Twenty-nine is too young to die. But cancer has no age rules. Cancer doesn’t care about our life plans.

Fatima Ali had a lot of plans that never came to fruition. That said, in her nearly three decades she lived a life worth knowing about.

This Pakistani chef broke down barriers, overcame struggles too many young girls have experienced, and made a name for herself in the culinary world. Some will know her from the TV shows Chopped and Top Chef.

One of her last desires was to write a book. This isn’t the one she originally had in mind. The cancer got too bad so Plan B was concocted.

Savor: A Chief’s Hunger for More (Ballantine Books, 2022) is her life story as told to Tarajia Morrell. Ali died in January 2019.

How the book is written is interesting. It’s broken into chapters that are Ali speaking, and others are her mother, Farezeh, telling her version of events. The two complement one another, bringing a depth to Ali’s life that most memoirs lack because it’s usually just one person’s viewpoint.

This book is complex, but then aren’t most lives. It’s about the restaurant business, the broader culinary world, life in Pakistan, moving to the United States more than once, family, cultures, friends, sexuality—and of course, the medical world.

Savor is an apt title—it blends the culinary world, but also Ali’s desire to savor life. This book hooked me from the get-go. It had me smiling and crying.