I know that she also had to tell her own story so that Fatima's made sense. I will also add a content warning because I appreciated knowing about this ahead of time. There is a pretty graphic cow slaughtering scene in chapter nine. It's pretty quick to get through, but heads up to those who are sensitive. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first time I can recall reading a memoir from more than one person’s point of view. I think I would have preferred if this book focused on Fatima’s story. While her mother’s perspective was also interesting, I found Part I of the book confusing trying to keep track of who was narrating and who all of the different people were. That was made much harder because I’m unfamiliar with Pakistani naming conventions for familial relations. While it was interesting to learn a bit about Pakistani culture, and I’m sure some of these early experiences shaped who Fati became, I was more interested in her life as a chef.

Part II focused on Fatima’s education and career, and I found that much more interesting, although I would have loved even more detail. I loved hearing her talk about food and what it was like to work in different restaurants. Her passion really shined through the text. I would have loved more about her experiences on Chopped and Top Chef, and more about her various friendships and relationships.

Part III focused on Fati’s cancer and how her impending death affected her relationship with her family, which was a moving story. It’s sad that she died so young and was unable to accomplish some of her dreams, but she packed a lot into her short life and appears to have been at peace with death at the end. There are lessons for all of us here.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading memoirs and is curious about Pakistani culture or what it is like to become a chef or how a cancer diagnosis can affect a family.

I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.

I enjoyed this book though don't think I would use it in a college classroom. However, it is an engaging reading experience, and I appreciated its fully realized world and rich details.

A heartbreaking read since we know the outcome right from the start of the book. A young chef is determined to tell her story before she dies of cancer. And tell it she does, with the help of her family and the co-author she chooses to help with the project. Her story is fascinating and takes the reader all over the world both geographically and culturally. It's also a story of generational differences and change. And mostly it is the story of a Pakistani family and all that they endured to follow their dreams and find success.

An amazing person wrote this book. May she rest in peace.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It was fascinating in so many ways.

I loved watching Fatima Ali on her season of Top Chef, and it was devastating to hear about her cancer diagnosis and subsequent passing. I was thrilled when I heard she had worked on a memoir, but the execution fell short.

Tarajia Morrell was tasked with interviewing Ali and her family and penning Ali's memoir. She is an adequate writer, but not a food writer, and the descriptions of dishes Ali cooked and the foods she fell in love with throughout her life lacked substance and passion. Ali also wanted her mother's story in her memoir, and while a little background would have set the stage for who she became and why, there were many chapters written from Farezeh's point of view. This didn't feel necessary, and it was irritating when stories were shared twice (from each point of view - Ali could have shared her mother's responses when they differed/when necessary). Morrell wrote both Farezeh's and Fatima's chapters, but having one co-writer for two individuals meant that were not two distinct voices. There were also some technical issues, such as frequent shifting between tenses.

While there is a little behind the scenes on Top Chef, fans will be disappointed there isn't more, and the friendship that flourished between Padma Lakshmi and Ali was (disappointingly) omitted entirely.

I did enjoy learning more about the dichotomies in Ali's life - she had lives in both Pakistan and the United States, dated both men and women, and lived as both a Muslim and modern American. I also wasn't aware of the traumas that she endured as a child, or of the sometimes complicated nature of her family structure. Still, though, the book fell flat and was disappointing overall.

I've been putting this one off because I knew it would make me cry. And cry I did.

I expected this to be a poignant, moving memoir about Fatima Ali's upbringing in Pakistan and the US, her journey as a chef and connoisseur of food, and her time on Chopped and Top Chef. But I didn't anticipate how moving her mother's chapters would be; her additional perspective adds depth to the reader's perception of Fatima, of her strength, conviction, and zeal for life. I also didn't expect to become angrier than I already am at our healthcare system and the joke that is private insurance; the US and Pakistan both fail Fatima in myriad ways during her life, but I am far more incensed at her experience in what are supposed to be some of the best hospitals and medical centers in our country.

If you don't mind crying rivulets of tears (which will manifest the most during the last quarter of this book), pick this one up.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a beautiful book. I enjoyed it a lot.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Savor was a beautifully written, raw book about Fatima Ali. I loved the descriptions about her childhood, living in both Pakistan and Texas, food, her desire to feed the hungry, her education, her relationships and her time on Top Chef. As a cancer survivor, I was brokenhearted following her journey. As a mother, I was amazed by her mother's honesty.

Despite sad and horrific subjects, this book shines. Fatima, Tarajia Morrell, and Farezeh tell a story that is tragic and beautiful!

Tarajia Morrell has done a phenomenal job of pulling this book together. The book is a perfect balance of telling Fatima’s story and showcasing Fatima’s writing about her passion for cooking. I loved Fatima on Top Chef but had no idea of the depth of her talent until I read her writing in this book. Her love for food is so evident and this book is a beautiful testament to that. What a loss that we no longer have Fatima in this world, but I’m grateful we have this book as a piece of her legacy from her time here.

A heartbreaking and beautiful memoir of food, family, culture, and illness from a woman who lived an extraordinary amount of life in just 29 years, but should have lived and experienced so much more.

Fatima Ali was a Pakistani chef, trained at the CIA and a fan favorite on Top Chef, who passed away from cancer just before she turned 30. This book recounts the many complex threads of her life, from her childhood spent going to bustling food markets in Lahore and Karachi, the abuse she suffered at the hands of a close family friend, her utmost dedication to academics and sports and headstrong decision to carve her own path in the culinary world, her coming up in prestigious New York kitchens, her discovery of the beauty of simple, rich, timeless cultural home cooking in Spain, and so much more. The book also spends many of its initial chapters on her mom's life - at first, I didn't understand why, but it soon becomes clear that their relationship was a complicated but life-defining one for Fatima, and her mom's strong will, independence, and gentle resistance to cultural norms paved the way for Fatima to chart her own path in life as well.

I'm astounded at the "amount of life" that Fatima lived in her 29 short years. She was truly just at the cusp of determining the kind of chef she wanted to be, experiencing so many different types of restaurants and cooking by traveling and working in New York, Spain, Los Angeles, Napa, and Pakistan. She was at her peak when the cancer struck, and her downfall was rapid. She had even bigger dreams - of opening her own restaurant, of truly establishing her cuisine in her own right - but it was unfairly yanked away from her much too soon. When she was told that she only had one year to live, she wanted to spend that year traveling, eating at the best restaurants the world has to offer, immersing herself in the thing that brought her the most joy in life: food. Sadly, her interminable and uncontrollable pain, her body's lack of response to the chemo, and her cancer's metastasis didn't let her achieve this dream.

This book was a beautiful picture of a short life well lived, in addition to important reflections on life, death, identity, and independence. This will surely go down in the canon of other great culinary memoirs, alongside Kitchen Confidential, Notes from a Young Black Chef, My Life in France, and many others.

A beautiful and poignant memoir. I was a fan of Fatima when she was on Top Chef, and I knew how this would end, but I wanted to learn more about what drove her.
The book is divided into three parts: growing up, becoming a chef, and living with cancer. The first section on growing up included many chapters from her mother, all the way back to her mother's childhood, to build the history of the family. The stories were mostly from their time in Pakistan but also some years in Texas. There were traumas and societal issues, but I was impressed by their strength and perseverance.
A important event solidifies Fatima's desire to be a chef, and even with many people trying to dissuade her, I loved that her family did acknowledge this was her path and supported her going to the Culinary Institute of America.
The second part was more what I expected of the book - Fatima's experiences as a chef. I loved reading about her time expanding her skills and following her passion.
Her cancer diagnosis came abruptly in life and in the book, and the final section shifted to her treatments, trying to make the most of her time left, and making peace with her family and friends.
With cooking being such a a major focus of her life, I just wish this had more food, perhaps even some of Fatima's recipes. Her descriptions were vivid, but many of the things I was completely unfamiliar with.

Thank you to my friends at NetGalley and Random House Publishing for inviting me to read and review Savor, a chef’s hunger for more by Fatima Ali. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book gutted me. Fatima Ali was only 28, finally getting the acclaim she was seeking, when a searing pain sent her to the ER with a diagnosis that would alter her life.

This memoir beautifully captures her spirit, talent, creativity, capabilities, yearning and desires to change the way people see and taste food, especially Pakistani dishes. In alternating chapters we get to travel and savor the smells, sights and sounds of Fatima’s childhood visiting the bustling markets of Lahore and exploring her formative years. Her mother and grandmother were both strong role models who helped shape Fatima and gave her the tools to travel to the US to accomplish her dreams of being an internationally recognized chef. Her story mixed with her mother’s recollections are poignant and heartfelt.

I highly recommend reading this book, just have plenty of tissues by your side. Credit to Tarajia Morrell who so lovingly and expertly wove all the threads of this story into a book to savor.

This book is a true story by Fatima Ali. It is a moving story of her struggle to become a chef. Her story is hard to read as you know that she is telling her life story at age if 29 as she is dying of cancer. She is an inspiration to all with her determination to do her best when being a woman set her apart from others in her career choice. I don’t give 5 stars to just any book but this book is so deserving of the rating.