Jeff Henderson | Author Bookstore | Celebrity Chef

Jeff Henderson started his culinary career in the unlikeliest of places: prison. While serving nearly ten years, he discovered an untapped passion for cooking, which led to executive chef positions at Bellagio and Caesars Palace.

Jeff’s inspiring story has been featured on Oprah’s Life Class, Good Morning America, Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, The Steve Harvey Show and in major publications such as The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, People Magazine, the Washington Post, and many others. When Jeff is not traveling the world teaching his life-changing lessons, he resides in Las Vegas with his wife Stacy and their five children.

By twenty-one, Jeff Henderson was making up to $35,000 a week cooking and selling crack cocaine. By twenty-four, he had been sentenced to nineteen and a half years in prison on federal drug trafficking charges. It was an all-too-familiar story for a young man raised on the streets of South Central LA. But what happened next wasn't.

Once inside prison, Jeff Henderson worked his way up from dishwasher to chief prison cook, and when he was released in 1996, he had found his passion and his dream—he would become a professional chef.

Barely five years out of federal prison, he was on his way to becoming an executive chef, as well as being a sought-after public speaker on human potential and a dedicated mentor to at-risk youth.

A window into the streets and the fast-paced kitchens of world-renowned restaurants, Cooked is a very human story with a powerful message of commitment, redemption, and change.