In Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace , out this month, New Orleans restaurateur and food world fixture Ella Brennan tells her life story, which begins in the depths of the Depression and sees the city’s bars and restaurants grow, crash, burn, flood, and rebuild. Written with her daughter, Ti Martin, the book is autobiography, how-to-open-a-restaurant guide, and New Orleans food history all stewed together. For those who met Emeril in his TV days, it was at Commander’s Palace where the young chef got his start. In the excerpt below, Brennan remembers a 23-year old Emeril’s eager, naïve, yet promising first days on the line.

The story begins after the celebrated chef Paul Prudhomme left Commander’s Palace in 1982, and Ella Brennan was on the hunt for a new chef.

Where would we find the next Paul Prudhomme, someone who could take charge of the kitchen and execute the ideas we had for the restaurant? Eventually we called in a recruiter, and he sent us a couple of people whom we interviewed, but nothing clicked.

Then he sent me the résumé of someone named Emeril Lagasse, a kid from Massachusetts who had gone to Johnson & Wales culinary school in Providence, Rhode Island, which wasn’t that well known at the time. I scanned it and said, “I don’t want to hire this boy—he’s 23 years old!” He was cooking at some place on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and he had cooked at a businessman’s hotel in New York, so I decided to reject him right then because I didn’t want to bring him down to New Orleans and then reject him.

But this recruiter stayed on my back, and a recommendation came from Larry Forgione of An American Place, whom I respect very much. So I finally gave in and said, “OK, I’ll bring him in, but I’m telling you right now I don’t think it’s going to work.”

Finally, Emeril arrived in New Orleans around dusk on a Sunday. The airline had lost his luggage, so he looked a bit discombobulated when he emerged from the cab in front of Commander’s. I invited Emeril into the kitchen and asked him what he thought of all the aromas wafting about.

“Well, it kind of smells like my mom’s kitchen.”

It was a perfect answer—and completely sincere. That’s when I began to suspect we might have someone special.

On Monday, Dick [Brennan’s brother and restaurant partner] and I sat down and visited with Emeril and his wife, Elizabeth. We got somebody to drive them around the city so they could see what it looked like. He came back and we talked some more, and then we asked him to make something in the kitchen. I don’t remember what he made, probably an omelet with something else, but it was very good. Dick got up from the table and called me over: “I think he looks pretty good.” I replied, “I’m shocked, but I agree.”

Emeril went back to Massachusetts. We called him a few days later and made him an offer, which he accepted right away. But in the weeks while we waited for him to move, I got a phone call from an acquaintance who said, “I understand you hired that Lagasse guy.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, you know he can’t cook.”

“What the hell are you talking about he can’t cook?”

“No, he’s full of personality but he can’t cook.”

That shook me up, but we decided we’ve got a business to run and will worry about it later.

Soon after, Emeril came down and he quickly put our fears to rest. He was a fast and eager learner, and it became clear that the kitchen staff would respond to his budding leadership skills. And yet he was very unworldly. He knew what he had learned in school and a little of what he had learned on the job, but he didn’t know anything about Creole cooking or New Orleans. We had to get that into his head. We sent him to every restaurant in town, and I sat with him by the hour. I fed him books and newspapers. He was like a sponge.

And could he cook! Emeril furthered the evolution of Haute Creole cuisine and expanded on what Paul had been doing with Cajun, but he also brought his French-Canadian/Portuguese heritage—and his own insatiable curiosity—to bear on the menu.

Emeril was eager to try new things, and so were we. We were happy to have him tweak some of the signature dishes, but we made him prove himself before we were comfortable introducing something as “an Emeril Lagasse dish.” But when those dishes worked—wow! That’s how we got Veal Chop Tchoupitoulas, stuffed quail, rack of lamb with Creole mustard crust, and on and on. Eventually, he wanted to try adding elements of other cuisines to our Haute Creole base. Many different cultures were represented in New Orleans, he reasoned, so why not reflect some of their flavors on our menu?

I was fine with that and encouraged him, but again, he had to make a convincing argument. I told him that to understand the food, you have to understand the culture. We encouraged him to travel and develop contacts, not just with people at the world’s top restaurants, but also with the farmers and fishermen and food producers in our backyard of Louisiana.

Emeril fit in beautifully. He was one of those guys who understood that running a kitchen or a restaurant was about far more than food. And did he work. He had a good personality and wasn’t one of those yelling and screaming chefs. He got along with people, and he immediately let them know he was going to be a good leader and help them. He did have his moments though. On those rare occasions when he would act out, I’d sometimes slip a piece of paper into the pocket of his chef ’s jacket and tell him to read it at the end of the night. He’d fish it out as he was leaving and would find that I had written something like “Leave your ego at home,” and that seemed to solve the problem. Probably ticked him off at the time, but it solved the problem.

And then there was the time he royally screwed up and ran afoul of the authorities. I was at home one night and got a call from him: “I’m in jail!” Seems the police had heard about his buying fish from a sportsman instead of a legitimate fish dealer, so they arrested him. I said, “Stay there. I’m either going to get you out or I’m going to join you. Just stay there.”

I called one of my customers who was a judge; Emeril was released and nothing was put on his record. It seemed as though every day something crazy or wonderful was happening. You just had to take it and run with it.

Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace is out this week from Gibbs Smith.