Eric Ripert

I should start by admitting how big a fan I am of Chef Eric Ripert, having eaten his food on one memorable occasion and enjoyed his many television appearances over the years with the late Anthony Bourdain. So, I was excited for the chance to read a book that might provide a deeper insight into his personality and culinary process. However, I was also a little wary at the outset because far too frequently I have found that cookbooks by celebrity chefs can be shallow vanity projects not show more worthy of the time they require to digest. Happily, Vegetable Simple rises far beyond that level.

As Ripert himself admits in an introductory essay, a cookbook featuring vegetables might seem like a curious choice for someone who has built his career and reputation around cooking fish. It is not strange at all, as it turns out, given his appreciation for the simplicity and beauty of well-executed plant-based dishes that he developed from cooking with his parents and grandparents as a boy growing up in France. In fact, Ripert makes a passionate case that vegetables deserve to be central ingredients in their own right, a position that he has increasingly adopted in his own cooking. His aim with this project is to showcase the flavors and qualities of those products.

Overall, Vegetable Simple does just that. The book contains more than 100 separate recipes covering the gamut of courses from salads and appetizers to main dishes and desserts. Just as comprehensive is the range of vegetables and fruits he includes, from the well-known (potatoes, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes) to the less common (rutabaga, endive, delicata squash). Before each recipe, he offers a brief description of what makes it special, as well as, in some cases, what his personal connection is to the dish. These charming passages were almost too brief but provided great insight into just how much he loves his craft. Each of the recipes is also beautifully illustrated with a color photograph of the finished dish.

There are some real standouts among this collection, although I suspect that each reader will have their own list of which are the winners. For me, the most appealing recipes tended to include the heartier courses, such as Mushroom Bolognese, Vietnamese Pho, Vegetable Pistou, Green Asparagus Tempura, and Warm Golden Beets, Aged Balsamic. Honestly, though, I am not sure that there is a single recipe in the volume that I would not be happy to try at least once. The only real criticism I have is that some of the preparation and cooking instructions seemed surprisingly involved; I guess “simple” can be a relative concept for an accomplished chef. Nevertheless, this is a cookbook that I will enjoy using for a long time. show less

Truly a gorgeous book, but I won't be cooking from it. Some of the recipes are so simple that they're not really recipes. (Cut a perfectly ripe tomato in half, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with a high quality olive oil. Eat.)
Nigel Parry's photos are the best part and they'll inspire readers to search out and eat seasonal vegetables. But even if Eric Ripert tells me to eat zucchini noodles, I just don't wanna.

Read it if you want to fall in love with produce, be inspired to eat show more simply and put vegetables at the front of your meal and page through gorgeous full-page photos.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review. show less

This food memoir stands on its own apart from the crowd. The level of personal depth and emotional revelation is just on its own sphere. From the opening chapter we learn of 11-year-old Eric's devastation at his father's death, and how food became a comfort and a substitute for love, both from his mother and from other sources.

This memoir is in turns inspiring, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. A lot of Eric's history as a young boy is painful to read, and there are raw moments of real pain, show more suffering, lashing out at his relatives, and a troubled childhood. Through it all, food and the preparation of it became his salvation. As he grew older, it became a haven and refuge, so it was no big surprise that he entered what we call high school wanting to become a chef.

He takes us through these formative years and later his training in culinary school, to finally his tough first jobs in fast-paced and high-pressured positions in famous 3-star restaurant kitchens, where young apprentices continue to be physically and emotionally bullied as a rite of passage through their on-the-job training to work as a chef. In memoir after memoir, chefs recount the description of working in these kitchens, with their 12-hour shifts, backbreaking monotonous jobs, oven-hot settings, and pure abuse by their higher-ups, and here, Ripert, like other chefs, seems to love the job, though it seems to nearly break the spirit and will of everyone who tries it. It's torturous, hot, and sends blood pressure through the roof, but there appears to be no job quite like it if you love food and cooking, and no other place a chef would ever want to be. It's the crucible that creates the chef.

Thank you to the authors and publisher for a review copy.

This is a fascinating coming-of-age story told by someone who loves to cook show less

I love that the first chapter of this memoir is titled, in part, “First, Dessert,” and it’s apt -- a sweet chapter where 11-year-old Ripert is befriended by a professional chef who welcomes him into the restaurant kitchen. The chef is reputed to be a lunatic, which he is not; but other people important to Ripert are (including an abusive stepfather and a later chef-mentor). So after having enjoyed the chapter of literary dessert, Ripert circles back to recount the less-enjoyable show more vegetable (so to speak) phases he endured on his way toward dessert.

The writing is incredibly visual, always looking through Ripert’s perspective, which is pleasant though with hints of anger. It reminded me a bit of Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood Bones and Butter (which I loved) in terms of a utopic family falling apart and a lost child persevering toward creativity and a home in the kitchen.

I have three quibbles. First is that Ripert devotes so many words (in a short book) to complaining (which is what it felt like, vs. something more powerful and effective) about the abuses by renown chef Joel Robuchon. Second, he shows us the operations of restaurant kitchens but doesn’t show much about cooking -- for example, he repeats and repeats that it takes years (not weeks, which I might understand) to master making a sauce but never explores why. And third, he seems to cut the memoir short and set up a part two by ending this book just as he departs his native France to work in New York City, where he’ll open the fabulous Le Bernardin and become a media personality.

I enjoyed reading 32 Yolks but think Ripert wrote it too early -- his life needed more composting and his career more substance.

(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.) show less