Amazon.com: Creating Chefs: A Journey through Culinary School with Recipes and Lessons (9781592287673): Carol W. Maybach: Books

Review

"CREATING CHEFS is an inspirational work of delicious American cuisine
and ethnic influences assembled in a most felicitous mouth-watering production."

--Rene Verdon, Maitre-cuisiner de France,
Executive-Chef of the White House for Mrs. and President Kennedy

"It is so refreshing to read a cookbook that is written without being driven by ego.
The recipes in CREATING CHEFS are fueled by the passion of the culinary arts and by the instructors behind the scenes who guide tomorrow's chefs."

--Robert McGrath, 2001 James Beard Foundation Best Chef in America: Southwest
and Chef/Owner of the Roaring Fork Restaurant.

-- Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Professional chefs talk a lot about passion and how important it is in the world of cooking, but few are ever able to quite articulate what that word means. Creating Chefs comes about as close to defining that word as any book I know. Passion is everywhere in this book. Not only described by chef instructors featured here but by the camera and pen of Carol Maybach, herself a talented writer and photographer and now, surely, cook."--Michael Ruhlman

"Creating Chefs is an inspirational work of delicious American cuisine and ethnic influences assembled in a most felicitous mouth-watering production."--Rene Verdon

"Legendary French chef Fernand Point attested that 'the duty of a good cuisinier is to transmit to the next generation everything he has learned and experienced.' Through her photographs and words, Carol Maybach shows and tells how well some of America's passionate and -hardworking culinary instructors are following Point's dictum for the sake of the next generation of American chefs and the future of American cuisine."--Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page

"It is rare to find a book that so beautifully articulates what chefs think about when they cook. "Creating Chefs" gets inside the minds of real chefs and takes the reader on a fantastic epicurean journey. This book is a must have for any reader that wishes to delve into the inherent natural beauty of food and the people who are dedicated to bringing it to its most graceful and flavorful form."--Chef Ming Tsai ( 1999 James Beard Nominee for Best New Restaurant, Esquire's 1998 Chef of the Year, celebrity chef and Emmy award winner from the "East Meets West with Ming" and the "Simply Ming" cooking shows, cookbook author of "Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking", and "Ming's Master Recipes" and chef/owner of the Blue Ginger restaurant).

"It is so refreshing to read a cookbook that is written without being driven by ego.
The recipes in Creating Chefs are fueled by the passion of the culinary arts and by the instructors behind the scenes who guide tomorrow's chefs."--Robert McGrath, 2001 James Beard Foundation Best Chef in America: Southwest and Chef/Owner of the Roaring Fork Restaurant.

"This is a beautiful book with a lot of passion and soul, I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I do."
--Chef Marcus Samuelsson (2003 James Beard Foundation winner of "Best Chef in New York City", youngest chef ever to receive three stars from the New York Times, featured in hundreds of national and intenational publications as well as television shows, author of "Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine", and chef/co-owner of Restaurant Aquavit in New York City).

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (November 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1592287670
ISBN-13: 978-1592287673
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 8.1 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds

Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,424,621 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Carol W. Maybach Page

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	87% buy the item featured on this page: Creating Chefs: A Journey through Culinary School with Recipes and Lessons 3.8 out of 5 stars (6)
	6% buy The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America 4.4 out of 5 stars (110) $11.56
	4% buy Culinary Schools, 11th Edition
	2% buy The Professional Chef 4.7 out of 5 stars (66) $42.69

Explore similar items

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).

cookbook(20)

dessert(16)

baking(9)

cake(6)

cooking(5)

french cooking(4)

culinary arts(4)

pastry(4)

asian(3)

techniques(3)

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

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

Average Customer Review

3.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good looking, but not what I expected, December 10, 2004

By	International Diva - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating Chefs: A Journey through Culinary School with Recipes and Lessons (Hardcover)

Maybe I'm just not enough of a food snob. I went to culinary school, so I was very interested in this book. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I put this on my Amazon wish list, but after I received it, this struck me as a coffeetable type of book. Personally, I just couldn't get interested in this one.

There's a lot of writing but no real story (and hence no "journey" as described in the subtitle). This may be a personal reaction, but it felt more like a collection of profiles about the chefs at the school where the author studied, with some recipes and extra stuff thrown in between the glossy photos and profiles.

My thought is that if you're truly intrigued on why some people became chefs or you just want to hear some chefs philosophical thoughts about food, then this book is for you. The short profiles are interesting, and they're accompanied by some well-composed photos, but they dominate the book. Again, it might just be me, but I just wasn't overwhelmed by things like an arty shot of a chef posed with his motorcycle. The author offered some insight about what she learned at school that I found interesting. A lot of the recipes scattered among the profiles would likely feel daunting for most home cooks.

It's a very good looking book, though. "re-gifted" this to my circle of friends' Christmas gift pool. Update March 2008: If you're looking for a book about cooking school, try Kathleen Flinn's "The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry," a food memoir about her experiences earning a diploma at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Also, there's a more straightforward journalistic account by Michael Ruhlman titled "The Making of a Chef" about his time at the CIA.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lush Culinary Metaphors Gush Love about Food, February 2, 2004

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Creating Chefs: A Journey through Culinary School with Recipes and Lessons (Hardcover)

This new book by the photographer and writer Carol Maybach, with (culinary) contributions and writing credits by Glenn Humphrey is an ambitious attempt to document culinary passion and culinary education in a novel fashion, different from the journalism of Michael Ruhlman and Tony Bourdain on the one hand and the culinary memoir / recipes of, for example, Eric Rippert and Thomas Keller on the other.

Since the authors have set their sights very high, they are less successful than the works of the four authors mentioned above. Their shortcomings are primarily due to a concept, which just doesn't seem to work and a failure by the primary author to succeed in the very difficult subject of talking about an artistic endeavor rather than simply doing it. Where Ruhlman and Bourdain succeed so well by talking about people and classes and techniques and their own experiences, Maybach tries to reach some metaphysical level of understanding which any journeyman philosopher of the last several generations will tell you is simply an impossible task to do with any real success. What happens, to quote the book, is to `become intoxicated by culinary metaphors'. All the text attributed to Maybach has a breathless quality about it. She sounds like she is almost overwhelmed by the beauty and effervescence of dealing with food and it's preparation. There comes a time when you have to remember that we are talking about turnips and pork chops. This activity is roughly comparable to fine cabinet making and not to the still life paintings of Cezanne.

Note that the primary author's occupation is writer and photographer so it is probably reasonable to believe she is responsible for the photographs in the book. All of the photographs are in black and white and have the look about them of all being taken in ambient light with no staging or dressing. They all look like stills from a lost Cinema Verite work by Francois Truffaut on the drudgery in the life of an aging prep chef in a no star Paris bistro in Montmarte. Well, maybe not, but they are arty and contribute practically nothing to communicating the culinary information to you dear reader. Oddly enough, they are not out of step with the arty tone set by the primary author. They are brooding and heavy with photographic artistry and import. They simply do nothing to support the recipes being discussed on facing pages, as in the case of a cr�me broulee recipe facing what looks like a split coconut shell and roses still life or a recipe for Kobe beef facing a picture of radishes.

If this book had set it's sights a bit lower and left the writing to the chefs and the copy editors, this would have been a more rewarding book, especially at the budget list price asked for by this totally unknown (to me) publishing house.

All the recipes in the book are interesting. They are also all examples of haute cuisine restaurant fare, but that should not discourage you, as restaurant practice has a lot to teach the amateur chef. Each of the thirteen chapters contains a featured recipe by a culinary school instructor / chef plus additional, complimentary recipes fitting the theme of the chapter. The chapter also contains one or more essays by the featured chef plus `lessons' on important techniques such as stock preparation. One conceit of the book is to include in each chapter a double page spread of `notes' handwritten in block letters and illustrated by drawings which contribute much more to the value of the book as a culinary instruction than do the photographs.

I found no statements about culinary practice which I felt were entirely wrong and I found many which I believe are right. I was especially happy to find the authors echo the Richard Olney belief that achieving simplicity requires a lot of hard work and practice. There are several other little accuracies which other writers overlook or get wrong such as the rejection of the statement that searing meats does something to seal in the juices of the meat. There are a few places where some generalizations may mislead one. In the `Advice from a Student' section there is a recommendation to heat pans completely before adding fat to saute. There are times when you do not want to do this and this is not recommended for Teflon coated pans.

I think the publisher's copy editors could have done a better job at several places in the book. At one point, a recipe calls for a quarter inch by quarter inch cube. The odd expression of giving the length of two sides of a cube would have been better done by simply saying a `small dice' as this is defined elsewhere in the book as a quarter inch cube.

I give this book only four stars to warn the prospective buyer that this book may have less substance to it than a cursory look may reveal. The greatest value for this book is as a survey of what one can expect from a good culinary education. The actual lessons contained herein are worthy, but you will get a better coverage of basic culinary techniques by getting the latest edition of the Culinary Institute of America's manual `The New Professional Chef'. I recommend this book to anyone who is considering a culinary education and who knows nothing about it. An even better text would be Daniel Boulud's `Letters to a Young Chef'.
Ironically, another reviewer who gave the book five stars got it exactly write when they said the book boils over with enthusiasm. They are also correct when they say that all the recipes work, but you can get great recipes in a less frilly setting from many other sources.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best New Book for Real Chefs, August 16, 2004

By	chef jon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating Chefs: A Journey through Culinary School with Recipes and Lessons (Hardcover)

As a professional chef cooking for years in some very fine restaurants, I was amazed and thrilled to find this book, Creating Chefs, on the shelf. Finally a book spoke to me, to my thoughts, to my loves in the kitchen. Other books on celebrity chefs have so little to do with my life, their stories are too big, too out of reach for my life everyday in the kitchen. Not only did I buy this book for me but I bought it for all of my co-workers who felt the same way after reading each of the chef's stories. This book not only validated my work, but gave me something I can look at again and again (the photos are amazing, with each one capturing the beauty of the natural ingredients in the recipes) to inspire my next move in the kitchen. It is one of a kind, a true gem.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 6 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars the pages of the book are falling from the book.
Guess it has to do with the fact that I both a paperback issue.

Published on April 1, 2007 by Juan E. Flores

5.0 out of 5 stars A guide exploring the basics of culinary school lessons
Carol Maybach and Glenn Humphrey's Creating Chefs: A Journey through Culinary School with Recipes and Lessons deserves ongoing special mention as an intriguing, personal journey... Read more

Published on September 18, 2004 by Midwest Book Review

5.0 out of 5 stars YA GOTTA READ THIS BOOK!!!
As one of Carol's many Instructors, I was quite anxious to see this project "come out of the oven". Read more

Published on December 8, 2003 by L. Getchell

› See all 6 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
cooking Electric Slicers	8	26 minutes ago
cooking Which TV cook/chef would you like to SLAP AROUND?	927	27 minutes ago
cooking The Temple of The 7th Day Twinkiests	2515	1 hour ago
cooking What is the grossest food you ever ate?	517	2 hours ago
cooking What are you cooking today?	145	2 hours ago
cooking TV Chef - Marry/Kiss/Kill ?	33	3 hours ago
cooking Gift Ideas For Your Foodie / Cooking Pals	33	3 hours ago