Research Catalog

Title

The making of a chef : mastering heat at the Culinary Institute of America / Michael Ruhlman.

Author

Ruhlman, Michael, 1963-

Publication

New York : Henry Holt and Co., 2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xix, 305 p.; 21 cm.

Summary

• Just over a decade ago, journalist Michael Ruhlman donned a chef's jacket and houndstooth-check pants to join the students at the Culinary Institute of America, the country's oldest and most influential cooking school. But The Making of a Chef is not just about holding a knife or slicing an onion; it's also about the nature and spirit of being a professional cook and the people who enter the profession. As Ruhlman -- now an expert on the fundamentals of cooking -- recounts his growing mastery of the skills of his adopted profession, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great food. Incisively reported, with an insider's passion and attention to detail, The Making of a Chef remains the most vivid and compelling memoir of a professional culinary education on record. - Publisher.
• Exploring the essence of becoming a chef, this book reveals the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.

Series Statement

A Holt paperback

Subjects

• Autobiographies
• Biographies
• Culinary Institute of America
• Cooks > United States > Biography
• Ruhlman, Michael, 1963-

Genre/Form

• Autobiographies
• Biographies
• Autobiographies.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction -- Part 1 : Skill development. Secret sharer -- Routine -- Day eight -- Brown sauce -- The storm -- The making of Chef Pardus -- You understand what I am saying? -- A system of values -- Roux decree -- Part 2 : The formative kitchens. Introduction to hot foods -- Lunch cookery and the burnt parsnip -- President Metz -- Part 3 : Keepers of the food. Garde manger -- The second-term practical -- Bewitched -- Externship -- Part 4 : Second year. Thermal death point -- St. Andrew's Cafe -- St. Andrew's kitchen -- Taste -- Part 5 : Bounty. Theater of perfection -- The American Bounty Restaurant -- Afterword : Benediction -- Appendix : The CIA curriculum.

ISBN

• 9780805089394
• 080508939X

LCCN

^^2008039616

OCLC

• 243544810
• SCSB-12070267

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library