What Michael Ruhlman captures in this book (and in his other books on culinary training and practice) is the personality of the
595537
Having trained in the culinary arts myself, I know the technical and theoretical details of just about every classical cooking and baking technique there is.  What Michael Ruhlman captures in this book (and in his other books on culinary training and practice) is the personality of the craft - the beloved details of the professionals in the industry and of the students who bind through their love of the art and science of food.  Learning to think about cooking is a lot like boot camp.  But the capacity to write about boot camp with the lure of an espionage thriller takes an immense talent.  Michael Ruhlman is a magnificent journalist - his books give impeccable attention to detail without losing sight of the human element in every detail.
3089803
Review by Ingeborg W. Smith, Western Springs, Illinois

 I have a whole bookcase full of cookbooks, some of them in German, but no cookbook quite like this one. It is not just a compendium of recipes, but it is historical, emphasizing the food traditions of the Germans who were invited to Russia by Catherine the Great. Many of these people re-emigrated from Russia to the Great Plains of the New World but kept their old folkways.

Some people use cookbooks as bedtime reading and this one lends itself to this use, perhaps because it has fewer recipes than the standard book of this kind, and contains more background information. It is probably one of very few such volumes that contains a bibliography. There are also a glossary and a list of "Sources and Resources."

"German Food & Folkways" is the result of four years of research and data-gathering and one year of writing by Rose Marie H. Gueldner, an educator, historian, writer and businesswoman, and a descendant of Germans from Russia. It is not your standard cookbook, but a history of the Germans from Russia, where they came from, how they got to Russia, and how the German food traditions were changed by conditions in Russia, especially the climate and the short growing season, which produced an emphasis on root vegetables and cabbage.

We learn that Frederick II was instrumental in adding the potato to the German diet during the food shortages in the 1700's, that peanut butter was introduced as a health food at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition, plus a host of other interesting facts.

As a descendant of both North and South Germans, I expected to find a few more familiar dishes. My mother made her egg noodles from scratch and I was familiar with brains, heart and tongue, all found in this book, but strudel as a main dish stuffed with cabbage and cooked on top of meat and potatoes did not remind me of Apfelstrudel I grew up with. Happily, desserts, bread and Kuchen will each be the subject of other books by Ms. Gueldner.

The beginning of each chapter repeats the cover design, a collection of items used in the kitchen, a butter churn, a pail, a meat grinder, rolling pin, foaming beer stein, eggs, beets, etc. Drawings of individual foods grace various pages. Several maps are included. There is even a chapter on mealtime prayers. Ms. Gueldner promotes good organic ingredients and healthful eating.

Each chapter starts with a general discussion and then proceeds to the recipes, which may include further discussion. Ms. Gueldner's recipe for Farmyard Roast Goose reminded me of the Christmas goose I roasted four years ago. This goose, the smallest one I could order at my local market, weighed 10 pounds, and cost $40.00, and served three, with no leftovers at all. Geese had more meat on them when I was young. Ms. Gueldner's recipe uses an 8 to 12 lb. goose and expects it to produce 4 to 18 servings. She suggests serving this fowl with potato dumplings, applesauce or red cabbage, for which no recipes are forthcoming.

The section on beverages includes a page on water and the former necessary chore of hauling it to the fields as well as pumping it for the house. In Jimmy Carter's memoir of his boyhood, "An Hour Before Daylight", he comments that the easiest way to bring water to the fields was in the form of watermelon. That's the spirit, Jimmy!

I enjoyed reading this book and got a few tips on how to improve my own cooking. I also learned a little German dialect--that anyone would call a potato (Kartoffel) Grumbeere or Grumbara, some sort of berry is certainly new to me.

While I find that the quotation on the back cover attributed to Brother Placid Gross, OSB, Folklorist: "This book is the crowning achievement of all cookbooks", to be an exaggeration, I believe that more to the point is Dr. Timothy F. Kloberdanz's conclusion: "Although there are German-Russian cookbooks currently on the market, this one is quite unusual because of the way it interweaves background history, ethnic heritage, and so many mouth-watering Old Country recipes." I concur.
3005550
I once heard someone describe "mastery" like this:  "When you're a beginner at tennis, the ball comes at you like a meteor. You flail. You dive.  Sometimes you get lucky and return the serve.  For a master, though, there's time. Time for pacing and finesse. Time enough for the game."  Although the subject is cooking, not tennis, it is this process -- from flailing to finesse --  which Michael Ruhlman details with enthralling immediacy and grace in The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America.  How can one do an impossible number of things with an impeccable level of skill and an unreasonable commitment to perfection in a ridiculously small amount of time?  How indeed. Like a lot of wannabe cooks, I've been fascinated for years by that legendary "other CIA".  What would it be like to train there?  Well, now I know.  I'd be dead by the end of -- nope, by 3:00 p.m. on -- Day One.  I got exhausted just reading about it.  All those bones. All that precision chopping, stirring simmering, plating and serving. Fast. Faster. Too late!  So much to learn.  So much to do. Ruhlman brings it all to life and peoples the day-by-day experience with vital, engaging portraits of his fellow classmates and instructors. At the center of the action is the author himself, serious writer and serious cook, offered up for unflinching scrutiny: fears, foibles, failures, triumphs.  I was sorry to come to the end of this book -- my time at the CIA was also up -- but when it was done, I went back to the beginning, reread the insurmountable tasks of Day One and compared them to the utterly insane challenges of the final week.  And I said to myself, "Aw, a couple of pounds of mirepoix, a little stock -- that wasn't so bad."  It was a taste of mastery.
2527193
I try to stay away from combination memoir-recipe books since they seem to all be wistful in the exact same way, but this one's different. Thompson's the daughter of actress Gloria Stuart and screenwriter Arthur Sheekman so the dinner parties she eavesdropped on as a tot were a little more exotic than the norm, and she is the goddaughter of M.F.K. Fisher, which can't have hurt when it comes to learning about what makes for a good cookery book. (You may in fact have read about Thompson without realizing it; in Fisher's The Gastronomical Me she is the little girl "[who] hates her mother's sensuous dishes" and only wants to eat her grannie's "store ice cream" and mashed potatoes). There are some amusing stories in this book (such as one about a failed teenage attempt to impress indifferent gum-chomping boys with an elaborate meal) and a refreshingly un-thematic collection of beloved and often-tested recipes from all over the world. One of the chapters, for example, consists of recipes learned from and inspired by the cook at a villa Thompson stayed at in Italy, who was talented enough to remain employed after her "balding, baby-faced, un-employed lover" was caught wolfing down the Thompson family's prosciutto and guzzling their wine.
2375126
I chose this book because I enjoy his cooking show and was curious about what type of life events helped create the person he became.  His personality shines through on every page and I enjoyed getting to know him through his stories of growing up in France during WWII and his journey into American culture.  Anyone who likes a good story will enjoy this book whether you are a "foodie" or not.
585971
This is less a cookbook, more a series of introductory lectures on how to cook.  Colicchio is a thoughtful and compassionate educator, concerned for the reader to really understand why he does what he does, and there is a warm intimacy to the book that makes it a pleasure to read from cover to cover.  Colicchio is adamant about explaining a variety of basic techniques before offering recipes to readers, and it really inspires confidence that anyone who dedicates a little time and effort can create flavorful hearty dishes.  I'm not completely familiar with French cuisine, but most of the techniques and dishes in this book seem consistent with the classical French cooking that I've seen on Top Chef - Colicchio uses a lot of seasonal local vegetables and buttery sauces with French names, and the food all looks delicious.

A reader in need of a wow factor for a dinner party will not likely find a lot of satisfaction here, since the focus is on simple foods done to perfection, not so much exotic ingredients or flashy presentations, and many of the recipes will need to be adapted for readers who don't like artichokes or mushrooms (I include myself), but I highly recommend this book for any home cook who wants to elevate his or her level of professionalism when it comes to preparing delicious meals for long evenings with friends and family.  I look forward to many evenings with a few friends and the lessons from this book.
3181580
The front cover of Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, contains a rather fulsome blurb from celebrity food writer and chef, Anthony Bourdain.  I can't say that I share Mr. Bourdain's enthusiasm in its entirety, but this is indeed a great food memoir.

One of the things that makes it great is that it's messy.  I'm not referring to Hamilton's personal history so much, although that is fairly convoluted, but more the way the book is organized.  It jumps back and forth in time and place, but in a way that feels quite natural.

Anyone telling their story will of course self edit.  However, as we tell our stories we often realize that we have left out a part we need to include because an earlier event helps to clarify the later event we are describing.  Such a writing styles lends a level of authenticity to Ms. Hamilton's writing.

Blood, Bones & Butter, begins with Hamilton telling the story of the annual lamb roast that was the centerpiece of her growing-up years as the child of artist parents.  It was an idyllic experience, which when ended sets her on a search to recover that idyll.

The rest of the book deals with her search.  It's a search that takes her from being an underage server, through to a criminal record, to student, cook, and restaurant owners,  Along the way there are many romances, mostly with women, and what I would describe as a rather odd sort of marriage, to a man.

Through the search, it is food that continually serves as the continuing link.  It is in food that Ms. Hamilton hopes to find her way back to the idyllic life she knew as a small child.  As she experiences working with food in many different settings she finds bits of the family life she was seeking.  When I say I'm not suggesting that these are insignificant, but they are less whole than what Ms. Hamilton is looking for.  Yet, it is in experiencing the fragments that she is able to define for herself what that whole should be like.

Along the way Hamilton comes to appreciate food that is meant to meet the hunger one feels.  While she is capable of pulling off the fanciest of meals, she realizes that hunger, physical, emotional, spiritual is at the base of all our food desires.  Her overwhelming desire becomes to produce food that feeds all these hungers.

In opening here restaurant, Prune, Hamilton takes another step along the journey to get back to that sense of family.  Designed to be small, and intimate, the restaurant becomes an extended family for her.  One that is built around the sharing of food in small places.

As the title Blood, Bones & Butter suggests, there is a certain messiness to Ms. Hamilton's life.  However, just as in the kitchen, so in life, it is in working through the mess that we come to meal.

Ultimately, it is the marriage she enters into that leads her back towards those early days.  Her husband is Italian and as their marriage traverses its bumpy road, that road passes through and makes frequent stops at his family home in Italy. Here Ms. Hamilton reconnects food and family in a way that is fuller than that which she encounters in her journey through the world of food and cookery.

Blood, Bones & Butter would be a great gift for any food lover in your life.  Or, buy it for yourself and enjoy it as you sit down to a meal.
4555864
Chef Irv has written a wonderful book for anyone interested in cooking, food or Florida. Unlike the majority of chef written cookbooks the recipes are approachable to even the novice cook and the results are delicious .Part cookbook part memoir ,the writings will transport the reader to a region and their community that shows affection and pride in all it has to offer
As an avid cookbook collector ,I am very pleased to this addition. I will also head directly to Jackson's steakhouse upon arrival to Pensacola.
3478442
It seems really superfluous to write a review of this book after so many have reviewed it so well, but I am so entranced with it I couldn't help myself. I can't really consider it a cookbook in the usual sense - it has many recipes but I don't know if I'll actually ever cook any of them (and I think most would be difficult or impossible to replicate with ingredients I have access to anyway). What I find fascinating is the story this book tells - it's about a restaurant, a chef, and his cooking, but it makes the experience much broader and deeper than just sourcing and preparing food. Nilsson tells the story of a deep connection with the natural world and of his very personal relationship with the ingredients he uses and with the people and land they come from. There is a profound respect, reverence and intimacy in all his discussions that's very compelling, and an energy, curiosity and joy that's inspiring. He transcends the idea of perfectionism with his desire for deeper connections and fuller experience in his work. I suspect Magnus Nilsson's food is quite brilliant, but even if I never have the chance to taste it, I'm so glad he wrote this book. Reading about his thoughts and processes had\s broadened my perspective about food and cooking in general, and made me long to establish my own deeper  connection with the natural world.
2110653
In this delightful and thoughtfully laid out cookbook, master chef Jacques Pepin cooks with and for his twelve-year-old granddaughter Shorey. He shows her how to make curly hotdogs (they don't taste different but they look cool) and prepare a one-dish entre for her mothers birthday. He doesnt talk up to her but neither does he talk down. Rather, he pays attention and takes cues from her tastes and enthusiasms.

Having said that, Shorey is no ordinary young woman, if only because of her parentage. Shes heard people talking food all her short life. Her father is a professional chef. Her mother co-hosted two seasons on PBS with Jacques (Cooking with Claudine was the first). Grandmother Gloria, Jacquess wife, ran her own high-end restaurant for years, specializing in Cuban cuisine. Then theres Jacques. He started as a boy working in the family restaurant, served his military service as chef to French president Charles De Gaulle, then moved to the States and opened a  successful mini-chain of soup kitchens in Manhattan and after that was chef in charge of the whole Howard Johnson chain, preparing the menus and setting up training routines to transform  rough-edged short order cooks into quality chefs so that for the first time in this country, Americans who were traveling could expect to enjoy predictable quality meals anywhere in the country.  Read his memoir, The Apprentice. (Back to Shorey: when she was two, her grandfather observed that she loved blueberries. Yes, she replied, because they taste good and they have so many antioxidants in them. Not the standard two-year-olds response to a question about what she liked to eat!)

The book starts with a discussion of how to fold a napkin (illustrations provided) followed by a low-key discussion of table manners: laying out a place setting, how to handle fork and knife at the same time, from which side you serve and take away plates and glasses. Pepin comments that Shorey criticizes him for his manners: she says he puts his elbows on the table and sometimes talks with his mouth full.

Then the book moves on to preparing food.  Pepin has always been a graceful writer and this book is no exception. He doesnt just love his granddaughter, he respects her as a person. It shows. He pays attention to her tastes and uses them to show how much pleasure it can be preparing a good meal. The dishes in this cookbook tend to be a little simpler than the ones in his other books but they show the same attention to efficient, no fuss preparation and to the ultimate determiner: how good they taste. Throughout, Shoreys own asides on food, on her family- are a delight.  Above all, this isn't just a book to show young people how to cook. Old dogs can learn from it too: new dishes, insights into technique.  Once again, Jacques Pepin has made cooking a gracious pastime.
3592749
Its hard to watch various celebrity chefs on The Food Network whip up multiple amazing dishes in a short period of time and not think That looks easy.  I could do that.  But, most of us don't know the very difficult daily effort thats needed to successfully work in a restaurants kitchen, especially a top restaurants kitchen.  Michael Gibney attempts to remove that ignorance in his book, Sous Chef.  Gibney succeeds in giving readers a clear nuts and bolts perspective of organizing and cooking in a restaurants kitchen.  Everything from setting up the mise en place to the harried dinner service feels realistic.  The restaurant terminologies frequently used throughout the text (supplemented by a much appreciated glossary) serve to not only excite a foodie, but also to reinforce the books authenticity.

Yet, Gibney clearly did not want to write a technical manual.  He also wanted to portray the intense emotions and the strong sense of camaraderie that is generated by working in such an environment.  Unfortunately, its very hard for any writer to adequately portray the emotions that arise when people are thrown together in a stressful setting.  Thus, attempts to portray those feelings typically come off as hollow approximations; and they do so in Sous Chef.  Gibney cleverly tries to get around this problem by writing the book in the second person, thus making the reader add their own emotional energy to the story.  Even with the use of this trick, the portrayal of the emotions displayed in the kitchen still falls flat.

One reason why cooking shows set in a restaurant venue are popular is because they seamlessly merge the technical and the emotional aspects of working in a kitchen.  But, what succeeds on television doesnt necessarily succeed in a narrative form.  Despite Gibneys best efforts to accurately portray emotions, Sous Chef still works best as a textbook on a restaurant kitchens techniques and organizational structures.  Gibney deserves credit for attempting to give outsiders a clear picture of what it takes, both technically and physically, to work in a restaurant kitchen.  But, after seeing his portrayal of emotional aspect to being a sous chef, readers will likely conclude that Gibney bit off a bit more than he could chew.
3472179
This is a delightful book about Dan's development first as a cook but then as a chef, executive, consultant and quality expert.  It is much much more than just a story of his early life.  While you will become a much better cook because of this book; you will learn the limitations of recipes and hear some of the distilled wisdom of chefs who learned from chefs who learned from chefs going back in time immemorial.  Today with chefs coming out of schools instead of working up through an apprenticeship much of that wisdom is hard to come by.  Here Dan presents that wisdom in a fun, witty yet profound way.

just a cook, just a chef you might say.  But the lessons of doing something right, really well, with quality built in are universal.  If you learn something the wrong way you will do it wrong for the rest of your life unless you are luck enough to run into someone who knows better and has the skill and desire to point out your errors and teach you.

Quality is not just an end product.  It is a journey, a commitment that can start anywhere--as long as you have the passion and the teachers are there.  If you are going to cook a meal yes you can use a recipe, but why not really understand the art, craft and science of cooking.  It will serve you very well outside the kitchen as well.  It will make you a better businessperson, a better manager and a better person.
1990374
The book is a memoir by a terrific cook, Pierre Koffman who has run several famous London restaurants.  Although he grew up in Tarbes, a good-size town in Gascony, he spent all his vacations at his grandparents' farm in Saint- Puy, where he learned the fundamentals of cooking from his grandmother.  The books is part memoir organized by season, part recipe collection.  Some recipes are his grandmother's, others are adapted for the more modern kitchen.  A few are signature dishes from his London career, including the pigs feet stuffed with fois gras.

The boy clearly loved his grandparents, and their portrayal is warm and affectionate and occasionally amusing, as grandpa clearly preferred hunting or sitting in the cafe with his buddies, to working the farm.  Pierre got a terrific training in a highly meat based form of cooking, using everything on hand.  Recipes range from extremely simple vegetable soups, to much mroe extravagant concoctions of fois gras and similar ingredients.

I also appreciate the fact that the author does not paint an overly rosy picture of country life.  Grandma worked hard and there was little money.  What may be especially hard for the modern suburban reader to swallow is that animals are killed on roughly every other page.  But that was the reality of farm life --animals were rarely pets, they were meant to be killed and eaten, or killed and sold, or sold and then killed.  To his credit, Koffman does not take any pleasure in this aspect of farm life -- especially watching the calves and lambs getting killed was not easy for a little boy, he says.

A few caveats: recipes are imbedded into the narrative and hence organized by season, not incredients.  That means that if you want to cook lamb, for instance, you will be looking in multiple places for the best recipe.

Also, some recipes are included probably more for the antropological interest than to actually cook: Few American serious cooks will be burying their fancy le Creuset cookware in embers or roasting a hare over an open fire.

And you had better stock up on duck fat, because it is used in almost every single recipe.
4414058
Sure, this book has recipes. They're the whole point of the book. But for the most part, they're not recipes you're ever going to make. They're "perfect" recipes, so they take a ton of time and effort, require obscure ingredients or equipment. But for the reader, the real point of this book, just like the other Perfection book, is the fascinating tale of how Heston worked out the perfect recipe: where he sourced his ingredients, where his inspiration came from, the science he applied to various senses and palates, and the final technique he used to create the dish. It's a must-read for foodies and chefs.
2225045
In this comprehensive, groundbreaking cookbook, Ron Meyer takes you on a journey through the art of cooking with one of the most exquisite of ingredients, the portobello mushroom. The recipes are easy to do and taste great. I was lucky enough to see Ron Meyer in person at a book signing of this many years ago, and I still use the book today. I anxiously await any new books to be release from him, even though it has been some time since this one was printed.
1406343
I'll keep this review short and sweet. This is the only cookbook you will ever read that has personality. An awesome personality. Stickman (if that is his name) is delightfully sarcastic, sassy, and the recipes are delicious and simple.

Tyler Capps is a hero of mine in that his good product got noticed, and he's able to follow his passion and make this awesome book.

This is perfect for that 18-35 year old movie/video game loving cook in your life. Lots of great movie and video game references and recipes sure to make one who loves these references happy. Thanks Tyler, if you ever publish a follow up, I'll surely buy.
3095683
A wonderful book by the senior judge of Iron Chef America. Steingarten as food editor for Vogue has had  the opportunity to explore many cuisines and has praises and problems for all of them.  Well written the book is often humerous and always informative.  There is the almost ever present  happy attitude in  the book that seems to say "they pay  me for doing and generally enjoying all of this, life is sweet."  There is also the logical training he has had as a lawyer that gives the book a unique perspective missing in most food books.  I think the logic of his approach is often stymied by the very subjective and emotional topic that is food.  This built in conflict is often  the source of the books humor.  Well worth reading if you never watch Iron Chef but an absolute must read if you do.