Meet Me in the Cool Room: A Chef's Journey - Andrew 'Red' Ovenden
OUT NOW - NEW RELEASE
ISBN 9780645945690 284pp 153x234mm
Meet Me in the Cool Room is the street credible autobiography of Andrew ‘Red’ Ovenden, who started off as a young chef and slowly worked his way through the hospitality industry in Australia and overseas. In a time, way before the culinary revolution fueled by food bloggers, social media and endless celebrity cooking shows on television; when equal opportunities and rights were rare, and racism and sexism were nothing but a dirty tea towel left on a cross contaminated prep bench, chefs were seen as the blue-collar workers and hospitality was a forgotten industry where employee opportunities favoured the socially inept and career challenged individuals.
In a time where change was considered dangerous, ingredients were abundant, wages were anything but digestible and customer palettes were predictable and pretentious, one man stood between a serving of rocket with a pub schnitzel. Meet Me in the Cool Room is a memoir based on part rock ‘n’ roll, part coming-of-age and part travel diary. It is a memoir of life in the fast lane, where youth is a mere ingredient in the attainment of credentials and culinary achievements in the cutthroat world of chefs. Like a temporary emulsion of defrosted memories, this book reflects on the life of a man dedicated to his craft and work, and how he found agnostic redemption, sobriety, and personal freedom after travelling a long road of self-destruction.
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Andrew ‘Red’ Ovenden grew up in a small country town and is the youngest of three children. He was affected at an early age by his parent’s divorce and was often bored and also somewhat of a loner. He was always in trouble at school, and as an adolescent was often hassled by the local police. As a saving grace gesture, he was shipped off to boarding school in Adelaide. Upon his departure his English teacher handed him a copy J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye; his life has never been the same since. Andrew found solace in reading not only Salinger, but Jack Kerouac, S.E. Hinton and Hunter S. Thompson. As a youth he devoutly listened to and worshipped the likes of Springsteen, Dylan, Mellencamp and Woodie Guthrie, thus cementing his love and adoration for American contemporary literature and the performing arts.
Once he discovered Pollock, Warhol, Hopper, Basquiat and Dali, his converse of youth was finally forged and conceived, washing it down with the poetry of Jim Morison and the smooth antidote of Miles Davis.
Upon graduating from high school, his love for food and the artistic feel towards it led him to enrolling in and then completing culinary school in a forgotten period of hospitality.
Andrew moved to London where he discovered and honed his craft as a young adoring chef, stumbling his way through alcoholism and drug addiction often under a haze of strobe lighting and liquid smoke. It was at a time when grunge was king and dance music ruled the air waves; festivals, underground low budget cinema and contemporary and alternative lifestyles were not only relevant in society but they were thriving in communities across the world, that Andrew discovered not only a beautiful unpredictable trade, but an industry that allowed him to be himself.
Cutting his teeth in various establishments around Australia, Andrew travelled extensively throughout America and lived in London at various times over the years. Australia never left his heart and eventually he built a home and settled in the heart of the Adelaide hills. He now lives in a log cabin, drives a Jeep, still listens to grunge and watches AFL football; all the while still working as a chef.
His new found love for Buddhism has led to sobriety, piece of mind and somewhat of a moral compass that leads him back to the path of redemption and solidarity. The sweet endorphin bliss fueled by a life lived has kept Andrew ‘Red’ Ovenden’s faith and eternal love for the culinary arts.
“Meet Me In The Cool Room” is a searing, magnificent, outrageously good gonzo memoir. Andrew “Red” Ovenden writes as well as he cooks. It is sex, drugs and bok choy. I loved this book and I salute its author. Bravo! Wow!”
- - Peter Goers
Anthony Bourdain shocked the world when he unleashed Kitchen Confidential upon it, Such an underworld of working chefs and commercial kitchens had not crossed our blithe dine-out minds. And, weekend hotel buffets have never been the same. Now Adelaide’s Andrew “Red” Ovenden has erupted from the culinary netherworld with a book which makes Bourdain look polite. “Red’s" Meet Me in the Cool Room shatters boundaries of polite society with a personal expose which underscores tenfold the reputation of chefs for being hard-core and highly-strung. This is a memoir drenched in extreme vulgarity with such drug-fuelled licentious and temperamental behaviours that it is hard to retrieve the eyebrows from the back of the head. One may never take a menu at face value again. Hierarchies of diners are depicted, from dupes to gourmet. There are cafes from snarky production lines to barista overloads, kitchens manned by druggies and psychos… And, oh, the expletive-slammed general kitchen nastiness. “Red" has worked all over the world in kitchens from grand to ghastly. He does not hold back. Yes. It’s raw. It was a self-destructive journey. However, “Red" Ovenden is not just a brilliant chef. He is a significantly talented writer. As a lad, he grew up on the likes of JD Salinger and his book, with its wonderful name, and despite the crassness of dialogue, is just an engrossing literary narrative - and quite a thrilling page-turner. All those drugs and alcohol don’t seem to have impaired his depth of intellectual acuity. His reflections are wise and wonderful, when they are not dastardly. His observations are astute. He uses the language as an eloquent thoughts recipe. No plot spoilers, but Adelaide’s “Red" never loses the essential love for the amazing alchemy of culinary creation and, now he comes full circle with his amazing, torrential life in print, he emerges as a contemporary foodie figure worth celebrating.
- - Samela Harris
