Sidecar: Laurie Woolever

The Celebrity Chef Era's Most Famous Insider Talks About Her New Memoir "Care and Feeding."

Laurie Woolever.

I first met Laurie Woolever, the author of the new best-selling memoir Care and Feeding, in 2012 at Donovan’s Pub in Woodside, Queens. She was there to attend a gathering of food and drink writers I had put together. I knew she was the personal assistant of food-world eminence Anthony Bourdain. For all that glamour-by-proxy positioning, she seemed very pleasant and approachable.

Four years later, I shot an arrow in the air by asking Woolever if Bourdain might possibly furnish a blurb for the back cover of my new book, A Proper Drink. I was not surprised when he passed—I’m sure I was the 112th person to make such a request that month. But Woolever couldn't have been nicer about the whole thing. After that, I assumed the role of Instagram follower, where I enjoyed her unusually mordant wit.

None of these encounters prepared me for the Laurie Woolever I found in the pages of Care and Feeding. In her warts-and-all telling of her career in fine dining and food media, she is a needy, boozing, sometimes-self-loathing “hot mess” (The New York Times) whose personal life amounts to a series of increasingly bad decisions, and whose professional life isn’t much more organized. As Woolever joked during a seminar this past Monday at the Chefs Conference in Philadelphia, her editor, after she read the first draft of the book, said “There is so much vomiting in this book! Can we cut back on the vomiting by a third or maybe half?”

But between those explosive private episodes, Woolever paints a vivid, dry-eyed portrait of the early, bawdy, free-wheeling years of the celebrity chef era of the first two decades of the current century. During that time she had a ringside seat as the assistant to not one, but two of its most towering figures: Mario Batali and Bourdain, with whom she co-authored the books Appetites and World Travel.

The stories of both men ended suddenly and dramatically. Batali was felled by the Me-Too movement in 2017, when he the subject of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Bourdain was yanked from his perch by his own hand in 2018, committing suicide at the height of his fame. Woolever’s time of reckoning—when marriage, career, and the general consequences of her lifestyle all hit the fan—came not soon after. She got sober, got divorced and lost her mother all in quick succession.

Woolever is currently on a book tour in support of Care and Feeding. The Mix caught up with her recently to talk about vodka and tonics, the changing world of food media, her famous bosses and why The Phantom Thread is so divisive. The interview is below.

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THE MIX: Late in the book (on page 301), you say that you probably knew you would write about all this someday, even as it was happening. How long have you known you’d write this book?

Laurie Woolever: I have long thought about writing down the stories of the jobs and relationships and adventures I’ve had, though there were plenty of times when I thought I’d never actually do it, because I couldn’t concentrate long enough, or I thought no one would care, or I couldn’t imagine sharing the specifics of my intimate life or my experiences with my high-profile bosses. A few years ago, after I finished World Travel and Bourdain, I knew that I wanted to keep writing books, and by then I had enough sobriety, some perspective on my failings as a married person, the death of Tony Bourdain and the end of Mario Batali’s career to take a shot at writing it all down.

THE MIX: You’re from a small town in upstate New York and came to the city with no connections or leverage in terms of background or schooling. I can relate. I am from a small town in Wisconsin and arrived in New York in similar fashion. In the book, you write, “With magazines, there was a complex equation of education, skill and experience, inside connections, generational wealth, the right BMI, facility with a blow-dryer, good clothes without rips and oil stains, and an aptitude for knowing which asses to kiss and how much shit to eat, and when.” To what extent do you think the media world in New York is still ruled by who you know, how you look and where you come from?

LW: Before I answer the question, I want to correct part of it: I believe that having graduated from Cornell University did give me some “leverage in terms of background or schooling.” I’m quite sure that my early employers, the Smiths, who had a deep snobbery about the Ivy League, wouldn’t have wanted me as their private cook if not for my education. As for whether the media world still runs on connections, background and having a certain look? It’s true to a degree, but maybe less so than in the 1990s and 2000s, as salaries and perks and even publications and websites have shrunk or disappeared altogether. It’s still a field with more demand than supply of paid opportunities, so I’m certain that social connections and other forms of leverage are still very much in play.

THE MIX: Do you think being in the service industry caused you to be attracted to transgressive behavior and going over the top? Would your life have rolled out differently if you had become, say, a lawyer or accountant.

LW: I was attracted to the service industry for a handful of reasons, one of which was that I saw the labor within it as more fun, looser and more creative than the handful of experiences I’d had working in offices. There are plenty of moderate, well-behaved professionals in the hospitality business, and there are also plenty of people whose appetites were like mine, and I learned a lot from both types, though I found the boozers much more fun. I wouldn’t have been less of a self-destructive problem drinker had I gone into law or finance or another stereotypically staid profession, where there are also plenty of folks who know how to creatively blow off steam.

THE MIX: Which boss do you think influenced your behavior and views more over the past 25 years, Batali or Bourdain?

LW: I’ve been far more influenced by Tony Bourdain, for a number of reasons. I worked closely with him for nine years, and knew him for several years before that. They were both prolific writers, but Tony’s work was closer to my own sensibility. In the last years of his life, I thought that the intensity of his doomed romantic obsession with his girlfriend was something to be admired and even emulated in my own life. Along with everyone else who enjoys his television work and books, I’ve learned a lot from him about traveling with curiosity and empathy.

Woolever (center) at a seminar at the recent Chef Conference in Philadelphia, with Hannah Selinger (l.) and Lisa Donovan.

THE MIX: You were in the fine dining sector for a quarter century, but it didn’t seem to have an impact on your drinking choices. You pretty much stuck to vodka tonics and rosé and the like. Did the culinary aspects of the bar ever interest you as much as those of the kitchen?

LW: Again, a bit of a correction: I was in the fine dining sector for as long as I worked for Mario, which was roughly three and a half years, after which I was a private cook and worked in catering before transitioning to a full-time media life, where I became an observer and documenter of fine (and casual) dining. It’s true that when I was drinking, I gravitated toward vodka and rosé, both of which went down easy and fast, but I had a professional interest in all kinds of spirits and wine, especially when I was employed by Wine Spectator. I wrote about sake for the New York Times. I developed an awamori-based cocktail recipe for Saveur, and another one that featured bitter gourd. I wrote about Cynar, the artichoke-based amaro for my first-ever issue of Art Culinaire. And now that I’ve been sober for a while, I really appreciate and try to support those bar programs that offer innovative and delicious zero-proof things. The other night I was blown away by two very different NA drinks at Atoboy in Manhattan: a Unified Ferments sparkling tea-based kombucha that was flinty and elegant, and a still red “wine,” a collaboration between Muri Drinks and Four Horseman, that’s made from various fruit and vegetable juices, kefir and green peppercorns. It has a truly excellent and really satisfying combination of body, flavor and tannins.

THE MIX: You mention the Paul Thomas Anderson film The Phantom Thread as having been a sticking point between you and one boyfriend. Over the years, I, too, have found this film to be polarizing. People either adore it or hate it. It is a favorite film of my wife’s, but I admit, while I respect it as a piece of art, the charms of its story escape me. What is it about The Phantom Thread that divides people so?

LW: I first saw the film when I was in the throes of a doomed obsession with a fastidious and cranky older man who only occasionally deigned to enjoy my company, so I felt a deep sense of my painful but sometimes rapturous life being reflected onscreen, only in far more elegant circumstances. My initial response to the film was deeply emotional, irrational and personal. I can see how anyone rational, or with rock-solid self-confidence, might find the love story preposterous. And I can see how some people might be bothered by the harm that one main character does to another, in order to force the intimacy she craves. The movie isn't a comedy, but I find parts of it so incredibly funny, too, such as the way Reynolds is so bothered by Alma dragging a butter knife across and then crunching her toast, and the extremely polite and yet wholly vicious little fight between Reynolds and his sister Cyril over breakfast. The story is slight, it's true, and I'm not sure that the film would hold up without the intense beauty of the cinematography and the performances, but it just floors me every time I watch.

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Odds and Ends…

Tequilas, the trailblazing Mexican restaurant in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, which is run by the influential Tequila evangelist and Beard-award-winning author David Suro—and which recently reopened, two years after suffering a devastating fire—will open a second restaurant concept in the next few weeks. Called La Jefe, it will be located in the back of the Tequilas space and have a separate entrance on Latimer Street. The cuisine will be based on that of Suro’s native Guadalajara. Danny Childs, the Beard-Award-winning author of Slow Drinks, will collaborate on the cocktail menu… More than 100 new restaurants are set to open in Philadelphia in 2025… Meadowlark, the vaunted cocktail bar in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, has decided upon the theme of its next cocktail menu. It will be the universe, with drink inspired by planets, moons, asteroids and everything else up in the sky. And, yes, there will be a Saturn cocktail on it… Good Guy’s, the aperitivo-style bar that the Attaboy team recently opened next door to its iconic cocktail bar, will soon sell its own branded version of tinned fish. It will be a smoked trout and will be a limited-time-only product… Philadelphia now has its own culinary book store. It’s called Binding Agents and it opened in the Italian Market neighborhood in October. Cookbook and cocktail book authors, take note: they do author events!… Dad’s Hat, the Philadelphia-area maker of find Pennsylvania-style rye whiskeys, now makes excellent bottled cocktails. There is a bottled Old-Fashioned and Manhattan, but they are currently only available in Pennsylvania. Dad’s Hat has also started making an apple brandy… 6 Restaurant, a new eatery from chef Nico Bouter, is now open in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn… American Coney Island, the Detroit hot dog legend, has opened a location in Las Vegas at the D Las Vegas, located under the outside escalator next to D Bar… Chef Michael Mina’s Manhattan restaurant Bourbon Steak New York has launched two tableside cocktail experiences, in partnership with Macallan Scotch. The more interesting to this newsletter is the “Pick Your Rob Roy” cocktail, where you can choose from Macallan Double Cask 15 Years ($60); Macallan Rare Cask ($90) and Macallan Sherry Oak 18 years ($120)… The New York Historical (Society) has found a new in-house restaurant, after previous tenant Clara, run by the Rucola folks in Brooklyn, didn’t work out. The restaurant will still be called Clara, but will be run by Food Network star Alex Guarnaschelli… Tomorrow, April 10, is the centennial of The Great Gatsby. How far are you into your current reread of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic?