Becoming a Chef or How to Taste

Becoming a Chef: With Recipes and Reflections From America's Leading Chefs

Author: Andrew Dornenburg

The updated edition of the book Julia Child called "a 'must' for aspiring chefs"-the James Beard Award-winning guide to one of today's hottest careers With more and more chefs achieving celebrity status, interest in the exciting world of today's leading chefs is higher than ever. Essential reading for anyone who loves food, Becoming a Chef gives an entertaining and informative insider's look at this dynamic profession, going behind the scenes to look into some of the most celebrated restaurant kitchens across the nation. More than 60 leading chefs-including some of the newest up-and-coming-discuss the inspiration, effort, and quirks of fate that turned would-be painters, anthropologists, and football players into culinary artists.
Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page (both of New York, NY) are the authors of the bestselling titles Culinary Artistry, Dining Out, Chef's Night Out. Dornenburg has cooked professionally at Arcadia, Judson Grill, and March in New York City and Biba and the East Coast Grill in Boston. Page, the recipient of the 1997 Melitta Bentz Award for Women's Achievement, is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

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

San Francisco Chronicle

"One of the top 5 Editors' Choice cookbooks of the year... Eye-opening, charmingly written smorgasbord of save advice... Makes for terrific reading even if you don't want to working a restaurant or actually open one."

Restaurant Hospitality

"One of the best books ever written about the back-of-the-houe side of the restaurant business... Entertaining and enlightening... A must-read."

Knoxville News-Sentinel

"A comprhensive and candid portrait of today's 'celebrity chefs.'"

Alison Arnett

"Its insight into the philosophy of chefdom today is invaluable." -- The Boston Globe

Table of Contents:

List of Recipes.

Acknowledgments.

Foreword.

Preface.

CHEFS Yesterday and Today.

EARLY INFLUENCES Discovering a Passion for Food.

COOKING SCHOOLS Learning in the Classroom.

APPRENTICING Learning in the Kitchen.

GETTING IN Starting at the Bottom.

DEVELOPING AS A COOK The Next Level.

THE BUSINESS OF COOKING Operting and Running a Restaurant.

TRAVEL, EATING, AND READING Learning Something New Every Day.

PERSEVERING IN THE FACE OF REALITY Through Bad Times and Good.

WHAT'S NEXT? The Chef as Alchemist.

APPENDIX A: Glossary of Restaurant and Kitchen Terms.

APPENDIX B: Selected Professional Cooking Schools in the United States and Abroad.

APPENDIX C: Leading Culinary Organizations.

APPENDIX D: Leading Culinary Periodicals.

APPENDIX E: Brief Biographies of Chefs Interviewed.

INDEX.

Interesting textbook: Event Marketing or The Art and Science of Negotiation

How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine

Author: Jancis Robinson

What better way to learn about wine than to taste it?

Hailed by Jerry Shriver in USA Today as "the woman who makes the wine world gulp when she speaks," Jancis Robinson created in How to Taste a classic for connoisseurs of all levels and the first introduction of its kind to focus on practical tasting exercises. Now fully revised and updated, Robinson's renowned guide proves once again that learning about wine can be just as engaging as drinking it.

Written in Robinson's trademark accessible style, the new How to Taste features thoroughly updated vintages and producers as well as up-and-coming wine regions and styles. Incorporating wines that are both easily obtainable and reasonably priced, Robinson's lessons are separated into complementary portions of theory and practice to help you both learn and taste your way to wine expertise.

One of the world's best-loved authorities on wine, Robinson explains first how to get the most out of the flavor of your wine and food, and then about specific grapes and the wines themselves. By the time you finish the book, you will have learned how to recognize the most popular grape varieties from Chardonnay and Riesling to Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, and why a good sparkling wine is always better than cheap champagne. You will discover how to judge sweetness, acidity, and fruitiness as well as the difference between the length and the weight of a wine. You will also be given practical advice for dealing with wine in the real world: how to choose from a wine list, organize your own wine tastings, and pair wines with specific foods.

From the armchair to the wine shop and back to the table, How toTaste will transform anyone on any level into a confident connoisseur who can leave faltering sips behind and have fun along the way.