Journalist Michael Ruhlman talked his way into the CIA: the Culinary Institute of America, the Harvard of cooking schools. It had something to do with potatoes a grand-uncle had eaten deacades earlier, how the man could remember them so well for so long, buried as they had been in the middle of an elegant meal. Ruhlman wanted to learn how to cook potatoes like that--like an art--and the CIA seemed the place to go. The fun part of this book is that we all get to go along for the ride without having to endure the trauma of cooking school.

Ever wonder what goes on in a busy kitchen, why your meal comes late or shows up poorly cooked? The temptation is to blame the waiter, but there are a world of cooks behind those swinging doors, and Ruhlman marches you right into it. 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. Ruhlamn has the writerly skills to make the education of a chef a visceral experience.


From School Library Journal
YAAThe Culinary Institute of America is known as "the Harvard of cooking schools" and many of this country's best-known chefs are graduates. Ruhlman enrolled as a student with the intention of writing this book, which begins as a chronicle of the intense, high-pressure grind of classes and cooking. However, it turns into an engrossing personal account as, his every effort critiqued, the author determines to become a student and not just impersonate one. YAs will enjoy Ruhlman's anecdotes about his instructors and his classmatesYsome of whom are still in their teens. The appendix offers a chart showing the course work for associate degrees. This will appeal to anyone aspiring to a career as a chef as well as to those interested in food preparation, presentation, and the restaurant industry in America.APatricia Noonan, Prince William Public Library, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
After reading this title, boot camp and law school will seem like child's play. Ruhlman enrolled in the prestigious and expensive Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to get both material for a book and a culinary education. However, the drive and commitment required from day one, the demand for speed and precision, the pressure and perfectionism of the job?all hilariously and touchingly told?immediately erase his writer's detachment. But the tale goes beyond Ruhlman's anecdotes; he describes the curriculum with objective detail, so the reader also learns how a chef makes a flawless stock (and repairs a flawed one at a moment's notice), organizes the cooking station, prepares gourmet meals for crowds, and attains excellence and recognition. The short chart at the end shows the course work for the CIA's associate degrees. An enjoyable read, recommended for most collections and required for aspiring great chefs.?Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., Ky.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Peter Kaminsky
Toward the end of his stay Ruhlman notes: "Cooks put in more hours of life in less time and therefore get older faster than most people. This solution for the question of age, combined with the physical fact that they baked their flesh daily in 120-degree heat, gradually caramelizing it, made sense to me." These are words that only a good writer could have written after standing a good long while in the heat of a real kitchen.


From Kirkus Reviews
A writer enters the Culinary Institute of America, the Ivy League of cooking schools. Ruhlman (Boys Themselves, 1996) began a love affair with food after an uncle passionately detailed in a letter a potato he'd been served years before at a New Orleans restaurant. Ruhlman entered the CIA with that perfect potato in mind. The CIA, as exacting as the agency with which it shares its abbreviated name, requires students to arrive with a set of freshly sharpened knives and to be familiar with videos such as ``Shucking Oysters'' and ``Calf Slaughter.'' Ruhlman enters the school with some trepidation, particularly as the first day's soup stock is made with 120 pounds of chicken bones. The actual work of cooking is demanding--students get burned, they must begin work at dawn to prepare for lunch, and they are expected to learn thousands of recipes--but few drop out. Cooking represents a measure of both science and excess--one teacher regales them with a mythical meal of ancient Rome: a cow stuffed with a pig stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a truffle wrapped in foie gras; only the truffle was eaten. Students are expected to work in restaurants during the school year, and Ruhlman effectively captures their excitement and exhaustion as they learn about the real world of cooking. But Ruhlman is not as fine with the details as a cook needs to be. He calls a Reuben a grilled cheese sandwich, and his response to a teacher's impassioned lecture on Alice Waters's ethic at Chez Panisse--which he sums up as ``if we screw up the earth, we'll have rotten food''--is needlessly glib. While his insights into his teachers and students are often interesting, the book has little to say about the art of cooking and even less to say about how it all tastes. An attractive mise en place, but one that lacks the simple artistry of that long-remembered potato. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Marcia Goldberg, Plain Dealer - Cleveland
"Ruhlman's love of cooking bubbles on every page."


Charlie Trotter, chef-owner of Charlie Trotter's
"Anyone who is thinking about attending a culinary school, or even getting into cooking period, should read The Making of a Chef to understand the intensity of effort, the sincerity and the focus that all cooks must have in order to succeed."


Review
"Well reported and heartfelt. Ruhlman communicates the passion that draws the acolyte to this precise and frantic profession." --Peter Kaminsky, The New York Times Book Review

"Anyone who is thinking about atting a culinary school, or even getting into cooking period, should read The Making of a Chef to understand the intensity of effort, the sincerity and the focus that all cooks must have in order to succeed." --Charlie Trotter, chef-owner of Charlie Trotter's

"Ruhlman's love of cooking bubbles on every page." --Marcia Goldberg, Plain Dealer (Cleveland)



Book Description
Now in paperback, the eye-opening book that was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Foundation award in the Writing on Food category.

In the winter of 1996, Michael Ruhlman donned hounds-tooth-check pants and a chef's jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid and energetic record of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us to the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed. Ruhlman learns fundamental skills and information about the behavior of food that make cooking anything possible. Ultimately, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.



About the Author
Michael Ruhlman has written extensively for The New York Times. He is the author of Boys Themselves (Holt, 0-8050-3370-X, $25.00). He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the ultimate food-lover's fantasy, journalist Michael Ruhlman dons chef's jacket and houndstooth-check pants to join the students in Skills One at the Culinary Institute of America, the most influential cooking school in the country. His goal is to document the training of America's chefs from the first classroom to the Culinary's final kitchen, the American Bounty Restaurant. The result becomes more than a rote reportage of a school for cooks. Ruhlman learns to cook as though his future depends upon it, and this complete immersion enables him to create the most vivid and energetic memoir of a genuine culinary education on record. He learns fundamental skills and information about the behavior of food that make cooking anything possible. But he also finds that a professional cook needs more than just knowledge and skill. Ultimately Ruhlman propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.

FROM THE CRITICS

School Library Journal