subject: Chef's Story: A Review [print this page] Chef's Story: A Review Chef's Story: A Review
Chef's Story: 27 Chefs Talk about What Got Them into the Kitchen / edited by Dorothy Hamilton and Patric Kuh. Photographs by Matthew Septimus (Ecco, 2007) Hardcover, 279 p. ISBN 9780061241222
Chef's Story is based on a PBS television series of the same name hosted by Dorothy Hamilton, founder and CEO of The French Culinary Institute of New York. Founded in 1984, the Institute decided in 2006 to broaden its mission and offer instruction not only to professional chefs, but also to amateur cooks and hobbyists through its new recreational division.
Chef's Story, the book, features interviews with 27 different chefs. They tell of how they decided to become chefs in the first place and what they had to go through to become successful at it. As in any other career, some of them chose it early in life and others fell into it almost by accident.
Each story intrigues in its own unique way. One chef, for example, worked his way to the top of his profession without ever having taken a cooking class or working with a master chef. Another's introduction to making food for a living started with a job in a fast-food restaurant.
Being based on television interviews, each chapter is self-contained. It is not necessary to read the whole book from cover to cover. Readers can dip into it and read a chapter at one sitting, in any order. Chef's Story is not a cookbook, though. There are no recipes. The photography, not part of the original television program, was shot at each chef's own location.
Anyone who enjoys the television program would appreciate Chef's Story, as would readers who are interested in exploring a culinary career or those for whom cooking is a serious hobby. All-Purpose Guru Alert features one carefully selected book like Chef's Story every day at bargain prices. All offers remain available while supplies last.
