The Fight For The Right To Hear, 'Yes, Chef'

(June 24, 2012, NPR)--As you walk in the doors of Red Rooster, you immediately see a key piece of design. A bar dominates the front room, nearly touching the street, as if to say to the people of Harlem, "Come on in." The story behind the restaurant's owner, celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, is more about life than food.

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Samuelsson was born in rural Ethiopia. He and his sister were adopted and raised in Sweden. Eventually, Samuelsson became world-famous. But he's never forgotten where his journey began. His new memoir, which shares these challenges and triumphs, is called, Yes, Chef.

Inside his kitchen at the Red Rooster, cooks are too busy to smile and the yard bird is a signature dish. Samuelsson says it was very important to get it right. "Coming to Harlem, I knew my fried chicken had to be better than yours," he says. "And you had to find authorship in the food."

Ethiopian spices, combined with different cooking temperatures and coconut milk gave Samuelsson his unique mark. With his employees, Samuelsson speaks firmly. He is quick to say he's not asking anyone anything.

"In a kitchen ... you have to be very direct. Very direct. There needs to be one leader, and there needs to be a couple of sous chefs, and the cooks need to say, 'Yes, Chef,' " he says. "Why is being humble something wrong in our society? I was humble many times for a long, long time. And through that process of being yelled at in German, French and English and Swedish, I learned a lot."  Read more from NPR »

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