The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
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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 and energetic record 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 the behavior of food 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. Library Journal Beginning with Skills One, where Chef Pardus guides his charges through the complexities of creating a perfect stock, journalist Ruhlman provides an insider's view of the exacting program that many consider to be the best formal training a chef can partake of in this country. In his condensed tour of duty at the attractive, suberbly equipped upstate New York campus of the CIA, Ruhlman spends six months sampling the arduous 81-week regimen the institute employs to both educate and toughen students for the competitive, frantic environment of cooking in fine restaurants. Discerning character sketches introduce the diverse group as the author explores the passion for fine food that makes them pursue this difficult calling. An examination of the curriculum and its philosophical framework is provided along with profiles of the master chefs who deliver this demanding training. The program ends in the institute's restaurants, where recently acquired skills and knowledge are put to the test as students perform everything from menu planning to serving actual customers. Although Jeff Riggenbach's reading is too pedestrian for the occasional comic moments, this audio is recommended for larger cooking collections.--Linda Bredengerd, Hanley Lib., Univ. of Pittsburgh, Bradford, PA
Acknowledgmentsxi Part I Skill Development Secret Sharer5 Routine29 Day Eight46 Brown Sauce55 The Storm65 The Making of Chef Pardus74 You Understand What I Am Saying?82 A System of Values01 Roux Decree110 Part II The Formative Kitchens Introduction to Hot Foods117 Lunch Cookery and the Burnt Parsnip133 President Metz144 Part III Keepers of the Food Garde Manger151 The Second-Term Practical158 Bewitched164 Externship178 Part IV Second Year Thermal Death Point187 St. Andrew's Cafe203 St. Andrew's Kitchen223 Taste244 Part V Bounty? Theater of Perfection261 The American Bounty Restaurant275 Afterword: Benediction304 Appendix: The CIA Curriculum306
