NDiaye, Marie

Tells the story of a great female chef; a chef who was celebrated as one of the best in a world where men dominate, and the way that her pursuit of love, pleasure, and gustatory delights helped shape her life and career. Told from the perspective of her former assistant (and unrequited lover), now an aged chef himself, here is the story of a woman's quest to the front of the kitchen, and the extraordinary journey she takes along the way.

The lives of three women--Norah, a French-born lawyer with an estrange father; Fanta, a teacher who follows her boyfriend to France; and Khady, a penniless widow sent to France with only a name to look up--intertwine and come together to help each other in their quests for self-preservation.

Follows the stories of three women who discover the power of saying no, including a lawyer who must save a victim of her tyrannical father, a Dakar teacher whose happiness is thwarted by a depressed boyfriend, and a penniless widow desperate to escape homelessness.