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Sign up todayThe Making of a Chef
Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute
Narrator
Jeff Riggenbach
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
12 hours 20 minutes
Language
English
In the winter of 1996, writer Michael Ruhlman donned a chef’s jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America, known as the Harvard of cooking schools, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid and eye-opening record of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us into the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed, and experience the pressure and perfectionism of their job. Ruhlman learns fundamental skills and information about the behavior of food that make cooking anything possible. He propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms—from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery—in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking. This book was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Foundation award in the Writing on Food category.
Michael Ruhlman has collaborated on several bestselling cookbooks, including The French Laundry Cookbook, Bouchon, and Alinea. He is the author of critically acclaimed books including The Soul of a Chef, The Elements of Cooking, Ratio, and Ruhlman’s Twenty. He has written about food and cooking for the New York Times, Gourmet, Food Arts, and other publications.
Jeff Riggenbach has narrated numerous titles for Blackstone Audio and won an AudioFile Earphones Award. An author, contributing editor, and producer, he has worked in radio in San Francisco for the last thirty years, earning a Golden Mike Award for journalistic excellence.
Reviews
“Well reported and heartfelt. Ruhlman communicates the passion that draws the acolyte to this precise and frantic profession.”
“Ruhlman’s love of cooking bubbles on every page.”
“After reading this title, boot camp and law school will seem like child’s play…An enjoyable read…required for aspiring great chefs.”
“Jeff Riggenbach stands in for Ruhlman well as a narrator of this first person account…so well that we can believe he has been the one juggling sauce pans and fighting for the stove space while the teacher waits to grade.”
“It’s a world where, when everything is going right, time halts and consciousness expands. And when a few things go wrong, the earth begins to wobble on its axis. Ruhlman has the writerly skills to make the education of a chef a visceral experience.”
“Ruhlman effectively captures [students’] excitement and exhaustion as they learn about the real world of cooking…his insights into his teachers and students are often interesting…An attractive mise en place.”
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