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The Soul of a Chef; The Making of a Chef, by Michael Ruhlman
A blonde, blue-eyed surfer dude sushi chef in Santa Barbara recommended THE SOUL OF A CHEF to me, saying that it he thought it presented a better and more realistic picture of what it was to be a chef than Anthony Bourdain's books, which he thought were overly macho and too much of the author and not enough cooking. (I love Bourdain's books, by the way, but macho is certainly an apt description.)
THE SOUL OF A CHEF is Ruhlman's second book, but the one I read first. It's in three parts, essentially three extended essays.
The first section is the best and worth the price of the book. Ruhlman follows a handful of candidates testing for the grueling ten-day Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America. This part has all the suspense of a Hitchcockian thriller, the sort where you watch, half laughing and half in horror, as the characters make terrible mistakes which will doom them. A bit where a female candidate has one last chance to make up for previous mistakes by cooking a perfect seafood terrine is the most edge-of-your-seat sequence I've read in a long time. This essay should be required reading in classes on the art of non-fiction.
The second essay is only mildly interesting, about a somewhat innovative chef in Cleveland.
The third essay, while not quite up to the level of the first, has some of the most luscious food descriptions you'll read anywhere. It's about Thomas Keller, the legendary genius chef at the French Laundry. Although a lot of the ingredients of his creations do not appeal to me (oysters and tapioca; cauliflower panna cotta) the way everyone swoons over them make me really want to try it some day. I don't suppose anyone reading this has ever been there?
THE MAKING OF A CHEF, about Ruhlman's training at the Culinary Institute of America, was a huge disappointment. It lacked the thrills and characterization of the CIA story in SOUL, and by the one-third mark I was skimming. Ruhlman's writing skills clearly improved greatly with time and practice.
THE SOUL OF A CHEF is Ruhlman's second book, but the one I read first. It's in three parts, essentially three extended essays.
The first section is the best and worth the price of the book. Ruhlman follows a handful of candidates testing for the grueling ten-day Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America. This part has all the suspense of a Hitchcockian thriller, the sort where you watch, half laughing and half in horror, as the characters make terrible mistakes which will doom them. A bit where a female candidate has one last chance to make up for previous mistakes by cooking a perfect seafood terrine is the most edge-of-your-seat sequence I've read in a long time. This essay should be required reading in classes on the art of non-fiction.
The second essay is only mildly interesting, about a somewhat innovative chef in Cleveland.
The third essay, while not quite up to the level of the first, has some of the most luscious food descriptions you'll read anywhere. It's about Thomas Keller, the legendary genius chef at the French Laundry. Although a lot of the ingredients of his creations do not appeal to me (oysters and tapioca; cauliflower panna cotta) the way everyone swoons over them make me really want to try it some day. I don't suppose anyone reading this has ever been there?
THE MAKING OF A CHEF, about Ruhlman's training at the Culinary Institute of America, was a huge disappointment. It lacked the thrills and characterization of the CIA story in SOUL, and by the one-third mark I was skimming. Ruhlman's writing skills clearly improved greatly with time and practice.