Now in paperback, the eye-opening book that was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Foundation award in the Writing on Food category.
In the winter of 1996, Michael Ruhlman donned hounds-tooth-check pants and a chef's jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid, energetic account of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us to the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed. Ruhlman learns fundamental skills and information about how food behaves that make cooking anything possible. Ultimately, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.
From Library Journal
After reading this title, boot camp and law school will seem like child's play. Ruhlman enrolled in the prestigious and expensive Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to get both material for a book and a culinary education. However, the drive and commitment required from day one, the demand for speed and precision, the pressure and perfectionism of the job- all hilariously and touchingly told. immediately erase his writer's detachment. But the tale goes beyond Ruhlman's anecdotes; he describes the curriculum with objective detail, so the reader also learns how a chef makes a flawless stock (and repairs a flawed one at a moment's notice), organizes the cooking station, prepares gourmet meals for crowds, and attains excellence and recognition. The short chart at the end shows the coursework for the CIA's associate degrees. An enjoyable read, recommended for most collections and required for aspiring great chefs.?Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., Ky.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A writer enters the Culinary Institute of America, the Ivy League of cooking schools. Ruhlman (Boys Themselves, 1996) began a love affair with food after an uncle passionately detailed in a letter a potato he'd been served years before at a New Orleans restaurant. Ruhlman entered the CIA with that perfect potato in mind. The CIA, as exacting as the agency that shares its abbreviated name, requires students to arrive with a set of freshly sharpened knives and to be familiar with videos such as ``Shucking Oysters'' and ``Calf Slaughter.'' Ruhlman enters the school with some trepidation, particularly as the first day's soup stock is made with 120 pounds of chicken bones. The actual work of cooking is demanding--students get burned, they must begin work at dawn to prepare for lunch, and they are expected to learn thousands of recipes--but few drop out. Cooking represents a measure of both science and excess — one teacher regales them with a mythical meal of ancient Rome: a cow stuffed with a pig stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a truffle wrapped in foie gras; only the truffle was eaten. Students are expected to work in restaurants during the school year, and Ruhlman effectively captures their excitement and exhaustion as they learn about the real world of cooking. But Ruhlman is not as fine with the details as a cook needs to be. He calls a Reuben a grilled cheese sandwich, and his response to a teacher's impassioned lecture on Alice Waters's ethic at Chez Panisse--which he sums up as ``if we screw up the earth, we'll have rotten food''--is needlessly glib. While his insights into his teachers and students are often interesting, the book says little about the art of cooking and even less about how it all tastes. An attractive mise en place, but one that lacks the simple artistry of that long-remembered potato. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"[A] well-reported and heartfelt cook's tale . . . Ruhlman communicates the passion that draws the acolyte to this precise and frantic profession. "-The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Michael Ruhlman has written extensively for The New York Times. He is the author of Boys Themselves. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
