A must-read for anyone who eats in restaurants.- Danny Glover, actor, producer and co-founder Louverture Films
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What People Are Saying
With Behind the Kitchen Door, Saru Jayaraman has introduced a fresh and essential perspective on our culture’s food obsessions and dining habits. By highlighting the lives and circumstances of workers who are often unseen and unheard, she has helped us see that labor is a key ingredient of authentic sustainability, and greatly enriched our understanding of those people who have - whether we have recognized it or not - been part of some of the most important celebrations of our lives. A must-read for anyone who eats in restaurants.
- Danny Glover, actor, producer and co-founder Louverture Films
The poorest paid workers in America are the ones most likely to be cooking your food and washing your dishes. Saru Jayaraman tells their stories with searing analysis and vital compassion in this landmark book. She shows how the most exploited aren’t just victims, but survivors organizing for dignity and safety in the food system. And in so doing, she helps us understand that sustainable food isn’t just about how organic or local the food is, but how high workers can hold their heads.
- Raj Patel, best-selling author of Stuffed and Starved
Half of all Americans eat out at least once a week—the restaurant has become our second kitchen. In her groundbreaking new book, Saru Jayaraman, exposes a missing plotline in the story of our food: the story of who’s behind the kitchen door, how they’re treated, and why it matters. Hers is a captivating, rousing story. If you care about where your food comes from, this book is for you. Read this book, get inspired, and join the fight for fair food behind the kitchen door.
- Anna Lappe, best-selling author of Diet for a Hot Planet
Our food comes at great expense to the workers who provide it. ‘The biggest workforce in America can’t put food on the table except when they go to work,’ says Saru Jayaraman, Co- Founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. Many people in the nascent food movement and in the broader ‘foodie’ set know our farmers’ (and their kids’) names and what their animals eat. We practically worship chefs, and the damage done to land, air, and water by high-tech ag is—correctly—a constant concern. Yet though you can’t be a card-carrying foodie if you don’t know the provenance of your heirloom tomato, you apparently can be one if you don’t know how the members of your wait staff are treated.
- Mark Bittman in the New York Times Opinionator blog
Saru Jayaraman’s work is a huge step forward in the fight for human rights in the U.S. We are fortunate to have this courageous voice helping to bring equity to millions of workers, such that their labor benefits their families and their futures.
- Van Jones, founder, Rebuild The Dream
TweetInside The Book
How do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions—discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens—affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables? Saru Jayaraman, who launched the national restaurant workers’ organization, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, sets out to answer these questions by following the lives of restaurant workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Detroit, and New Orleans. Blending personal narrative and investigative journalism, Jayaraman shows us that the quality of the food that arrives at our restaurant tables depends not only on the sourcing of the ingredients. Our meals benefit from the attention and skill of the people who chop, grill, sauté, and serve. Behind the Kitchen Door is a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of dining out.
When you work in restaurants you think the industry is everything. It’s being outside, talking to people, serving people. You feel like you’re part of something good. People mostly go out to eat for good stuff-proposals, weddings, birthdays-not to fight. You’re part of someone’s proposal-you bring the ring in an ice cream cake, you watch her reaction. You feel like you’re part of their experience, their special moment, even if the people don’t care who you are-you’re just the server.
- Restaurant worker, 17 years
Sustainability is about contributing to a society that everybody benefits from, not just going organic because you don’t want to die from cancer or have a difficult pregnancy. What is a sustainable restaurant? It’s one in which as the restaurant grows, the people grow with it.
- Restaurant owner
Free-range poultry, cage-free hens, grass-fed cattle, hogs allowed to wander outdoors and wallow in the mud, have all been championed as crucial elements of a healthier, more humane food system. But the food movement thus far has shown a much greater interest in assuring animal welfare than in protecting human rights. You would think that, at the very least, the people who feed us deserve as much attention and compassion as what we’re being fed. The abuses endured by American farmworkers, meatpacking workers, and restaurant employees violate even the most watered-down, corporate flavored definition of “sustainability.” Our food system now treats millions of workers like disposable commodities, paying them poverty wages, denying them medical benefits and sick pay, and tolerating racism and sexism on the job. The hardships of farmworkers and meatpacking workers have been well documented. This book eloquently reveals what is happening behind the kitchen door not only at chain restaurants, but at some of the most expensive restaurants in the United States.
Today it’s not uncommon for celebrity chefs to earn millions of dollars a year, while the dishwashers and bussers in their kitchens get a wage of $2.13 an hour, plus a meager share of the tips. The typical restaurant worker makes about $15,000 a year, roughly one-third the annual income of the average American worker.
For more than a decade, Saru Jayaraman has been defending the rights of those who work hard but nevertheless find themselves at the bottomof the food chain. The organization that she helped found, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, doesn’t just represent workers. It seeks to empower them, gain them respect, and give them a voice in the workplace. Behind the Kitchen Door describes how Jayaraman got involved in this struggle, places it in a larger social context, and tells stories about individual workers that convey, more powerfully than any statistics, why we must not tolerate these injustices. Too many of our meals are now brought to the table by the misery of others. The problem can easily be solved, once people become aware of it—and that’s why this book needs to be read.
- Excerpt from Foreward by Eric Schlosser, best-selling author of Fast Food Nation
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Please join the conversation about the book tour events with #KitchenDoor.
UPCOMING!
03/24/14
Notre Dame, IN - 7:30PM EST - Hesburgh Library Auditorium, University of Notre Dame
More info here.
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2/13
DC – 6:30pm – Busboys and Poets, 2021 14th Street Northwest
More info here.
2/14
Love the Hands That Feed You Day! Please order your book on this day!
2/14
DC – 9 to 11am – Public Welfare Foundation, True Reformer Building 1200 U St NW
2/19
Philly Free Library – 6pm to 7pm – Montgomery Auditorium 1901 Vine Street
More info here.
2/22
Ann Arbor, MI - 10am - 5th Annual Washtenaw County HomeGrown Local Food Summit
More info here.
2/22
Detroit, MI - 5 to 6:30pm - COLORS, 311 E. Grand River Ave
More info here.
2/24
Columbia, MD – 4 to 5pm - UUSC Get Together, Owen Brown Interfaith Center
More info here.
2/27
Seattle – 7pm - Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue
More info here.
3/5
Chicago – 6pm – Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Branch, 400 South State St.
More info here.
3/8
UU church of Baltimore
3/9
Denver with Jobs with Justice & Bill Fletcher - 3pm to 5pm - Mercury Cafe 2199 California Street, 80525
More info here.
3/10
Boulder - 5:30pm - Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street, 80302
3/12
Los Angeles - 6 to 8 - 464 S. Lucas Ave, 90017 - Lower Level Auditorium
3/21
UC Santa Cruz/Slow Food - 6 to 9 - Live Oak Grange - 1900 17th Ave Santa Cruz, CA 95062
More info here.
3/22
CA - 7 to 10 - Disposable Film Festival/Just Food Dinner
More info here.
3/27
Oakland - 6:30 - SoleSpace (17th & Telegraph)
More info here.
3/28
Arkansas - Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center
More info here.
3/30 - 4/1
San Francisco - Food & Farm Film Fest
4/4
San Francisco - 7pm - Modern Times Book Store Collective
More info here.
4/5 - 4/7
Washington, DC - Ecumenical Advocacy Days
More info here.
4/7
New Mexico - 1:30pm to 3pm - First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque - 3701 Carlisle Blvd NE | Albuquerque 87110
4/10
San Francisco - 5:30pm to 7:30pm - Wichcraft
More info here.
4/11
Kansas City, MO - Public Library
More info here.
4/12 - Watch Saru Jayaraman stand up for restaurant workers on Bill Maher!
4/15
Brooklyn (with Slow Food NYC) - 7 to 9 - Book Court 163 Court Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201
More details here.
4/17
New York City - 7pm - COLORS - 417 Lafayette St.
4/18
New York City - New School - 6 - to 7:30 pm. Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street
More details here.
4/20
UCLA - Conference & Book Signing - Downtown Labor Center, MacArthur Park, 675 S Park View St Los Angeles 90057*
4/26
Palo Alto - 7:30pm with Transition Palo Alto, Slow Food, at World Centric*
More info here.
4/28
Baltimore - 1pm - John Hopkins University - Barnes & Noble, 3330 St. Paul Street, Baltimore MD, 21218
4/29
Waltham, MA - 7pm - Back Pages Books - 289 Moody Street, Waltham MA, 02453
More info here.
4/30
Cambridge UU - 6:30pm - First Parish Cambridge Unitarian Universality, 3 Church Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
More info here.
5/1
Providence - 7pm - Bell Street Chapel - 5 Bell Street, Providence RI
5/3
Brooklyn - Food Book Fair - 2pm to 4pm - Wythe Hotel
More info here.
5/6
Oakland - HubOakland - 7pm to 9:30 pm - 1423 Broadway, Oakland CA, 94612
5/16
Atlanta - 7pm - Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater
6/17
Milwuakee - Boswell Book Company - 7pm - 2559 N Downer Ave. Milwaukee WI 53211
6/19 - 6/23
Louisville, Kentucky - UU General Assembly - Kentucky International Convention Center, 221 Fourth Street, Louisville, KY 40202
More info here.
6/21
Cincinnati - Food Justice Weekend
More info here.
6/28 - 7/2
Aspen Ideas Festival
More info here.
9/7
Seattle - Keynote Speaker at Community Alliance for Global Justice’s ‘Strengthening Local Economies Everywhere’ Dinner
More info here.
9/23
Pittsburgh, PA - 6:30 - Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh
More info here.
9/24
Baltimore, MD - 6:30 - Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Writers LIVE! series, Central Library, 400 Cathedral St., Baltimore MD 21201
More info here.
10/5
Portland, OR - 3:00 - Oregon Convention Center (Wordstock Festival 2013)
More info here.
10/18
New Haven, CT - 4:00 - Yale Food Systems Symposium
More info here.
10/27
Carmel, CA - 6:30 - UUSC*
10/28
UC Santa Cruz - 6:30 - Oakes Learning Center*
11/23
Pasadena, CA - TEDxPCC*
2014
1/15
Washington D.C. - 6:30 - Florida Avenue Grill
More info here.
3/4
NYC - TEDxManhattan
More info here.
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*event details to be updated soon.
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