"Hot grease, sharp knives, infidelity and white truffles. The Hunger is the best chef's memoir since Kitchen Confidential."

—Jay McInerney, Bright Lights Big City

One day, author Ken Carlton and his good friend, chef John DeLucie were wasting away an afternoon in a Greenwich Village Cafe. John was about to launch a new eaterie in an old space that had garnered the interest of Vanity Fair publisher, Graydon Carter. Ken suggested a book was in order. John suggested Ken was crazy. 80,000 words later, a new chapter had begun.

The Hunger is an insider's romp through the insane life of the restaurant business, told by a journeyman chef who fought his way to the top. Trapped in a dead-end job, John DeLucie called it quits and invested his meager savings in a ten-week cooking class. Upon completion, and armed with no professional experience, he walked into the renowned gourmet shop Dean & DeLuca and asked for a job. The next day he found himself chopping forty pounds of onions in the prep-kitchen basement. DeLucie worked his way up the bumpy NYC food chain, from executive chef at La Bottega to Nick & Toni's in East Hampton, eventually finding his way to The Waverly Inn, which he opened with publishing magnate Graydon Carter and several partners. It was here that John married his mastery of simple but unique flavors with Carter's A+ list of glitterati to create downtown's hottest eatery.

The Hunger has earned numerous honors, including Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and inclusion in the 2009 edition of Best Food Writing. John is now executive chef and proprietor of Bill's Food and Drink, Crown, and The Lion. Ken is author of the newly released Food for Marriage: A Novel.