Customer Reviews

101 Things I Learned (TM) in Culinary School

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If this was published as a 15-page pamphlet I would give it 5 stars. However its not worth the $10.20 Amazon is selling it for. While nominally 200 pages, 1/2 the facing pages just have a simple illustration on them. On the pages that DO have printing, its usually just a paragraph or list of items centered on a page. And the pages are about the size of a large postcard. So while this book *does* have useful info and tips in it, I think of it more as a pamphlet in book form rather than a real book. Picked up for $2-5 it might be worth it, but I think its overpriced at $10.

I bought one for myself & one for my stepson (age 16) who desires to go to culinary school. I am not a chef, but I am very fluent and creative in the kitchen. This book is great for picking up tips and tricks, & PERFECT for beginners!

This book is not a textbook. It is a platform.

It coalesces information by subject into condensed packets. Some pages are brief, yet effective. Other pages can inspire you into hours of research. This book has opened my eyes to a whole new realm of culinary possibility.

Best of all. Its an easy and quick read.

I noticed this little book on a shop table in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia and tried to buy it. Shock! It wasn't for sale - just part of a display. Bought it from Amazon when I returned to the States as a small gift for my 15-year old budding chef (who, incidentally, dislikes reading). He opened it slowly, as if it was a tiny textbook, and started skimming the short factoids and hints. Within a few minutes, he was referring to it for recipe substitutions and "tricks" to shortcut some learning curves. He remarked that it reminded him of some of the things his chef-mentor in Philadelphia's Walnut Hill College had rattled off during a cooking session but he'd not had the time or ability to write down.

This is not a cookbook, but it's full of tips that a chef of any age can use to look and produce like a pro!

Im not just saying because Chef Eguaras is my new Culinary Instructor, but this book although yea its small, its very straight forward & gets to the point. I actually found myself learning things here & there from this book that i had no idea about. Safety & sanitation plays a big role in the Culinary Arts & a lot of people dont see that. I love my Chef instructors book & hope he comes out with book #2 soon!

I bought this for my daughter for Christmas and she loves it! I ordered it very close to Christmas and it still made it here on time!

I had the pleasure of meeting the author this past weekend while he helped conduct a belt test for Dragon Gym in Glen Mills, PA and got to find out about his wonderful book he was doing a signing for at our local bookstore, so I stopped in to get a copy and Wow ! All I can say is PLEASE KEEP WRITING more as he has so much experience and knowledge, first through the military which eventually had him cooking for dignitaries and presidents. He is very charming and handsome, I could easily see him soon having his own Food Network program and I wish him only the best in the future, this cookbook is full of basic tips that is wonderful for someone like me. I am sure his students in California learn quite a lot from him. He is extremely disciplined in his life and career. (he told us about his martial arts background that put him on the road to following his dreams in life) Great book, I would for sure recommend it and only hope there are more to follow.

101 Things I Learned in Culinary School packs in lessons on every course in a restaurant menu, from understanding changing culinary trends and new nutrition basic s to the food supply chain, cooking methods, restaurant management and financing. A chef has written this survey, using two-page layouts demonstrating important industry issues. No culinary library should be without this - as well as many a general lending library where home cooks check out neo-professional guides.

The tips in this booklet are worth reading and worth the $10 Amazon is charging for the book. On the other hand, the illustrations are laughably amateurish and detract from the book's quality. I wish they had also hired an editor who knew the difference between "alternately" and "alternatively."

First off, the key to approaching this book is that it's a book more or less for outsiders -- a culinary professional will know most of this stuff already, and you'll definitely need a lot more than just this if you're trying to work your way into the business without going to school.

Under most circumstances, any home cook's ambition to open a restaurant will at most remain an impossible dream, but the popularity of books like Kitchen Confidential and Momofuku will attest to a distinct interest among lay people in life in the back of the house; however, the testosterone-heavy, slash-and-burn writing style of Bourdain and Chang can be off-putting to some people. "101 Things" has most of this material, albeit from a more scholarly standpoint, mixing tips and quotes on food to give a lay reader an extremely concise but thorough taste of life in the restaurant world, as well as giving a home cook some material to think about regarding organization and technique.

Certainly I've written in the past of my admiration for little cookbooks; although there's little in the way of recipes here, it certainly fits well enough into the pattern. I wish it didn't cost *quite* so much; for what you get, ten bucks or less would be a bit more reasonable. But it's still an interesting little book for anyone curious about what they teach in culinary school.