Tag: Chef

June 7, 2023 – 32 Yolks

June 7, 2023 /

This book took me a while to get through. It was most definitely too long at about six weeks. It wasn’t that boring, long or hard to read, it was me trying to squeeze it in with everything else going on. It went to a lot of tennis matches, a number of appointments and mostly nights before bed.

32 Yolks is the May selection of the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. It is a memoir about the early life of Chef Eric Ripert. His name may not be at the front of your brain, but he was a dear friend of Anthony Bourdain and appeared in many episodes of No Reservations. In fact, he was the one who found his body.

I say early life because Ripert has become a world renowned chef at his restaurant called Le Bernadin. This book really only covers his life into the mid 1980s, before he came to the USA. As you can probably guess, there is a lot of life between then and now (almost forty years). While it was published in 2017, I think that it was an attempt to explain the why’s and how’s of his success.

At our meeting, we talked about the book. I was only half way through at that point. One of the members said that compared to other memoirs, this was highly focused on a couple experiences. It was her opinion that by comparison, it was a little single tracked.

I liken this book to one we read about five years ago called Cork Dork (that was pre AltF4.co so I haven’t talked extensively about it). But, becoming a sommelier is a tough experience. It takes a sickening amount of effort (literally) to become an expert in wine. Your personal habits can even effect you senses like your typical diet and scents that you wear.

I personally found it fascinating that the preparation staff would hide ingredients from the chef because the job was so demanding that they could not keep up serving 40 diners a night and working 18 hours a day. The chef demanded that everything be prepared that day and you only got one chance to do it. Some of the employees were suicidal even but they couldn’t resist the opportunity to work for the the absolute best.

I think that you can read this book and understand the real difference between fine dining and everywhere else. There certainly is an element of pretentiousness in fine dining but it is more about precision. It has to look and taste a certain way. I have known this a long time, but it is the main reason that I have a difficult time being satisfied going out to eat. For the most part, the preparation staff does not care or they don’t know what they are doing or they don’t taste the food.

This has happened to me a number of times. Go to a new restaurant, then go back in six months and then go back in two years. The first time is really good and it gets progressively worse each time. Why is that? The owner/creator/chef backs off after things get established and the care about the inspiration or the quality does as well. There is some human nature there, 99% of humans don’t want to kill themselves every day to perform

To be fair, not everything I make is a success either. That is largely because I take risks and I do things once in a while. I also care much less about how things look and I may substitute ingredients which has different effects. But, in my mind there is no excuse to make a bland, breakfast burrito. It’s not that hard especially when the ingredients are so limited.

I enjoyed the book. I say the same things I always say. Read it if you are into cooking, chefs, food and character building experiences. I am not sure that you will learn a lot other than it is hard to be in a Michelin 3-star kitchen but I think that is the part that I found most interesting. Don’t read the book if you are not into those things or you want a light, fairy tale story.

End Your Programming Routine: I think I could read or listen to almost anybody’s story and be entertained if they have something personal to say and tell it in an engaging way. I suppose that this says more about my reviews than anything but I am a interested in humanity. It is the reason why I was a National Geographic subscriber even when I was a college student. People doing what they do fascinates me.

September 30, 2021 – Blood, Bones and Butter

September 30, 2021 /

It’s been a long time coming, but today I am going to review the Left Coast Cellars’ Culinary Book Club August 2021 selection. The book was “Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef” by Gabrielle Hamilton.

I think that I have been pretty clear that it has been a challenging period in my life. Most nights, I am hitting the pillow and passing out to be up at 4AM the next day. So, while this book is short, it took me probably ten weeks to read. I was reading concurrently with 1984 as well, that is how long this has taken me.

If you are like me, then you have never heard of Gabrielle Hamilton. She is the owner and chef at a New York Restaurant called Prune. Again, this is another establishment that I don’t know anything about. But, I trust that companions at the book club to make choices that are interesting and worthy.

I am going to be blunt, I thought that this book was a train wreck. The writing style was neurotic and the story ends on a cliffhanger. Gabrielle obtained a MFA in Fiction and is an accomplished columnist and non-fiction writer as well as being a chef. However, I found the sentence structure overly flowery; like every noun needed two or three adjectives.

I have no reason to believe that the memoir was not truthful, it is the way she went about her life that was bothersome. For instance, she married an Italian because he needed help with his green card. There was never any real love in the relationship and in fact they lived apart for a number of years. Yet, much of the later part of the book was angled at the tortuous relationship and regret that it wasn’t better.

Prior to marrying the Italian, she was a lesbian for several years whom she abruptly left to get married after having a short, secret affair. I am not into judging lifestyles but the ‘in your face’ decision making definitely makes me think that there is no plan, no thought and no self reflection. What I am ultimately saying is that is just because you make a lifetime of poor decisions, I don’t think that is necessarily worthy of celebration. I think I would have liked it better if there was some sort of lessons learned from these things.

What I took from this was Gabrielle was trying to impart that hard work supersedes all of the missteps and misfortune in her life. I do believe that there is a large component of success that requires hard work. I do not believe that is the only ingredient. Another theme I can endorse is that relative career success does not translate into happiness.

Before I go off the deep end with criticism, Gabrielle is a human and it takes courage to be honest. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a lot of remorse to try and do things better. So, while I think sharing your life is gutsy, I feel a bit of pity for her because it seems like a lonely existence.

End Your Programming Routine: If you can’t stand my point of view most times, then this might be the story for you. This might be the most harsh review that I have ever written. I am looking forward to next months selection ‘Extra Virginity’.