Our Knives Will Save Us
Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Named a nonfiction book “Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer” by the New York Times
From Indigenous chef Nephi Craig, a searing personal and cultural reckoning that demonstrates the power of food to heal intergenerational wounds
At just eighteen years old, Nephi Craig was facing a felony charge that could have put him in prison for years. Having struggled with substance abuse throughout his teens, his life had come to a dizzying halt. So when a judge ordered three years of probation instead—on the condition he attend work or school—Craig took it as an opportunity for a new lease on life. Not long after, he enrolled in a culinary arts program a few hours from Whiteriver, Arizona, where he had grown up on the White Mountain Apache Tribe Reservation. Expecting little more than a means to an end, Craig quickly discovered a talent and passion for cooking. He also experienced a profound dissonance as the only Indigenous person in the kitchen, preparing European recipes that—disguised by their French and Italian names—relied on ingredients native to the Americas.
Craig untangled the buried histories of Indigenous cultivars such as tomato, cacao, and amaranth, each one a portal into possibility as well as a marker of the violent legacy of colonization. As he did so, he found new ways to honor his Apache and Navajo roots and build Indigenous food sovereignty. His journey led him around the world, from top fine-dining restaurants in the United States to high-profile banquets in Brazil, England, Germany, and Japan. All the while, Craig wrestled with addiction, entering one treatment center after another in the hopes that he could get—and remain—sober.
In the heat, frenzy, and collaborative energy of restaurant kitchens, Craig found a lifeline. But when he was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a career-defining executive chef job and an opportunity to serve his community back on the Rez, he realized his true vocation. Interweaving personal reflection with illuminating cultural insight, Our Knives Will Save Us offers a vision of hope: one where food is decolonized and cooking is a pathway to healing for all of us.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Chef Nephi Craig’s remarkable memoir is about discovering that the most meaningful journeys often lead back to where you started. Growing up between the White Mountain Apache and Navajo reservations, Craig learned early that every ingredient carries a story. As an adult, he went from culinary school to elite restaurant kitchens around the world, building a successful career, even as addiction threatened to derail his life. With disarming honesty, Craig recounts his struggles with sobriety and the difficult process of earning back his family’s trust. We were struck by how Craig credits reclaiming his cultural heritage as an essential part of his personal healing. He weaves his reflections on Indigenous foodways and history into his stories of restaurant life, fatherhood, and returning home to serve the people who shaped him. Whether he’s describing the intensity of a professional kitchen, recovery’s hard but necessary conversations, or the joys of a perfectly sharpened, handmade chef’s knife, Craig writes with humility and insight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this affecting debut memoir, Craig extols the culinary heritage of his ancestors and discusses how cooking supported his sobriety. He begins with fond memories of childhood in his White Mountain Apache community in Arizona: gardening with his great-grandfather, learning the history of his people from his father's songs, and watching his grandmother butcher sheep ("Whoa, Grandma's a Ninja"). Despite Craig's early interest in such cooking shows as Great Chefs of the World, skateboarding held more appeal for him than any professional pursuit. After being charged with aggravated DUI as a minor, however, Craig chose Scottsdale Community College's culinary arts program over being sent to prison, spending his free time researching Native American cuisine and the colonization of foods with Indigenous origins. The experience, Craig writes, taught him "about the tangible, tactile ways that cooking can be a way to participate in healing and revitalization." As the account follows Craig on professional trips to Brazil, Germany, and Japan, and to employment at Phoenix's legendary Mary Elaine's restaurant, he explains how studying Native food "helped me feel safe being exactly the kind of chef—and person—I wanted to be." It's a poignant ode to reclaiming one's culture.
