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One of the most engaging food memors you'll find

Customer Rating:

Finally I have finished reading Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America. Favorite quotes are highlighted, the dust jacket has been replaced, and it is with sadness--because it is over--that I have returned it to the gastronomy section of my bookshelf. How I hadn't read the book until now escapes me; especially so in that I've owned it for a very long time. My guess is that it had something to do with its having come out shortly after Becoming a Chef. At the time I was a cook, and I can recall reading in several places, as well as hearing word-of-mouth, that it was in some way a lesser version of that book but that's simply not the case. It has held up far greater than Becoming a Chef which covers only the culinary growth of several celebrity chefs. Their stories are not normal, however, and the view Ruhlman gives us instead is that of the more typical worker. It is not, however, just a book encapsulating what it's like to be a student at The CIA eager to move forward into the industry well-equipped to succeed. Having become intensely attached to both The CIA and his instructors, Ruhlman's perspective is not unbiased and this lends the book a sort of memoir quality. As a result, there is value to be had in his documentation of his experience not only of becoming a cook, but of finding out that he is one. An extraordinary writer capable of perfectly describing in vivid detail all the goings on in a kitchen, you're left feeling almost as though you've stolen his journal and my unfettered enjoyment left me wondering why exactly the book is sometimes frowned upon. Probably it's that for the world of culinary students enrolled at local community colleges (and that's most of them) there was, and continues to be, a certain jealousy cast towards The Culinary Institute of America. Many cooks, as Ruhlman points out, look down upon graduates of the school believing they are unprepared to enter the work force. Speak to any chef whose hired them, however, and they will often tell you that CIA graduates are more prepared to hit the ground running (as cooks not chefs) then practically any other workers. What they take from the school is not just a base set of traditional skills, but also a work ethic to build upon throughout their career. In a word, The Making of a Chef is astonishing but, having originally hit shelves in 1997, my opinion is far beyond fashionably late as people have been saying that for over a decade. Really though, with the benefit of hindsight, I don't think I would have fully appreciated the book for all that it is without the distance between today and the time in my life when I was a cook. After all, I went to Forest Park. The book personally impacted me when Ruhlman mentioned the change in attitude when one becomes a cook. He believes--as do I--that you simply don't look at certain aspects of your life the same again. Most obvious is that for each of us that has cooked and stopped, there is still a piece of us drawn to the lifestyle that is difficult to shake. Having met Ruhlman on his Elements of Cooking tour he also spoke more specifically of this change citing, as an example, the organizational skills he took with him out of the kitchen. He found that post-CIA he approached what once felt like the insurmountable task of writing a book in a far different manner. In my own experience I took from my kitchen years an entirely different concept of stress than most office workers. In the positions I've held since cooking I often see people stressed as though things couldn't be any worse. Every time, however, I just think to myself that these people don't know stress. Stress is standing in a 120degree kitchen falling behind as a chef stands on a shelf hovering over the pass screaming down at you to move faster. All this after you'd been burnt by your coworker who sloppily put his fish into an over-oiled pan that splashed molten liquid across your arm creating a blister that swells larger each time you thrust your arm in and out of the 600degree convection oven that later in the night catches on fire. If you sit in a chair and work in front of a computer (as I do today), the maximum amount of stress obtainable is still pretty low. Certainly some will disagree with this statement, but to put it another way: people simply don't yell at you in the same way at an office. The possibility of your angry Irish boss literally throwing something in your direction is minimal. With thousands of copies having been sold since its release, my word shouldn't be the one that gets you to read The Making of a Chef. Others have praised it more eloquently before me. But, if you still haven't, go ahead and add my opinion to the pile because you should pick up a copy. It's one of the most engaging food memoirs you'll find.

So That's How You Do It!

Customer Rating:

Even if you're not considering enrollment at the CIA, this is one great read. Ruhlman takes a detailed look into every facet of the CIA and presents it in an entertaining and captivating manner. What really struck me was the honesty in the book. Ruhlman's transformation of character and spirit is evident and a main theme. After reading one day, I felt motivated to go out a buy a 10 lb. sack of potatoes so I could work on my cutting techniques (naturally, I didn't, but it was a close call). Still, now I at least know how to improve my skills in the kitchen. I've come out of reading this book with a laundry list of items to practice. Of course, if you are genuinely considering the CIA as the next step in your career, this book will certainly help you decide.

Wonderful Inside Look

Customer Rating:

I love various shows and books that show the "inside" of things, particularly relating to cooking. Yes, I like Kitchen Nightmares and the rest of the shows related to cooking, even things like No Reservations. But this book brings it to a new level from going inside the CIA and what happens there. Though, like many, my dream to be able to go to a school like this will probably not happen, being able to read this book made me feel like I was there. If you have any interest at all in the subject of cooking, you will not be dissapointed. Highly recommended reading.

Insightful and Entertaining

Customer Rating:

I really enjoyed this book. What I expected was an inside-the-walls report about an interesting institution, its students, and its instructors. To be sure, the book is that. But it is more. The core of the book, I think, is the epiphany, or series of epiphanies, that Ruhlman has on and after a day he considers missing class because of a snowstorm. The book's major themes orbit that formative experience and are held by its gravity. Some of these are deep, thought-provoking, and ultimately unanswerable matters; for example, the cook's version of the nature v. nurture debate - are cooks born or created? Some are a bit more CIA-specific; Rulman's thesis that the overarching dogma of the place is perfection is both beautifully explained and illustrated by vignettes (for example, the running obsession with the proper roux for brown sauce). To me, though, the book is at its finest in using the snowstorm core to explain the essence of a cook. Ruhlman finds the concept difficult to reduce to words. One important aspect, though, seems to be captured albeit imperfectly by the hackneyed concept of "the zone." (Ruhlman doesn't use this term.) There are occasions - not many - when I have been in "the zone." I am not a cook, but I have had times - at school, at work, and with some hobbies - when I have faced monumental tasks, with seemingly not enough time, and where my attention has been entirely engaged and neither failure or tardiness is an option; where the completion of each task along the way offers no time for reflection, satisfaction, or rest but instead is merely the predicate for moving, as efficiently as possible, to the next. What I remember most about these occasions is the decompression period when the project is complete. The transition, almost literally, from focused vision to a fuller field of vision. I can recall, for example, one such occasion where, when my work was finally done in the late evening, I noticed a complete and completely uneaten lunch that I had somehow secured in the midst of the task, but could not remember how. It sat no more than 2 feet from me throughout, untouched and, indeed, unseen, until the pinpoint focus broadened and peripheral vision returned. For a brief time my senses are alive. I see, sense, and interact with the world differently. And then, too quickly, I return to my normal state - well outside "the zone" with my attention scattered in different directions. Surgeons or professional athletes, who similarly live in and out of the zone, probably can already relate. For the rest of us, Ruhlman's book is a dramatic success and accessible to non-cooks like me precisely because we all, no doubt, have had similar experiences to varying degrees. What Ruhlman helps us see is that CIA students, and cooks, live almost perpetually in these states - in "the zone," then the exhausted but exhilarating hyper-aware state that follows, immediately back into the zone, and on and on. While many cooks-turned-writers such as Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White have attempted to describe similar states, they paint with too broad and imperfect a brush - typically resorting to incomplete concepts like "adrenaline junkie." Ruhlman - a writer turned cook - however, nails it in a much more satisfying exploration of the question and in so doing makes his book amazingly accessibly to anyone and, indeed, transcendent.

Well written, dragged a bit at times, but learned so very much

Customer Rating:

Well if you are not a foodie I would suggest reducing the review by 3 stars and finding something else to read, but if you are a foodie this book was excellent. A nice fairly complete telling of what it is like to go through the Culinary Institute which is something I always wanted to do but either didn't have the time nor wish to commit so much of it. I am always playing in the kitchen and I got a ton of direction from this book as to the why of what I often do without knowing it (of course if that is all you are looking for there is McGee). Even little things that I picked up were great, for example, my wife hates wet sandwich bread, here in America we eat a lot of sandwiches so this small thing is a big problem. In the book they make mention of how the CIA club sandwich always puts cheese on the bread to create a barrier, so simple but something that never dawned on me, sounds silly but now I know how to make my sandwiches and her happy at the same time, thats worth a lot more than the price of the book right there.