Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove by Jeff Henderson on Audio CD

Cooking cocaine is remarkably similar to cooking foie gras. Both are costly ingredients and require careful attention. Left unattended, cocaine will go up in smoke; foie gras dissipates into a puddle of fat. Henderson--born in southern California's Watts and raised by a single mother--says he earned as much as $35,000 a week dealing cocaine in San Diego. By the time he was 19, he was running a million-dollar-a-year crack enterprise, and after being arrested at age 23, he spent a decade behind bars. He wound up in prison in 1988. While incarcerated in six different prisons for eight years and nine months, he worked in prison kitchens. First, he cleaned pots and pans. Then he prepared meals, bartering food for services like haircuts. So begins one man's remarkable journey of transformation. He is now the executive chef at the Cafe Bellagion in Las Vegas. In prison, he discovered his passion for cooking, but once he had served his time, there was nobody who would have hired a black ex-convict for the position of chef. Eventually, though, he got his chance to prove himself - and prove himself he did! A combination of Angela's Ashes and Finding Fish, this is the enthralling story of someone who has managed to overcome the most unimaginable adversity. Cooked is a journey through the American of crime, punishment, and redemption. And at it's heart, it is a very human story of how even the worst mistakes can be overcome.

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