Customer Reviews

Chef, Interrupted: Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make at Home

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`Chef, Interrupted' by leading cookbook co-author, Melissa Clark is a better than average collection of recipes from a very large number (more than the 26 named on the cover) of prominent chefs from around the country, ranging from Batali, Bouley, Boulud, and Colicchio in New York City to Judy Rodgers in San Francisco to Norman Van Aken in Miami to Charlie Trotter in Chicago to Tom Douglas in Seattle.

The factor which makes this better than a simple collection of recipes from famous chefs is the fact that the recipes are simplified and stated by a single expert culinary writer, backed by a single team of recipe testers. This immediately makes the book more valuable than your average collection from diverse sources such as the recent `Today Show' collection of recipes from the TV show talent and various `visiting fireman' chefs, including many of the same names such as Batali and Boulud.

But, one must ask, is this book really worth it. If I apply my `one good recipe' rule, it passes on the strength of a Bobby Flay recipe for the Spanish Tortilla (potato frittata). It's not as if I don't already have a good half dozen recipes for this dish, but Flay spices it up with garlic and embellishes it with bell peppers, a very traditional Spanish ingredient.

Daniel Boulud's blurb on the back of the dust jacket hits upon the primary value of the book. It contains lots of recipes whose innate values and high name recognition sources will easily impress. For a less than standard $35 list price, you get recipes from practically every recognized chef in the country without having to buy forty different books with forty different styles of presenting recipes.

This largely answers the question about the book for those who have three cookbooks, but what about those of us who already own cookbooks done by half the collaborators for this book. I checked `East of Paris', the book with which Clark collaborated with David Bouley and found that neither of the recipes in Clark's book were in the Bouley / Clark collaboration. This leads me to believe that most, if not all of the recipes in this book are new to this book, although the author makes no statement to that effect. At the very least, their statement is new to this book.

One problem with this book is that we loose some of the aspects that make the chefs' work original. Since we can still buy their books, this is a small concession.

While the cover announces that these are recipes you can actually make at home, no not take this as a claim of being `fast' or `easy'. Most take over an hour and most also take a fairly large ingredient list.

My only objection to the style of the book is that some recipe names should have been translated, as with Jonathan Waxman's `Pollo al Forno with Panzanella'. Foodies will recognize it as baked chicken with a bread salad, but the translation would have been good for the non-foodies, since it is that audience for which the book is best suited.

I like the fact that the author didn't feel compelled to add chapters on making stocks, dressings, or other pantry items, especially as every contributing chef probably does it in a different way anyway.

For what it does, this is a superior book, much better than any other omnibus book I can think of, such as some from the Food Network Kitchens, but you will have to carefully weigh whether it adds value to your cookbook collection.

This is a chef cookbook without the heartache. It's got at least two "wows" going for it - it's a very broad sampler of of great chef recipes, and it makes innovative dishes accessible to those of us who don't have 2 days to build a sauce. Chef Interrupted is full of inventive recipes that an employed person, with a decently-equipped kitchen and a good supermarket, can make with total success.

The recipes are startlingly delicious. Steak with spiced coconut sauce? Tomato and watermelon salad with ricotta?? Rosemary polenta pound cake??? I was attracted to the weird stuff first, and it was simple and delicious to make. I can tell you my girlfriend was delighted. I'm a good cook though not an adventurous one, and this book's an inspiration. There are more conventional dishes too, and I'm getting new ideas from each one. I thought the shortcuts might dull the food down, but generally they allow the core idea of the dish to come through even stronger. I haven't found a clunker yet. It's such fun to try the new stuff that I'm cooking at home more just so I can see what happens next.

When chefs do cookbooks they go to dizzy heights I can't always follow, and speak a language I only half understand. Clark teases out their passion and motives and translates them without dumbing them down. The notes are practical and amusing. She has a genius for catching the spark and essence of both the chef and the dish. Even the cover photo shows this (though you don't totally get it till you see the photo on page 265). If The Babbo Cookbook makes you the famished fly on the wall of Batali's kitchen, then Chef Interrupted flies you to forty kitchens where a charming and brilliant interpreter helps you get your hands on some real food.

I just got this book as a gift from a friend and I've already made two of the recipes -- rack of lamb w/cumin and salt crust (YUM!) and pizza with garlic pesto and ricotto (more YUM!). i usually don't make pizza at home, but this was ttally doable -- and delicious - and the lamb was too easy and so sophisticated and wonderful. The tips from the chefs and the writer are really useful -- and there are drink tips that i found really helpful, too. It was a great gift and I'd highly recommend it for any enthusiastic home cook/foodie.

Clark does a neat service to burgeoning gourmets by taking otherwise master chef recipes and decoding, simplifying them down to essential steps and/or ingredients, that make them far more home-chef friendly.

This cookbook writer/food writer has in past helped likes of Bouley and Boulud with their cookbooks, now takes it another step by taking their recipes and those of other famous chefs and "interrupts" them as they would make them at the restaurant by interpreting them for home prep.

The results are spectacular, with the chef list sounding like a "who is who of culinary world": Flay, Ripert, Bouley, Trotter, et al. Their interrupted recipes are the same, spectacular: Cornmeal Hazelnut Biscotti; Butterscotch Custards; Warm Chocolate Cakes with Coffee Ice Cream and Cashew Brittle; Goat Cheese Cake withThyme-Macerated Raspberry Compote; Veal Ricotta Meatballs; Roasted Pork Chops with Peaches and Basil; Wine Poached Filet Mignon with Aromatics; Pastrami Stuffed Trout with Green Cabbage, Pickled Blueberries and Walnuts; Slow-Cooked Salmon wiht Chive Oil and Apple-Rosemary Puree; Curried Sweet Corn and Cocunut Soup with Carmelized Mango.

As you can tell, this is extensive, exciting collection that I am very upbeat about its use in my collection. What I find very useful and attractive is her unique intro to each recipe, filled with all kinds of tidbits for the culinary junkie, e.g. sneaking to Bouley's kitchen to spy; and her "tips" on all kinds of useful info, e.g. kind of wine to use, frozen vs. fresh, etc.

Limited color photos, but this doesn't really detract from attractiveness. Chefs will start salivate looking at recipe title and ingredients, and sensing relative reduction in technique difficulty and ingredients, will want to cook and serve to friends.

This is neat concept, deftly pulled off in style. One will get sense that this lady is into great food and aiding home gourmet to attempt more of famous chef creations, given your interruption aid.

Great gift for that chef in your life.

This book is brilliant. Melissa Clark managed to get leading Chefs to share their cherished recipes but took it one step further by removing all the fuss and the time consuming garnishes you don't care about. What you are left with is the essence of the recipe. The amateur cook will have no problem re-creating the recipes with Delicious results. I am a Private Chef in New York and I LOVE her Veal Ricotta Meatballs recipe sooo much that i had to write about it on my blog, i guess i owe her for my latest raise, thanks Melissa! Needless to say, this book is highly recommended!

In love? Behold, the way to a man's heart: Vanilla poached shrimp with a tangy rhubarb chutney and butter sauce. Roasted porkchops with fresh peaches and basil. Fig tart with Parmesan ice cream. Yellow pepper and toasted almond soup, fragrant with bell peppers and saffron.

Made any of those lately? Here lies a bold, gutsy collection reflecting the latest generation of American cuisine. Not for the faint of heart or the pale of palate, all these recipes come with Melissa's Tips for pulling them off, complete with compromises where necessary.

Bet it never crossed your mind you'd need Star Anise in the spice rack. Without it, you cannot make the candied Kumquats for Melissa Clark's homemade version of Duck Confit Salad and Pistachios, served at Jardiniere, San Francisco. Tip: You can't buy Star Anise at Costco. Stock up today.

For David Bouley's Salmon with chive oil and apple-rosemary puree, Clark vetos the bottled version I have in the fridge: "If you can't get fresh horseradish, it's better to leave it out entirely than to use the vinegary prepared kind sold in jars." Remember that when you tackle Filet Mignon pot au feu with horseradish cream. Clark's FYI: "Fresh horseradish root is easiest to find in the spring and late fall, and is easiest to grate in a food processor." Oh - TWO star anise is on the ingredients list for this recipe. Better buy a bottle; that star anise you never thought you'd need goes into the Foie Gras Terrine with Asian Pear Marmalade, too.

The Squab recipe created by Laurent Gras of Fifth Floor in San Francisco marinates the tiny birds in coffee and roasts them with cardamom oil. It's a simple dish, calling for olive oil and grapeseed oil, but thoroughly new. Clark says maestro Gras adds Foie Gras and lemon marmalade, among other things, when it's served at the restaurant.

If you've never supremed lemons -- yes, "supreme" is a verb here -- you'll learn how for Kerry Heffernan's Sea Scallops with lemon, caperberries and croutons. Clark devotes a full paragraph on page 130 to the technique, so you get it just right. She explains why you need Wondra flour for dredging the scallops, and where to buy the fleur de sel for the pot au feu, and why you should use baking potatoes for the Potato Gratin with Parmesan, Gruyere and Goat Cheese. Be still my heart.

As a single mother, sleep-deprived and banished for 18 years to the land of Fishsticks and Happy Meals, I have been starving for a book like this, every word a pleasure for anyone who loves nothing more than cooking for someone she loves. With daughter now in college far, far away, and love in the air, this book is my trusty GPS. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, thank you, Melissa Clark, thank you, thank you.

It's a good book, which offers some very good tips, but there are not enough pictures of the food. It has some nice recipes, which I may try as well as tips on purchasing items, in terms of selecting the quality in which to purchase. The lack of pictures of how the food should look was a big disappointment for me.

I was disappointed. The recipes are too rarified and complex for even a more experienced home cook.

This book was not as good as I expected. Based on previous reviews, I thought it was going to be outstanding. There really is only one, maybe two recipes that I want to try. The others sound too fancy (and I am a pretty experienced cook) or just not interesting. My fiance eats everything and after he looked through the book, he said a lot of the recipes didnt sound very good. Overall, a waste of my money and quite disappointed.