(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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Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
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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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