If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs [Paperback]

Dawn Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

What's the restaurant business really like? Expert chefs share their stories, secrets, and recipes for success.

Chefs and restaurateurs are today's most glamorized professions. But for every person who starts their own eatery, thousands more merely dream about it. Whether you are seriously considering making a career out of your passion for the kitchen or you're an armchair foodie, If You Can Stand the Heat is essential reading. This informative and dishy insider's collection of interviews with some of the country's leading chefs and food professionals shows what it takes to make it in the world of food, and helps answer such questions as: What are the first steps in opening up a restaurant? What can I expect if I make a mid-life career change?

Among the many stories here, Edna Lewis, the grand dame of Southern cuisine, talks about the importance of mentoring; Bobby Flay of Mesa Grill and Bolo discusses the chef as entrepreneur; and Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill shows how to pick the perfect spot for a restaurant. Each chef or restaurateur offers a recipe from his or her own personal collection, and numerous sidebars provide essential facts about every aspect of the business. From bad burns to bad luck, from five-star restaurants to corner cafes, these professionals reveal how incredibly difficult, but immensely rewarding, it is to work your way to the top of the food chain.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of career profiles of well-known chefs posits itself as a guide for those who fantasize about starting restaurants themselves. Chefs ask repeatedly: Have you got the stuff?. The family who founded Boston's French-Cambodian restaurant, the Elephant Walk, recounts a story of immigration and struggle. Harvard graduate Andrew Pforzheimer, who now owns three restaurants in Connecticut, trained, among other places, at a "jewel-box" restaurant (kitchen staffed by immigrants) in Beverly Hills, and Marc Jolis of Atlanta's Cafe Sunflower studied at a culinary school. None of the chefs makes the work sound easy, although Anthony Bourdain's tales of "snorting rails of coke that we'd run from one end of the bar to the other" may appeal to some. Davis includes informational sections such as a list of the 10 culinary schools with the highest enrollment and the top four reasons that restaurants fail, according to Gary Goldberg, director of the New School's Culinary Arts program. Each chef interviewed contributes one or more recipes (Marc Jolis's Sweet and Sour Lemongrass Saffronated Pasta with Apricots and Strawberries; Alan Wong's Grilled Lamb Chops with Macadamia-Coconut Crust, Cabernet Sauvignon Jus and Coconut-Ginger Cream), which are interesting but seem discordant with the body of this fairly encyclopedic vocational tool. BOMC selection. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A valuable and amusing collection of tales and tips from back and front-of-house industry leaders. The books will both entertain and inform foodlovers, professionals and anyone thinking of going into this exciting business." -- Bradley Ogden, author of "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner"

"Fantastic. Both professionally, as a chef, and personally, as a reader, I couldn't put this book down. I was drawn to these great portraits of passionate people who, though they come from diverse culinary backgrounds, share a common love for food." -- Marcus Samuelson, Executive Chef of Aquavit and winner of the 1999 James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year Award

"Feel the sweat. An outsider's "look-see" into the passions of chefs and the industry that drives them. Interesting, informative, intuitive." -- Rozanne Gold, Chef and Award-winning Author of Little Meals; Recipes 1-2-3; Recipes 1-2-3 Menu Cookbook; and Entertaining 1-2-3

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140281584
• ISBN-13: 978-0140281583
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Professional Cooks, Beware! What a Disappointment., June 12, 2000

By 

Kathleen Lonergan "chefkath" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs (Paperback)

As a professional chef, I always love reading about restauranteurs and their experiences, both for inspiration when I'm feeling tapped out creatively, and for validation when I'm feeling burnt out in general. I was really looking forward to reading this, hoping it would be another in the vein of the wonderful "Becoming a Chef" by Dornenburg and Page.

It turns out this book is a pale imitation of that classic, a complete wannabee. It has nothing really new to offer to the genre. Though the chefs are as dedicated and passionate as I would expect, it is written as if the assumed audience is a person who doesn't even know how to turn on a stove. The writer never really "gets" the industry, writing with this truly annoying mix of wide-eyed awe and ignorance. Maybe an amateur cook would find it interesting, I just found it boring and repetitive.

Mostly, though, this book just needs an editor with a big huge red pen. If you are annoyed and distracted, as I am, by mediocre writing, passive voice, run-on sentences and general literary sloppiness, you will find yourself stopping after every sentence and re-writing it in your mind. I couldn't even finish the book.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make the Butternut Shrimp Bisque -- the recipe is GREAT!, November 3, 1999

By 

JM (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs (Paperback)

Dawn Davis's book is a treasure trove of information for all kinds of foodies -- from the professional chef to hopeful beginners like myself who just love to read about all things food. The stories from the chefs are fascinating -- intimate enough so the reader feels like he or she is in that chef's shoes for the moment. The back of the book is filled with really useful stuff, like names and addresses of cooking schools (both stateside and abroad), lists of cookbooks by the chefs profiled, and information about trade publications. This book makes you feel like a real food insider, which in NYC (or any area for that matter) is a very cool thing to be these days. The recipes are unusual and surprisingly easy to make (not to mention yummy). Impress your friends! The photos are stylish as well. This is a book you will want to display.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Overview, November 30, 2002

By 

S. Baker "srhcb" (Chisholm, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs (Paperback)

I used the excuse of ordering some books for my Dad's Birthday to pick up a few for myself. "If You Can Stand the Heat", (Tales from Chefs & Restaurants) by Dawn Davis is the one I'm reading first.

Written a couple years ago, it's a pretty good overview of what's going on today in food and restaurants. It includes brief but well done interviews with chefs and food industry professionals, and manages to focus on many different aspects of the food business.

The interviews cover a wide range of topics like training, chefs as entreprenuers, restaurant location, mentors, regional cusines and such and are interesting to read as well as informative. The book also includes some recipes following each chapter, and has useful appendices with sources of information about the food business.

Among those interviewed are celebreties like Tony Bourdain, Rick Bayless, Bobby Flay and Thomas Keller but the roster consists mostly of people best known only to the inner circle of foodies.

This would be a very interesting and useful read for somebody new to food literature or thinking of entering the business.