Book excerpt: A chef's tale of love, loss, hopes, dreams, fears, fires & oil. Who among us has the courage to keep chasing our dreams, even when those dreams shatter into a million pieces? In Chasing Harvest, culinary wunderkind Kevin O'Connor charts his remarkable journey from Californian hometown teen prodigy to globe-trotting Chef-at-Large for international olive oil producer Cobram Estate. Anchored around the company's olive harvests in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres, it reveals the trials and tribulations that led to this anointment, and the incredible produce, places and passions that continue to stoke the fires of his love for food. Part memoir and journal, part cookbook--all heart--it is a captivating and visually sumptuous meditation on oil and flame as well as a searingly honest, gloriously unrefined account of a chef's search for meaning, one plate of food at a time.