For anyone living down the shame of a fallen souffle or recovering from a disastrous holiday dinner; Sensible, funny, durable kitchen lessons from chefs who have gone through a whole lot to get where they are, creating the most amazing dishes at the top of the food chain through refinement after persistent refinement, and sometimes by grotesque accident.

'Such is the nature of the passionate cook, even at the fledgling stage. And, as Samuel Beckett so succinctly put it, forbidding us to dwell on our disasters or give up, "Try again, fail again, fail again better."'--Tamasin Day-Lewis.