04/04/2016
Food enthusiasts who have seen the finesse of Ripert’s delicate plates on television shows and have attempted recipes from Le Bernardin Cookbook will be delighted to meet the man behind the recipes. In this engaging memoir, Ripert shares his life as a young boy in Southern France. Ripert refines his palette and learns to treat food like a gift. He watches his mother set the table with exquisite care even for his daily goûter, or after-school snack. At age 11, after the death of his father, Ripert finds solace and inspiration in the kitchen. Ripert begins to cook in some of the finest kitchens in France, under the thumb of some of the most notorious culinary masters; his apprenticeships involve painful, long hours and no social life. After his obligatory military service, he gets back to the line, discovers a particular love for seafood, and dives into his culinary passions with an unmatched drive. He masters some of the most difficult techniques, and eventually follows his dream to the U.S. With his exacting prose and eye for detail, Ripert has created a wonderful memoir about his early days as a chef. (May)
04/15/2016
Readers may know Ripert as the meditative host of the PBS series Avec Eric; a fan-favorite judge on Bravo's Top Chef; and the owner of Le Bernardin, a French seafood restaurant in New York. His roots, however, are far from that calm and thoughtful adult. This memoir tells of Ripert's tumultuous childhood in France where a love of excellent food was instilled in him early on. In his preteens, he was taken under the wing of a professional chef. Food and cooking were an escape for Ripert, though the stress of professional kitchens steeped him in almost unmanageable levels of fear and desperation. The militaristic attitude in three-star restaurants, as Ripert describes it, is physically and mentally grueling. Despite the difficulties, Ripert knew cooking was his calling and he likens talented chefs to having the creative genius of composers Wolfgang Mozart and Frédéric Chopin. VERDICT Although the loving descriptions of flavors and cooking techniques will make some long for recipes, this narrative sheds light on the carefully controlled chaos behind the scenes at several top restaurants in the 1970s and 1980s. It will appeal to fans of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali's Restaurant Man.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley Sch., Fort Worth, TX
2016-03-20
The acclaimed French chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin delivers a breezy account of his life in France and Andorra before he moved to the United States in his early 20s. Ripert (Avec Eric: A Culinary Journey with Eric Ripert, 2010, etc.) makes it clear that food was always the warm center of his life, and his descriptions of the meals he prepared or devoured will make even the most ascetic reader hungry. As a boy, the author took refuge in a restaurant in his little town, where the chef indulged him with bowls of chocolate mousse or spoonfuls of caviar while his glamorous mother was off running the boutique she owned. Bored with academics, he left high school to go to a no-frills vocational boarding school, where he learned knife skills and "took naturally to the non-negotiable, army-like rules of the brigade system" in a restaurant. After an apprenticeship where he boned pounds of anchovies and peeled dozens of potatoes every day, working from 8:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night, the 17-year-old moved to Paris, where he learned to transform the "32 yolks" of the title into a proper hollandaise sauce and lived in fear of daunting chefs. Ripert worked first for Dominique Bouchet and then for Joel Robuchon, neither of whom cut their underlings any slack. The author keeps his tone light, even as he describes forbidding work environments, constant anxiety, escalating anger, and the pressures of being low on an aggressively male pecking order. His pleasure in good food—whether he's following his grandmother to a town market, where he "swooned at the fragrance of anise, clove, and mint," or preparing lavish restaurant dishes plated with 90 equally spaced dots of sauce—makes for some vicarious gastronomic thrills. It doesn't take a refined palate to savor Ripert's culinary adventures.
Passionate, poetical . . . What makes 32 Yolks compelling is the honesty and laudable humility [Eric] Ripert brings to the telling.”—Chicago Tribune
“With a vulnerability and honesty that is breathtaking . . . Ripert takes us into the mind of a boy with thoughts so sweet they will cause you to weep. He also lets us into the mind of the man he is today, revealing all the golden cracks and chips that made him more valuable to those around him.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Eric Ripert makes magic with 32 Yolks.”—Vanity Fair
“32 Yolks may not be what you’d expect from a charming, Emmy-winning cooking show host and cookbook author. In the book, there are, of course, scenes of elaborate meals both eaten and prepared. And all the talk of gigot d’agneau, tarte tatin, petits farcis, paupiette de veau and saumon en croute may prompt a dinner reservation at your local French restaurant. But Ripert’s story is, for the most part, one of profound loss, a tumultuous childhood and abuse, both mental and physical.”—Los Angeles Times
“If you’re interested in how successful people become successful—and if you’re not, why aren’t you?—check out 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line. It’s a great story, especially for people just starting out, since Eric focuses on his formative years. ‘My time at Le Bernardin has been well documented,’ Eric told me, ‘and so I wanted to share what came before then and how my early years as a child and first kitchen experiences shaped my journey.’”—Jeff Haden, Inc.
“Heartbreaking. Horrifying. Poignant. And inspiring. I’ve known Eric for years, and I had no idea that this was how it all started. If you want to get a clear picture of where one gets the drive and dedication to be a truly great chef, there is no better or more harrowing account.”—Anthony Bourdain
“This book demonstrates just how amazing Eric’s life has been both inside and outside the kitchen. It makes total sense now that he has become one of the greatest chefs in the world today. This is a portrait of a chef as a young man. It’s endlessly entertaining and teaches young cooks how it used to be.”—David Chang
“Eric Ripert is known around the world for his talent and passion for food. I have been friends with him for half his life, but his memoir let me discover more about his past. His journey from Andorra to Manhattan is full of adventure, hard work, and ambition, and it is an inspiration to us all.”—Daniel Boulud
“Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks is almost as irresistible as his cooking—a suspenseful, scary, and deeply moving memoir. Even with the knowledge of his eventual triumph as one of the world’s greatest chefs, you can’t help wondering as you turn the pages whether he will manage to survive his childhood or his grueling apprenticeship in two of France’s top kitchens. But ultimately his deep, visceral appreciation of food and the joy of cooking make this a lyrical and inspiring story.”—Jay McInerney
Peter Ganim's beautiful and moving narration reveals moments of horror, heartbreak, joy, and inspiration as a young boy learns lessons about food and applies them to life. Ganim’s narration of Eric Ripert’s memoir artfully conveys the mosaic of intense emotions experienced by Ripert as a boy who endured traumas such as the divorce of his parents and mistreatment at the hands of his stepfather. As a young adult, he followed his passion, toiling amid the highly competitive world of cooking. Ganim’s narration, accentuated by a fluid French accent, is dynamic and modulated, capturing Ripert’s experiences and responses with anguished and fearful whisperings, deep anger, and, finally, tenderness and humble confidence. It’s a listening experience so compelling that one can almost hear the clatter of kitchenware. M.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
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