PastryWiz Becoming a Chef: With Recipes and Reflections from America's Leading Chefs

 

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Becoming a Chef: With Recipes and Reflections from America's Leading Chefs
by: Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page

Price*$48.69
as of 02/09/2010 16:26 EDT

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 647.9502373
EAN: 9780471285717
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0471285714
Label: John Wiley & Sons
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageEnglishUnknownEnglishPublished
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: May 18, 1995
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Studio: John Wiley & Sons

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
"A 'must' for aspiring chefs." —Julia Child

Essential reading for anyone who loves food, Becoming a Chef is an entertaining and informative insider's guide to the chefs profession, providing the first behind-the-scenes look into some of the most celebrated restaurant kitchens across the nation. More than 60 of America's leading chefs discuss the inspiration, effort, and quirks of fate that turned would-be painters, anthropologists, and pro football players into culinary artists.

Amazon.com Review:
Norman Van Aken began his career as a busboy in a Holiday Inn, Alice Waters was a Montessori teacher before she opened Chez Panisse, Emeril Lagasse began as a dishwasher in a bakery, and Charlie Trotter started in a restaurant called The Ground Round. It is a long way to the top of the culinary charts, and in Becoming a Chef the first thing you learn is that the hours are long and the dues are high.

Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have created a classic. The flip side of Larousse Gastronomique, this book should be required reading for anybody who has ever considered a career as a professional chef. For those of us who are content with our day jobs, Becoming a Chef is a complete and informative look at how the best in the business got where they are today. Dornenburg and Page interviewed 60 of America's finest chefs to find out what drives them. What are their influences? How did they begin? What do they read? And what advice do they have for someone just starting out? Most of all, the book offers a candid perspective on what it takes to succeed in the top ranks of the business. From a professional standpoint, Becoming a Chef is invaluable; from an amateur's standpoint, it is simply fascinating.

Along with some sound advice and great stories, America's best chefs offer some of their favorite recipes. Andre Soltner reveals his mother's recipe for Potato Pie, and Michel Richard shares a Creme Brulée that was inspired by his first kiss. These are subtle reminders that it takes passion as well as commitment to become a chef. --Mark O. Howerton


Related Items:
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Very good for upcoming culinary students
I liked this book and found it to give me the inspiration for becoming a chef. When you really love what you do in work, other parts of your life are usually less stressful. I also highly recommend:
Study Guide for Baking: Key Review Questions and Answers by Melissa Heilman. This book was excellent for helping get excellent grades in my culinary baking classes



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - An invaluable source of information and inspiration!
Becoming a Chef by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page is filled with information that anyone who wants to achieve greatness as a professional chef needs to know, based on the experiences of dozens of America's leading chefs (from Daniel Boulud to Emeril Lagasse to Charlie Trotters to Alice Waters). You find out what first got them interested in pursuing a career as a chef (including early memories of family influences) to what their first steps were (from first jobs to cooking school to externships) and how they made their way up the ladder to success. My favorite chapter is Chapter 9: Persevering In The Face of Reality, in which top chefs admit some of the boneheaded mistakes they made along the way, making it clear that even the greatest chefs faced setbacks along the way. Whenever I question my sanity for wanting to cook for a living (which is at least once a week), I pick up this book, open it to any page, and get inspired by remembering that we're all in it for the love of food and our common passion for cooking things that taste amazing and please others!



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Fascinating and invaluable!
"Finally, a book that lets chefs speak for themselves! An insightful look at the complex life of a professional chef. Fascinating portraits of the people who have defined American cuisine -- who they are, and how they got to be where they are today. Anyone who is interested in becoming a chef will find this book invaluable: This is what it takes to make it."
--MARK MILLER, chef-owner, Coyote Cafe (Santa Fe, NM)



Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - You have to dig for the good stuff
Dornenburg and Page assembled some really interesting insights and experiences from many US chefs and sprinkled the book with some of their recipes. First the good stuff...

When the chefs tell their stories, you get some interesting and entertaining insight into the restaurant world both here and abroad. The discussion of the apprenticeship process in Europe is facinating, as are the stories about how various chef's started.

Now the not so good stuff...

The recipes are not well edited at all. In some cases little information about ingredient quantities is provided, and the procedure descriptions are hit-or-miss at best. Don't risk a big dinner party on these recipes unless you've tried them out first.

Also, the authors include several pointless tables addressing things like who once worked for whom.

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Becoming a Chef: With Recipes and Reflections from America's Leading Chefs
Price*$48.69
as of 02/09/2010 16:26 EDT

 

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Product prices and availability updated on 02/09/2010 16:26 EDT.