The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection

This book contains three “backstage” views on cooking in contemporary America. My favorite two pieces were the opener, describing the excruciating Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America, and the closer, spent in the kitchen of French Laundry — reportedly America’s best restaurant. Both accounts were crammed with detail, enabling the reader to experience an otherwise closed-off world to most of us. Ruhlman does get a bit long-winded and, frankly, over-effusive at the end, especially for someone who gets offended when anyone calls cooking an “art.” But the otherwise fascinating writing more than makes up for that.

Soul of a Chef is food writer Michael Ruhlman’s experience as a student going through the esteemed Culinary Institute of America. For someone who’s thought about working in a restaurant, the book was an eye-opener; it gave me a view of the CIA without actually having to attend it.

Ruhlman manages to deftly convey his enthusiasm for food as well as the enthusiasm of the people he writes about. Instructors and teachers all have their own personal quirks and beliefs and Ruhlman writes them down without seeming too didactic or biased. I especially liked the section on the bread baking course because it’s easy to imagine the love the instructor of that course has for something as seemingly simple as a loaf of bread.

Soul of a Chef is show more informative and enjoyable to read, but I wouldn’t call it a page-turner. I had been stuck at the last few chapters of the book for a while because I just didn’t feel like finishing it. I do recommend reading it while eating though, because I found myself getting hungry otherwise. The book isn’t the most exciting thing I’ve read, I would recommend it to anyone thinking of attending the CIA. show less

This was a fun book. It can be a little wordy and over the top in parts..but so is the author's enthusiasm for his subject. I have no desire to eat dishes on the culinary levels of these chefs but really enjoyed learning about the process, mechanics and inspirations that drive them.

The Soul of a Chef is really three short books all based on Michael Ruhlman's observation of what it takes to become a chef. In the 1st , and by far the most enjoyable, Ruhlman observes the 14 day examination for the Certifed Master Chef title. In the 2nd, he follows Michael Symon's early career as he opens the Lola restaurant. In the 3rd, and least enjoyable, he describes his love for Thomas Keller. Ruhlman is a good writer, he knows food, and his books are definately worth reading - they are also annoying. When Ruhlman is observing and sharing, the books are fantastic - when he is opining, you just want him to shut up. He is always waxing poetical about the French style of cooking - he never talks about cooking in France. If you look show more at Thomas Keller as just another three star chef (who learnt from apprhenticeships) then he fails to look like the second coming. Furthermore, Ruhlman can cook - but he has never been a chef - still he accepts a holier than thou attitude about how to do things that is independent of financial necessity. Restaurants sink or swim based on profit margin, not on being true to Escoffier. show less

This is the first of this author's books that I've picked up, and I will have to read more. This presents three views of what excellence in cooking means, and although the description and praise is a bit much at times, particularly in the last section, I found the overview really interesting. I enjoy cooking, although I never considered it as a career, and I found inspiration in many of the stories told here.

The three sections are a lot of fun individually, and in retrospect they do hang together, although I wouldn't have said so whilst in the middle of reading. The prose in the Keller section tips over the edge in overblown, and I would have liked more follow-up on the Certified Master Chef participants (did the test change the life of the guy who passed? what about the people who left? what do the people around them think of the whole episode?), and I loved the portraits of the people in the kitchen in the Cleveland chapter. A quite good example of creative nonfiction, all in all.

What does it take to be a chef?

Michel Ruhlman explores this question in his book, The Should of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection. He spends a third of his time observing chefs as they try to attain the ultra elusive Certificated Master Chef (CMC) at the Culinary Institute of America. To this day, the total number of CMCs number less than 100. Is this what it means to be a true chef? The next third he spends observing the inner workings of the Lola restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. Has Michael Symone, the owner of the restaurant, shown what it takes to be the ultimate chef? Lastly, he spends some time at one of the most popular and famous restaurants in the country, French Laundry, in Napa Valley, California. Does the story of failure show more to success of Thomas Keller exemplify what it means to be a chef? Read and you'll find out.

Ruhlman writes with an easy prose, captivating the reader in and describing in enough detail to get your mouth watering as you try to decide if you want to make the dish yourself. I did find that his narrative did seem to drag on a various points throughout his book, primarily near the end of each of the respective three sections. It really came down to Ruhlman asking himself the questions of what makes a chef a chef. And like most things in life, it really depends on the context of the situation. There's difference ways to measure, and perhaps his observations eventually led to his own self-discovery of what the answer to the question is.

It's a wonderful read, and it did require me to look up a few of the cooking concepts described. He even ends with a few complicated recipes at the end of the book. Perhaps one day if I feel up to the task, then perhaps I will look into these recipes. show less