Reach of a Chef: Beyond the Kitchen
Author: Michael Ruhlman
The acclaimed author of The Soul of a Chef explores the allure of the celebrity chef in modern America
Michael Ruhlman has enjoyed a long love affair with cooking and food. His explorations of kitchens and the professionals who call them home led Anthony Bourdain to call him "the greatest living writer on the subject of chefs-and on the business of preparing food." But even his vast experience couldn't have prepared him for the profound shift that has occurred in the chef's place in society.
Beginning at Per Se, the newest and most expensive of Manhattan's four-star restaurants, Ruhlman takes readers into some of America's most illustrious-and most innovative-kitchens. Throughout his travels, he seeks new trends and phenomena, like Las Vegas's recent elevation to the country's food Gomorrah with the addition of Picasso and Aureole to the Strip's already formidable selection, and returns to legendary haunts like The French Laundry, Le Bernardin, and Cafe Gray to see what's changed. A dispatch from a new world where chefs are celebrities and culinary school classes are burgeoning, The Reach of a Chef looks at the state of professional cooking in the post-Child, Food Network era. In the end, an audience who loves to talk about, read about, and dine in the finest restaurants in America gets an in-the-trenches look at the professionals whose very life's work is to feed us.
Publishers Weekly
There's no rest for the restaurateur in Ruhlman's engaging account of a culinary world that's become even more frenetic in the wake of the Food Network's success and the rise of celebrity chefs desperately clinging to their stars. Ruhlman (The Making of a Chef; The Soul of a Chef) revisits some of the people he's worked with in the past and the school where he trained to see how things have changed since "chef branding, with its product lines, multiple name-recognized restaurants, and entertainment venues, has lured the chef out of the kitchen." Ruhlman points out the irony of such chefs as Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Anthony Bourdain becoming so successful that they no longer have time to practice the thing that brought them success in the first place. He solicits opinions on the phenomenon from an array of people in the business and also profiles some of those still shaping American cooking in the kitchen, from Melissa Kelly and her down-to-earth comfort food to Grant Achatz and his avant-garde, technical creations. Ruhlman has a light, unobtrusive style, and he brings considerable knowledge to the table when commenting on either individual dishes or the industry as a whole. (On sale May 22) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Author of The Making of a Chef, The Soul of a Chef, and much more, Ruhlman takes readers on another fascinating journey behind the scenes of great kitchens. His latest seeks to put a personal twist on the role of chefs in the age of the Food Network and pop celebrity. Ruhlman uses his easy-flowing style to examine how today's chefs have achieved the notoriety and fame of yesterday's sports stars. He goes on to explain how these chefs aren't in the kitchen preparing meals for their restaurant customers-they are hosting television shows, writing cookbooks, and developing product lines. An excellent companion to Ruhlman's other works and recommended for all libraries.-Lisa A. Ennis, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A Plimptonesque writer finds further adventures, and misadventures, over an open range. Building on The Making of a Chef (1997) and The Soul of a Chef (not reviewed), Ruhlman returns to the Culinary Institute of America, a one-time trade school that ascended to college status and acquired a student body to match-not only youngsters seeking to become chefs, but also older professionals engineering midlife career changes away from, say, brokering and toward, say, pastry-decorating. Ruhlman notes that in just the last few years Americans have been discovering that it's possible to eat well, just as certain chefs have discovered that it's possible to make sizeable fortunes from becoming brand names, with presences on the Food Network and in all the right magazines. Remarks one career adviser, circularly, "Not everybody likes a brand, but everybody likes a celebrity. . . . You become a celebrity because everybody likes your brand." The rush to stardom benefits only a few, of course, leaving all those CIA enrollees who graduate only to work 80 hours a week for salaries in the low five figures most irritated-and eager to complain. Therein lies another change in culinary mores: The culture of complaint has entered the kitchen. Where it was once customary for someone to be fired for the quietest grumble-for "to allow people to complain opened up the doors to self-deception, laziness, and a lack of accountability"-whining is now de rigueur, coupled with an insistence that chefs not scream at their underlings, another traditional practice that's becoming rarer in the face of this sensitive new workforce. Ruhlman rushes about the country, fascinated by celebrity chefs here, up-and-comers there,America's changing food habits here, the underlings of the culinary world there, and his travels are wondrous to behold, especially when he hits Manhattan's Masa sushi empire and its customary four-digit lunch bills. True tales of the kitchen a la Anthony Bourdain: a pleasure for foodies, and an education of the palate and pocketbook.
Go to: Tales from the Crisper or The Rice Diet Solution
Chinese Kitchen: Recipes, Techniques, Ingredients, History, And Memories From America's Leading Authority On Chinese Cooking
Author: Eileen Yin Fei Lo
Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, author of award-winning cookbooks, menu developer for top Asian restaurants, and cooking teacher, presents her life's work. Reflecting on her life in food, including her childhood in Canton, China, where she learned to cook at her grandmother's side, Eileen has created an exhaustive cookbook of extensive scope. Everything about Chinese cooking has cultural significance, and much of what Eileen talks about in this book has never appeared in print before in the English language. There are more than 250 recipes in all, including many classic banquet-style recipes, quite a number presented for the first time in the traditional manner, from Peking Duck to Beggar's Chicken. Dozens of the techniques for preparing these elaborate recipes are shown in full-color photographs in the color insert as well. Eileen also includes many of her own creations, such as infused oils and rich, flavorful stocks, essential for cooks who are serious about mastering the ancient art of Chinese cooking. Everything is here: dim sum, congees, stir-fries, rice dishes, noodles, bean curd, meat dishes, and more. For anyone who loves Asian cuisines, this is the ultimate cookbook, and for cookbook lovers and aspiring food professionals, this is required reading.
Publishers Weekly
In her newest Chinese cookbook, Canton native Yin-Fei Lo (The Chinese Banquet Cookbook) meticulously explains the history of the Chinese table from 5000 B.C. to the 20th century, documenting the influence of various imperial dynasties on China's cuisine. Seventeen chapters explore the Chinese larder, teas, wines, cooking equipment and techniques, classic Chinese dishes, rice and noodles, food-as-medicine, meats and vegetables, dim sum and the evolution of Chinese-American restaurant dishes. Yin-Fei Lo emphasizes the principles of the Chinese kitchen: selecting the freshest ingredients, eating foods in season and eating foods in harmony with their yin (cooling) versus yang (warming) properties. Anecdotes and recipe prefaces detail regional and dynastic origins of dishes, including relevant folklore, superstition and symbolism associated with them. An accessible repertoire of recipes ranges from popular regional classics, like Peking Duck and spicy Sichuan Mah Paw Dau Fu to "Western Chinese restaurant clich s" like Egg Drop Soup and Chow Mein. Integrating her own food memories growing up in Sun Tak, China, Yin-Fei Lo conveys her culinary heritage with precision and passion, delivering a richly layered resource on Chinese cookery. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
With impressive thoroughness, Lo's wide-ranging new book goes beyond "recipes, techniques, and ingredients," exploring as well the cultural and culinary history of Chinese food, the importance of symbolism in Chinese cooking, food as medicine, and a variety of other topics; it's a personal history, too, with wisdom and dishes passed down from her maternal grandmother and other family members. Lo is the author of other good cookbooks, including The Chinese Way, but this is by far her most ambitious work. There's a long and detailed glossary ("The Chinese Larder"), a good technique section, and chapters on the teas and wines of China, as well as on non-Chinese wines to serve with her dishes. Recipes are both classic and contemporary, with special sections on regional specialties, dishes from the author's childhood in Sun Tak (known for its discerning cooks), and authentic, i.e., good versions, of the recipes that have become clich s in so many Chinese-American restaurants. An essential purchase. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
What People Are Saying
Jacques Pepin
Superb recipes, fascinating stories-this very personal book seduces you and pulls you right into the kitchen ready to work the wok.
Daniel Boulud
Whenever I want to cook Chinese food and impress my friends, I turn to Eileen Lo's recipes. Her knowledge of Chinese cooking is encyclopedic, her writing is anecdotal and interesting, and she makes potentially complicated recipes accessible to the home cook.
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