Becoming a Chef: With Recipes and Reflections from America's Leading Chefs at Chef2Chef

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

From Library Journal
This book should be mandatory reading for anyone considering a restaurant career. Dornenburg and Page show what working in a kitchen is really like-forget those ideas of glamour and celebrity. They begin with a brief history of restaurants and notable chefs, then move on to cooking schools and/or apprenticing, getting a job ("starting at the bottom"), and developing in the field. There's a chapter on opening a restaurant and one each on maintaining your edge and surviving the bad times. The authors interviewed 60 chefs from across the country, and relevant, pithy quotations are interspersed through the text, giving a good overview of the different experiences possible. Recipes from the chefs at first seem superfluous, but in fact they serve to convey the varied styles of many distinctive cooks. Fun to read, informative, and unique, this is an essential purchase for career collections.
Judith Sutton, "Sutton's Place Cuisine," New York
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
I'm writing this review because a couple of fellow culinary students confessed they couldn't get past the first few pages of this book. Because, frankly, the authors have a very dry style and even put me to sleep. But I struggled through those parts of the book because scattered throughout are lengthy stories, advice and recipes from TOP chefs of all types and ethnicities, from around the country, and what they have to say is tremendously interesting. In this book are also surveys including what books were most important to the chefs and I went on to read many of them, and also studied with one. I learned a lot about the industry and each individual chefs' contribution to culinary development in America. The authors have done a great service to the culinary profession and to food lovers, by publishing this book. BTW - this is one I don't even let people borrow! Comment | Permalink | (Report this)