The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America by Michael Ruhlman

The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America Reviews

• 
  Shelby *trains flying monkeys*

  I'm a food lover, I love talking about it, reading about it, preparing it, and yes, eating it. Chefs? They are some of my rock stars.
  
  
  
  I recently picked up Michael Ruhlman's book
  Ruhlman's Twenty: The Ideas and Techniques that Will Make You a Better Cook from the library and loved how he takes the simplest food items and actually makes you think about them.
  
  In 1996 Ruhlman enters the Culinary Institute of America aka the CIA as a student. They know he is writing a book based on his experiences there but he gets the same criticism's he would face as an average student. I didn't see any of the chef instructors and being too harsh though. They demanded perfection and you understood what they wanted from the beginning.
  
  As a chubby little foodie this book was a mecca of just rolled up wonderfulness. I worked in a few local restaurants in my teenage and early 20's but not to the level of the fine dining experiences that this book lets you get a glimpse of. I think in a different life I would have headed this way. I tend to obsess about food, the why's of why it is used the way it is and how to take simple food and make it taste better than that dish that you pop into the oven out of the freezer.
  This book gives Ruhlman's experiences with that. He seems to keep wanting to point out to his fellow classmates that he is a writer, not a cook. But along the time in the school he realizes that he is a damn fine cook.
  
  
  
  This book gives insight to the beginning of meals: from stock, to butchering the meats, to chopping vegetables. All that stuff that you never think about when eating away from home.
  
  
  
  I loved it because it gave me a glimpse of a career that I covet.
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Petra took longer to go thru TSA than fly to SJU

  This book stands alone as a brilliant introduction to exactly why the CIA is such a fantastic education for a chef. Nothing is left to intuition or presumed knowledge, everything is taught whether it is culinary maths or exactly how you lay out bones to roast for the perfect stock.
  
  Michael Ruhlman did most of the course both training to be a chef and writing about it as a journalist and so the book is rich with personalities and anecdotes.
  
  Molecular gastronomy is not something that the CIA has much interest in. It is very much based on French gastronomy. But nonetheless you can't help thinking that building up to the fancy smears and spit foams of heston Bluementhal and Ferran Adria from the building blocks of a traditional culinary education is probably better than just going in one time with gels and the powdery crackle of dry ice cream.
  
  More than anything Ruhlman shows what an extremely tough course is this Associates Degree in the Culinary Arts. 21 months of turn-up-even-in-blizzard-conditions or get marked down, chefs alwaysturn up, including proper professional experience not just at the compulsory externship but also in the four restaurants the CIA runs. These restaurants are open to the public who pay for their food, so they aren't about to smile politely at badly-cooked food because it was prepared by a student.
  
  At the end of the course, the students can go on to a Bachelor's degree, specialisations such as Pastry, or ones more science or business-based. All of them extremely expensive.
  
  But once out in the real world, the newly minted chefs can command much higher salaries than chefs who are self-taught or trained at lesser schools. It's not just the kudos of being a CIA graduate, it's also that employers know they have been trained with rigour, that all the bases have been covered, that these new chefs lack nothing except experience.
  
  If you read and enjoy the book as much as I did, you will probably want to read
  The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection. Also an excellent book. It helps to have read the Making of a Chef first though as Ruhlman has already been through the CIA and is revisiting and so should you be to get the full flavour of the follow-up book.
• 
  Kim N

  The Making of a Chef documents Michael Ruhlman's experiences inside the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). The first half of the book was especially interesting to me -- the approach to the training and content of the classes, the seriousness of the instructors, the techniques and cooking details, the overall intensity of the experience. But it's told from the perspective of a journalist. While Ruhlman had interest and potential as a cook, he didn't approach things with the same focus and absorption as some of his fellow students did. As the story about the blizzard seems to illustrate (Ruhlman drove into the city in a snowstorm to take a practical exam) his performance was driven by basic competitiveness and the need to prove he was not a wimp. He also got caught up in much of the minutiae (blonde vs. brown roue, for example) which fascinated him far more than it did me. I think the other question that preoccupied him was whether or not cooking could be "taught". Although stated multiple times in multiple ways by the CIA instructors, I didn't get the sense that Ruhlman fully grasped the relationship between the basic skills (taught at the CIA), experience, and personal talent. Anyone with sufficient motivation and common sense can be taught to cook well; those that excel are driven to apply their skills in more innovative and creative ways.
• 
  David

  I am not a "foodie" and I'm a lousy cook, but I love cooking shows, the Food Channel, and interesting books about food and cooking. This is not an interesting book about food and cooking.
  
  Ruhlman is a writer who went to chef school (at the Culinary Institute of America, America's premiere cooking school) to write about it, but one of his teachers told him he wasn't a real chef. This pissed Ruhlman off, so he decided to prove he could become a real chef, and he went through the whole program with as much determination as any of the other students.
  
  This could be an interesting saga, especially written by a professional writer, but instead it reads like the journal of a cooking school student. He tells us about his classes, his teachers, his services, now and then rambles a bit about brown sauce or tells us something about one of his fellow students, and just keeps going like that all the way to the end. There are no interesting facts or surprising revelations about food or cooking school, just a very dry, matter-of-fact account of the industry. Ruhlman's writing is journalistic and without personality.
  
  I suppose if you're thinking about going to cooking school, this is a good book to get a taste of what it's like. But compared to, for example, Trevor Corson's The Story of Sushi or one of Anthony Bourdain's books, this book was just dull.
• 
  Julie Davis

  I remember how impressed I was by this book when it first came out. Rereading it so many years later, I am still impressed. You are pulled inside the Culinary Institute and also that mentality which separates the chefs from the cooks.
  
  And, most importantly, it is thoroughly enjoyable although conveying tons of cooking information. No wonder I love it.
• 
  Matt

  It's possible that this book has helped change my life... I was already leaning towards trying to become a chef, but this book may have provided the push that I needed.
  
  I have never before been so engaged in a subject, literally hanging on every word. I mean who wouldn't be interested in the best rue to use for making the consummate brown sauce??!?!! All right, I know that most of you wouldn't, but to me, that was fascinating. Told with interesting anecdotes and insightful musings, Ruhlman paints a picture of the CIA, that, by all rights, shouldn't be available uness you have attended the school.
  
  This book did for me what all good books should. It made me want to dive in to the subject. I want to start making my own stocks, I want to (gasp) try baking, something I've never been interested in.
  
  If you are remotely interested in the growing foodie world, this is a must read!
• 
  Andrew

  Like most or at the very least a lot of people, I learned about Michael Ruhlman owing to his connections to the late Monsieur Bourdain, but I've since used his books as major reference texts in my own cooking adventures. And his story of training in the high-pressure kitchens of the CIA was gripping. Also, as someone who is constantly being told “dude, you should open a restaurant,” it's a reminder that no, no I shouldn't, because I legit don't hav what it takes to work the line, at least not at this point in my life, let alone handle the responsibilities of running one of the most assuredly losing types of business out there. At the same time, it's an absolute love letter to the struggle of cooking professionally, and a hat doffed to those poor bastards made for that line of work.
• 
  Julie

  Wonderful book about the education at the Culinary Institute of America. The author, Michael Ruhlman, enrolls as a student at the CIA and describes his experience while obtaining his associate degree. My favorite part of the novel was Michael's interviews with the instructors.
• 
  Casey

  The Making of a Chef is an interesting peek inside the Culinary Institute of America, which is the most important culinary school in the United States. Ruhlman is passionate about food, and writes about it well. Had I read this book in the 90's, I would have given it 4 stars.
  
  Many things in the world of food, however, have changed significantly. In the 90's, food wasn't intellectualized beyond the small sphere of bay area hippies who championed farm-to-table operations. That's not just speculation, since Ruhlman himself admits that only one of his fellow CIA students really thought about the food. Now, farmers markets are in cities across the country, and people are becoming increasingly concerned about organic produce, free-range meats, and sustainability. When the book was written, Top Chef (and all the cooking competition knock-offs) didn't exist; last year, I had to wait three months to snag a reservation at Top Chef Stephanie Izard's
  Girl and the Goat (worth it, by the way). But the biggest change is the food itself. When I ate at Wolfgang Puck's Spago in the early 2000's, I thought smoked salmon pizza was the height of culinary creativity. Thinking back on it, the pizza seems like something I might decide to make only while super high and out of prosciutto.
  
  High-end dining has changed. The French Laundry was bought by Thomas Keller in 1994, but it didn't become the best restaurant in the world until 2003. In the late 90's, oysters and pearls would have been an out of this world, brand new, never-before attempted experience (I'm sure they're still out of this world, at least in Keller's comptent hands). Today, that kind of dish might get you kicked off of Top Chef, since it's been over copied and overdone. If I had lived in Chicago during the mid to late 90's (as a 20-something, mind you. During the late 90's, my 13 year old self was doing a lot of cooking, but most of it consisted of loaded tacos and chicken pot pies), I would have been doing my best to grab a reservation at Charlie Trotter's. Most of my Chicagoan foodie friends only vaguely know who Charlie Trotter is. In a world where you can experience whatever Grant Achatz is cooking up, Trotter seems like a dinosaur (and if he's really the asshole he's purported to be, he probably deserves it). Nowadays, people know who great chefs like Graham Elliot and Rick Bayless are. They'd tweet about it if they saw them at Whole Foods. People really, deeply care about food.
  
  This didn't seem to be true in the 90's. And I'm not saying that because 90's me was more interested in N'sync than cuisine. I'm saying it because things have changed a lot since Top Chef, and the Food Network, and blogging, and Yelp. Hell, even my mom venerates farm-to-table advocates like Alice Waters and Rick Bayless. Ruhlman's book loses something, not by any fault of its own, but because it doesn't anticipate the revolution that was about to take place. When Ruhlman started culinary school, El Bulli hadn't even gotten its third star, so I don't blame him for not being prescient enough to predict the importance of molecular gastronomy. I do wonder what a book about the CIA would be like today though (literary agents, I'm more than willing to write this, if you'll pay for it).
  
  Nowhere is the shift from "California pizza" to "European-inspired locally sourced seasonal sharable small-plates (with organic wines and small-batch craft beer)" more apparent than at the end of the book, where Ruhlman describes his experiences working on restaurant row (in other words, at the restaurants run by the CIA). I get the distinct impression that I wouldn't enjoy eating there. There's some real strange "health" food cooking here, which feels particularly outdated. Apparently, the goal of St. Andrew's Cafe, one of the restaurants at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, was to serve "healthier" foods. In the fat-phobic 90's, this was done by piling plates full of (fat free) carbohydrates and replacing real foods, like cream, with evaporated skim milk. No, just no. It's hard to believe that students learned to make pasta (and pizza!) as a health food. Luckily, the CIA has abandoned this bizarre practice by turning St. Andrew's into a sustainable farm-to-table concept.
  
  I bet Ruhlman's pleased that my friends and I can spend a Friday evening at
  The Purple Pig, snacking on house-cured lardo and spreading bone marrow on artisan bread. I'm sure he's even more pleased that we can hold a long, and intellectually thrilling, conversation about our favorite ways to cure ham (I'm seriously obsessed with prosciutto di parma, but my friends swear that jambon is far superior. We'll have to agree to disagree). But the thing Ruhlman would be most happy about is our realization that a quality stock is the most important thing you can learn how to cook (I've given stock out as a birthday gift. No joke). Because that's one thing that hasn't changed: knowing the basics will get you further than an immersion circulator ever can.
• 
  Harlan

  This is a mediocre book about a really great experience. Mr. Ruhlman's writing is inconsistent, and a little hero-worship-y. This said, it is a book about become good at something that he (and the other chefs and students in the book) clearly loves, and the enthusiasm shines through and makes for a compelling read. This said again, this is only a compelling read if you know something about fine dining and food, and are interested in immersing yourself in that world. There's not much to this book for non-foodie readers, and his dwelling on points of roux color and plating would bore many potential readers. As for me, it made me want to go to cooking school, but made me definitely not want to become a chef!
• 
  Andy

  Michael Ruhlman's account of studying at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) reminds me of all those crazy George Plimpton books in the Sixties, but Ruhlman is more than just a mere dabbler in the art of cookery.
  
  The Making Of A Chef is a very amusing book in places, i.e. his fellow students explaining why they're in school, "I'm not good at anything else", "I thought it would keep me out of trouble", sounding like a bunch of enlisted men in the Army and realizing it wasn't as easy as they thought.
  
  What I enjoyed most was the various instructors' impressions on cooking, some approaching like master chemists - "cooking is chemistry that tastes good", other instructors laying a very Zen take on the art of cooking, paring ingredients down to a basic three ingredients - "that's all you need, everything else is just noise". John Cage, your dinner is ready.
• 
  Emily

  Umm, it was an interesting book, I thought I'd like it a lot more since I'm obsessed with cooking, and it is good and inspiring and reminds me that I'm quite happy cooking but NOT going to culinary school ever. Still, I think Ruhlman's Walk on Water was ten times better.
  
  Also, I'm not particularly impressed with the audio version. It's been entertaining while I'm cleaning my apartment or knitting and such, but the reader's voice is kind of irritating and not really very emotional, or at least doesn't express the correct emotions at the time. Also, they have a lot of errors where they were clearly splicing recordings and it repeats. So if you aren't in to audiobooks, don't start with this one.
• 
  miteypen

  This book is primarily about the Culinary Institute of America (aka CIA), the way it trains chefs (or did, at the time when this book was written), its history and personality sketches of some of the key players (instructors, the president, other students). But there is also a slew of information about cooking itself (how to make a roux, different kinds of sauces, etc.), how to work the front of the house (i.e., wait staff), the meaning of food, and most of all, what it takes to make a chef. I thought it was fascinating even though a lot of it went over my head because I am decidedly not a cook. It did, however, inspire me to be more adventuresome in my cooking and to take more time to make the preparing and partaking of food into quality experiences.
• 
  Gina

  I decided to read this after reading Ruhlman's latest, "Ratios." It's a compelling read about working through the culinary program at CIA, but it also delves into ruminations about quality that reminded me of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." The passion with which these chefs teach is inspiring, not only for cooking but may be applied to whatever you are passionate about. Not only was this a good book exploring American cooking, the CIA experience and cooking in general, but it inspires me to apply these principles of perfection and passion into my own life and work.
• 
  Paul Horstmann

  I would recommend this book to my cooking friends and family. It provides a detailed coverage of a student chef, through the program offer by the CIA. Having taken a few courses at the CIA, Michael’s descriptions are spot on. Also, his thoughts on the emotional growth of the students on this journey are insightful. I would have given this book a higher rating, however the writing is a bit clunky, and there are several editorial errors. You have to really like the work that goes into good food to fully enjoy this book.
• 
  Christine Proulx

  A very interesting look at how chefs are taught at the CIA-- at least, how they were taught in the late 90's.
• 
  Lex

  Fantastic book. I will definitely reread this whenever I want to feel as if I've stepped back into the kitchen.
• 
  Maida

  Fascinating but could use some updates.
  
  I played this at 1.3x. Any slower would have bored me. There’s lots of information I can use in my cooking and writing but would probably consult the paperback further for details I couldn’t catch in the audio.
• 
  Starburst

  Listened to it on audiobook. I thought it was really interesting, although it was almost too detailed at times. Would not recommend listening to books about food while running.
• 
  Josephine

  You know that old saying about how some people live to eat while others eat to live?
  
  I think foodies think that living to eat automatically makes them somehow knowledgeable about food — you know, just because they like to stuff their gobs and eat a lot of both good and bad things.
  
  I refuse to call myself a foodie because what I respect is different from a simple appreciation of good food — it’s the process that goes into growing food and getting it to the table.
  
  When you read Michael Ruhlman’s “The Making of a Chef,” you can tell he’s the same way.
  
  Having read “Heat” by Bill Buford, I really wanted to check out “The Making of a Chef” as well — in a way, it was a great way to see two different avenues for wannabe-chefs to learn the trade.
  
  With “Heat” you saw what it was like learning on the line while, with “The Making of a Chef” you tagged along with Ruhlman as he toiled through the Culinary Institute of America.
  
  And trust me, it was fascinating…or, maybe, I found it fascinating because I think good chefs embody everything that I value: It’s about paying attention to details.
  
  In the winter of 1996, journalist Ruhlman joined the students at the Culinary Institute of America, the country’s oldest and most influential cooking school — which isn’t exactly easy.
  
  “The curriculum is logical in conception and relentless in practice. Life here is marched out in three-week intervals and there is no stopping.” (p.16)
  
  At the CIA, Ruhlman learns from several talented instructors. Chef Michael Pardus, who teaches Skills, hammers in the notion that you have to demand excellence in yourself.
  
  What’s fascinating is when Ruhlman describes meeting Chef Uwe Hestnar, a team leader who presided over a team of twenty chef-instructors running the formative kitchens.
  
  It’s cool reading about Ruhlman’s chat with Hestnar because this was where his book Ratio sprung from.
  
  I know for sure that I’d never be able to hack it in culinary school. (Ruhlman even remarks in the intro that he’s had a few readers thank him for writing this book because it convinced them not to go to culinary school.)
  
  Just take a look at some of the homework questions and what they were like:
  
  Convert twelve quarts and twelve tablespoons into a single unit of quarts.
  How many cups are there in four pounds of honey?
  You’re catering a function of 350 people; you estimate that each person will eat three quarters of a cup of potato chips; how many pounds of chips should you order?
  
  I thought this book was totally fascinating and I know I’ll definitely be picking up the other books in this series.
• 
  Heather(Gibby)

  I am still wavering between a three and four star, I may upgrade it if the book stays with me. This is a non-fiction account of journalist Michael Ruhlman's experience in the Culinary Institute of America. I found the first half of the book extremely interesting as it got into the science of cooking, and the chemical reactions that different ingredients and cooking methods had on food. The author's journey into feeling like a real cook, rather than just writing about cooking is also very interesting. However I did find the book began to get quite repetitive into the latter half, and the "great debate" over using pale vs. brown roux when making brown sauce gets tedious in short order. It did spark a interest in getting back to basics in the kitchen though.
• 
  Melody

  Interesting though not riveting tale of a writer who goes to school at the CIA. I liked learning how Ruhlman made the transition in his head from "writer" to "cook" and I enjoyed the descriptions of the classes and the outsized personalities of the instructors. The narrator said ri-CO-tah instead of RI-CAH-teh, which bid fair to make me crazy every time. Yes, yes, I know it's a perfectly acceptable alternate pronunciation. But it's wrong to my ear.
• 
  Phil Breidenbach

  I really enjoyed reading this book, even though some of the things he wrote about were unknown to me. I enjoy cooking, but not at the level of the Culinary Institute of America, but then again, maybe I should! They strive not for just good, but for perfect! It isn't a cookbook or a "how to" book, it tells Michaels journey through the school. He tells it well!
• 
  pianogal

  I really liked this one for as long as it took me to get through it. Now I want to go to culinary school. Sigh. If only I were independently wealthy...
  
  The only thing that's not my favorite about Ruhlman's books is that he breaks them up into almost completely unrelated sections. You keep having to recommit each time the section changes. Not bad, just a little unexpected.
• 
  Sandi

  I thought this book did a great job of showing how intense being a student at the CIA is. The writer started out trying just to observe but quickly got caught up in the first skills class and decided he really wanted to be a real cook.
• 
  Rick

  My favorite "chef" book. Ruhlman really hits it with his description of life at the Culinary Institute. One feels the stress and perceives the development of the pride at becoming a potential chef. Great read!
• 
  Christy

  My favourite aspect of this well written book is the author's refusal to make this book about himself. It's not a narcissistic, dream-come-true-but-woe-is-me book that is so typical of many non-fiction today.