Finding Freedom in the Lost Kitchen (Unabridged‪)‬

From Erin French, owner and chef of the critically acclaimed The Lost Kitchen, comes a life-affirming memoir about survival, renewal, and the pleasure of bringing joy to people through food.

Erin French grew up barefoot on a 25-acre farm in Maine, fell in love with food as a teenager working the line at her dad’s diner, and found her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant The Lost Kitchen, tucked into a 19th-century mill - now a world-renowned dining destination.

In Finding Freedom in the Lost Kitchen, Erin tells her story of multiple rock-bottoms, from medical student to pregnant teen, of survival as a jobless single mother, of pills that promised release but delivered addiction, of a man who seemed to offer salvation but ripped away her very sense of self. And of her son who became her guiding light as she slowly rebuilt her personal and culinary life around the solace she found in food - as a source of comfort, a sense of place, as a way of creating community and making something of herself, despite seemingly impossible odds.

Set against the backdrop of rural Maine and its lushly intense, bountiful seasons, Erin French’s roller-coaster memoir reveals struggles that have taken every ounce of her strength to overcome, and the passion and courage behind the fairy-tale success of The Lost Kitchen.