Book Log 2007 #50: The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

When we watch cooking shows at home, the wife will occasionally comment that I could cook like the folks on TV (this being before my recent demonstration of horrifically inadequate knife skills). I never had the same faith in my cooking ability, and after reading The Making of a Chef I'd say my skeptcism was justified.

In this book, author Michael Ruhlman enters the chef's training program at the Culinary Institute of America, and works his way from learning how to chop an onion to manning a station at the school's highest-profile restaurant. Along the way, we see not only the work that goes into passing this progrsm, but get insights as to why people go through this in the first place from his fellow students, instructors, and the CIA's president.

And that's where the major difference lies. I think I could, with the sort of practice gained by the repetition in the program, learn to properly make food. But it's the conversion to the chef's worldview that I would find difficult, the drive to work every day regardless of all the internal and external factors that slow down the rest of us - blizzards, illness, or even a self-inflicted gash.

The one thing the book clearly demonstrates is that what makes a chef isn't just learning the ingredients and techniques, but making the jump from someone who cooks to someone whose life is dedicated to the production of high quality food. Both are demonstrated in fine fashion in this book, which is a must-read for anyone who is into food.