The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
By: Michael Ruhlman / Narrated By: Jeff Riggenbach
Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
Loved it Loved it Loved it—but Jeff Riggenbach should be shot… Wait! Is that too harsh? Nope, don’t think so…
I dunno how many many MANY times I’ve told y’all how I deSPIse cooking but I ADORE all things Foodie. Seriously, for a wee bit o’ time, I was a Kitchen Goddess, then I decided I haaated dicing (So there goes THAT), and I turned instead to TV Cooking Shows (“Chopped” anyone?!). And audiobooks featuring Chefs and what-all.
So Thanksgiving’s Food audiobook choices have me tickled near ‘bout to death and so delighted I dang near wet m’self. Considering this isn’t my first Michael Ruhlman (The first was the wonderful The Soul of a Chef), I had desperately high hopes coming into The Making of a Chef, whereby Ruhlman dons chef’s jacket and houndstooth pants and meets up with a beginner’s class at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America—THE place to go if ya wanna do it the right way!). See, he’s namely a writer after a story, but he kinda sorta has an itsy bitsy bit of a hankering to be a chef. Well, food and techniques interest him, and he’s been allowed this opportunity to get an in-depth story by joining the grunts.
And so he meets up with a ragtag gang of oddballs as they each see if they’ve got what it takes to enter the rarified air that Top Chefs (Oh gosh, love that show tooooo!) exist in, are venerated in. In this Fundamentals class, the Chef teaching it is giving him the sorta squid’s-eye, he’s simply tolerating this interloper, esPECially as Ruhlman does goofball things like cuts himself and starts dripping blood. Oooooh, that’s nooo way to impress the Chef.
-But- He valiantly strides on, desperate to learn it all, to do it all properly. And this is where I finally cried wolf and decided narrator Jeff Riggenbach should be throttled with fettuccine (Done al dente, naturally) till his vocal cords are so compromised that P’RAPS something other than a bland monotone comes from his throat. Gimme SOMEthing Jeff! Oh gosh, I durn-near wept when Ruhlman, after slaving away with the sheer overwhelming amount of chemistry and art demanded to make a fine consommé actually receives a tiiiiiny bit of positive feedback, and all he can do is, no, not get on with his work but stand there gazing lovingly at his clear broth, feeling relieved and elated and near-bout ready to weep with joy… and Riggenbach pretty much lazily mumbles his way through it as tho’ he’s reeeeading but reeeeally he’s thinking about whether socks should be folded or rolled in a ball before being tucked away in a drawer.
Huh, whazza? Riggenbach snorts as he makes a vague attempt or two to wake up and remember that he WAS PAID TO DO A JOB BUT HE’S NOT DOING IT!!! Oh my good golly gosh, dear fellow Accomplice. Cuz the consommé was only the tip of the meringue. Lost, sooo sadly lost, is when Chef Pardus, the Fundamentals chef near-nuff smacks Ruhlman with The Pistols at Dawn Gauntlet when Ruhlman says he can’t get to class due to a snowstorm: You’re not like us, Pardus blandly intones: For a Chef, there IS no snowstorm, there’s only the kitchen, there’s only the art and necessity of the cooking.
It really chaps Ruhlman’s hide, and suddenly he finds himself skidding through icy patches, snow piled feet high on the sides of the road. How DARE Pardus imply that Ruhlman isn’t like the rest of them?
Plus there are aaaaallll the other classes, all the other teaching chefs, and there’s the very head of the CIA to interview, that enigma of an urbane dude who causes hearts to beat faster in nervous agitation, who causes perfect soufflés to fall as he glides silently past. Ruhlman is struck dumb by him, but he SHALL interview him, yes he shall!
There’s sooo much drama in it all, so very many stories of so very many characters and all their personalities and emotional baggage being dragged along with them. And oh my, there’s so much Cooking, so many Techniques. But Riggenbach blew it cuz the man really couldn’t make up his mind: Should I read this sentence like I know what I’m talking about (Uhm, obviously not when he pronounces Sauté as Satay—Dude, can you pleeease just attempt?) -Or- Should I just shuffle around in this little recording studio and lose my place in between sentences and add weird pregnant pauses in here and there (Uhm, obviously Yes).
If you’re hankering for a wonderful story about the challenges of a newbie with the heart of a seasoned chef, and if you’re okay with kinda listening and then translating all into something that sounds exciting, by all means go for this audiobook. I TRULY enjoyed Ruhlman’s journey.
It’s just that I think we’ve better offerings in our Thanksgiving Food section.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve gotta dash to the Deli section of the SuperCenter across the street cuz the story has me yearning for the smells of various delicacies roasting and such-all. And after that?
I think I’ll get a little doll from Amazon, name it Jeff Riggenbach, and Dude! how I’ll stick needles into it…!
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