‘Restaurants Are Hard and Beautiful and Important and They Can Break You Down and Boost You Up.’

James Beard Award-nominated lifestyle writer Hannah Selinger details her decade working in restaurants in CELLAR RAT: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly, a part scorched-earth account/part loving ode to the restaurant industry. Along the way, she reveals what goes on behind New York City’s fine dining scene, while dealing with harassment, and gaslighting before her journey of healing and self-recovery.

In the prologue, you had a great phrase: “Restaurants helped me reinvent my past.” What do you mean by that?I'm referring here to my chaotic and, at times, abusive childhood, where I often felt overlooked and unloved. Restaurants were a place where I could overcome that deficit. Instant family! Instant friends! Instant community! So when I say I was reinventing my past, what I mean is that I was writing a new narrative for myself, one where I was on the inside looking out, as opposed to the opposite. 

What is it about the restaurant industry that kept you working in it for…