Brush with The Edge of Time and Profession

"This book describes my family's life, which is full of historical experiences going through the Hitler era, the Stalin regime, and communism, to the current decade in the United States. The accounts of our experiences reflect the time from the 1940s, when my mother's family had no electricity or water in their home in a village in Poland, to my successful career as an award-winning chef and comfortable married life in the United States."

"Brush with the Edge of Time and Profession is a deeply personal book that details the joys and sorrows of a mother and son. Their stories are equally inspiring and celebrate the human heart and demonstrate how one can survive even in the most difficult circumstances."

"These lifelong memories are about wonder and about kindness, they are about being open to the gifts of both the light and the shadows of our experience.
--The US Review of Books

Chef Edward Nowakowski CEMC - CFBE Born in Linz-Austria raised in Poland. Chef Edward Nowakowski comes to the U.S. with three years of Culinary School, a Master Chef Diploma and numerous awards for Garde-Manger work under his belt. Chef Edward seized the opportunity for opening several new Hotels; include Hyatt N.Y. Four Seasons in Dallas TX, Hilton Hotel in Norfolk Virginia, and many more, as well as Wilson Conference at The University of Memphis. Though trained in classical components of French and South-Eastern European cuisine's he adapts his cooking to the local area where he works and prepares a superb quality of Ethnic cuisines exquisitely presented with elegance and prepare a menu to suit any taste as well as offer exemplary service. In honor of my mother, I wanted to share my immigration journey," says Nowakowski "My mother-and me, for that matter-were survivors of the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II." His own life has been one of the great changes, which his mother, Stanislawa "Stasia" Nowakowski, didn't let him forget. "My mother inspired me to write the memoir," he says. "Brush with Edge of Time and Profession". The first three chapters are her life, in her own words, incredible accouters during the Nazi occupation of Europe, her life with the baby (Edward) in labor camp in Linz Austria, difficulties to get back home after the war through ruins of towns, going straight to the jaws of another monster Stalin. Remaining chapters Chef Edward describe his youth under the communism system and educational stages of his culinary institute much different than in current edge. His life journey has taken him from infancy in makeshift quarters above a labor camp barn to an international culinary career of distinction. He is food beverage executive, master chef, consultant and he's an instructor of cuisine and restaurant management. He tells of his lifetime love, Julia, wife who came from Poland to America to be with me, he says' and our experiences as we traveled around the U.S. with my work assignments. Chef Edward and his wife, Julia-a pastry chef, have been married 39 years, and have two children residing in Europe. Last, is the tale of our fight with the dread disease "CANCER" which consumed us both, and which finally took my beloved Julia away from me.