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Michael Ruhlman has enjoyed a long love affair with cooking and food. His explorations of kitchens and the professionals who call them home led Anthony Bourdain to call him "the greatest living writer on the subject of chefs-and on the business of preparing food." But even his vast experience couldn't have prepared him for the profound shift that has occurred in the chef's place in society.
Beginning at Per Se, the newest and most expensive of Manhattan's four-star restaurants, Ruhlman takes readers into some of America's most illustrious-and most innovative-kitchens. Throughout his travels, he seeks new trends and phenomena, like Las Vegas's recent elevation to the country's food Gomorrah with the addition of Picasso and Aureole to the Strip's already formidable selection, and returns to legendary haunts like The French Laundry, Le Bernardin, and Cafe Gray to see what's changed. A dispatch from a new world where chefs are celebrities and culinary school classes are burgeoning, The Reach of a Chef looks at the state of professional cooking in the post-Child, Food Network era. In the end, an audience who loves to talk about, read about, and dine in the finest restaurants in America gets an in-the-trenches look at the professionals whose very life's work is to feed us.
Anonymous
Posted June 24, 2006
I read the bestselling 'Making of a Chef' and 'Soul of a Chef' and was very eager to read this book. Both of Ruhlman's prevoius 'chef' books are entertaining reading and hold the reader's attention with wonderful detail and a sense of adventure. However, I find that reach of a chef has much less grip on the reader, and much more of Ruhlman's philosophizing. This makes more than a few chapters of this book very boring reading. I understand that Ruhlman has gone beyond describing the workings of a culinary class/restaurant kitchen and to a new aspect: the celebrity chef. However he manages to make the subject and his opinions on it rather bland and boring which had me nodding off after a few pages. Ruhlman has his own distinctive style which I greatly admire, not the brash no-holds-barred writing style of Bourdain which appeals in a different way,but this book is not one of Ruhlman's best.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 8, 2009
"The Reach of a Chef: Beyond the Kitchen" by Michael Ruhlman, talks about chefs today and how they are glorified. Not only does he talk about how chefs are glorified, he also talks about how there are so many different kinds of chefs in the world. "The Reach of a Chef" is written in the form of memoirs. Ruhlman tries to bring across the point that as a chef, the kitchen will always be there for you. It is the start of your career and can bring a chef many amazing things, but if a chef wants to get out of all the insanity and spotlight it will always be there for him waiting. This book has some pros and cons. The pros are that Ruhlman has a great background on the subject and the his interviews play a key part in the book. The cons are that the message isn't known until the last page and the organization of the book is kind of confusing.
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Posted January 27, 2010
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Overview
Michael Ruhlman has enjoyed a long love affair with cooking and food. His explorations of kitchens and the professionals who call them home led Anthony Bourdain to call him "the greatest living writer on the subject of chefs-and on the business of preparing food." But even his vast experience couldn't have prepared him for the profound shift ...