But never has it resonated with such stark simplicity and pathos as in this memoir, in which he takes the reader on a journey from the kitchen of his beloved Swedish grandmother to restaurants in Switzerland, Austria and France before heading to New York City where, many years later, he calls Harlem home. Samuelsson's tale has been told in shorthand whenever he wins an accolade or finds himself standing at yet another microphone. 'My mother's family never owned a photograph of her, which tells you everything you need to know about where I'm from and what the world was like for the people who gave me life.' One year later, the next journey takes the siblings from Addis Ababa to Göteborg, Sweden, where they start a new life with another family. 'I have never seen a picture of my mother,' he writes in a chapter that moved this reader to tears. This is where his remarkable tale begins in 'Yes, Chef: A Memoir.' What does matter is that Samuelsson's mother died of tuberculosis in Ethiopia while carrying her children - Marcus, 2, and his 4-year-old sister, who were also sick - under a hot sun to a hospital 75 miles away. Oh, and there was that cooking gig for President Obama's state dinner at age 39.īut those are just numbers that, for most Scandinavians, don't mean much in the real world once the klieg lights are off and the reporter's notebooks are packed away. He was 28 when the James Beard Foundation named him Rising Star Chef of the Year, and 33 when the foundation named him Best Chef: NYC.

Marcus Samuelsson was 24 when the New York Times gave his restaurant three stars and 27 when he arrived in Minneapolis to open the upscale Aquavit in the IDS Center.

New American Table by Marcus Samuelsson