Cookbook Profile: Creating Chefs

Creating Chefs

by Carol W. Maybach

Creating Chefs
The intoxicating beauty of food and the irrepressible desire to create luxurious cuisine led a young woman to abandon her life in academia for culinary school. But the richness she discovered there was not limited to methods of cooking.

With a camera and tape recorder in one hand and a sauté pan in the other, Carol W. Maybach recorded recipes and lessons, photographed the simple beauty of food, and captured the wisdom and cooking secrets of her chef instructors in their own words. These culinary experts, among them an ex-record producer who cooked for Frank Sinatra and a secret serviceman's son who grew up in the White House kitchen, have helped shape staff at such top restaurants as The French Laundry, Jean-Georges, and Charlie Trotter's. They also teach the unsung heroes of the cooking world—the young man in a chef's toque working his way up at a local hotspot, the woman searching out the best homegrown produce at a bed-and-breakfast—people who are passionate about creating delicious food.

In Creating Chefs, readers learn how to prepare basic and more complex dishes through the eyes of a student. Each recipe comes complete with notes from the chef instructor, emphasizing the crucial points of preparation. Original illustrations not only provide a peek into a student notebook as if the recipes were presented in class but also help readers to master technique. These pages strive to teach readers where their meat comes from, to understand the nuances of a delicate egg white, and to appreciate the value of the culinary arts.

For those who know food, cooking is not a job; it's a love affair. It's not the prestige that brings them to the kitchen, it's not the corner office, and it's definitely not the paycheck. But, as revealed in this unique cookbook, in the hearts and minds of chefs, they do have it all. Every passionate cook, beginner and professional alike, will cherish Creating Chefs.

Buy the Book!

Creating Chefs
by Carol W. Maybach
The Lyons Press
Hardcover, 320 pages
$27.95
ISBN: 1-59228-183-4
Information provided by the publisher.