The Making of a Chef

Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America

By: Michael Ruhlman

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

In the ultimate food-lover's fantasy, journalist Michael Ruhlman dons chef's jacket and houndstooth-check pants to join the students in Skills One at the Culinary Institute of America, the most influential cooking school in the country. His goal is to document the training of America's chefs from the first classroom to the Culinary's final kitchen, the American Bounty Restaurant. The result becomes more than a rote reportage of a school for cooks. Ruhlman learns to cook as though his future depends upon it, and this complete immersion enables him to create the most vivid and energetic memoir of a culinary education on record.©1997 by Michael Ruhlman (P)1998 by Blackstone Audiobooks

An Experience I Was Glad to Share

As a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and having read both "The Making of a Chef" and "The Soul of a Chef," I can attest to the validity of the inner-workings of the Culinary. This book is not only accurate in nearly every detail, but I had the honor of learning under many of the same Chefs talked about in the book. When I learned that I had been accepted to the Culinary, I ran out and bought a copy of this book as research. Now, after having graduated several years later, I took the opporotunity to listen to the book again, surprised at the authenticity. I encourage anyone interested in either going to culinary school or learning about what it takes to be a chef, pay close attention to this book. It will give you a delightful insight into a cloaked world, one usually covered in tomato sauce.

Pretty good

I had to read this book for a paper I had to write in one of my culinary classes. At first I thought this book was extremely boring. I even hated it, but as I read on I started to actually enjoy it. I liked the way it was written and it made me feel as if I was in the kitchen. Over all it's a pretty good book and it's good to read if you have an interest in cooking. Even if you don't want to be a chef it's still good to read.

Ruhlman rules, but the narrator doesn’t.

This intro to Ruhlman stands up to the quickly approaching 20yrs since it was published. Techniques and rationale will have changed from the late 90’s era (“Oriental cooking”), but it still captures the experience well.

The only thing that took me out of the reading was the reader’s odd choices of pronouncing ingredients - Gnocchi read as “knocky”, shallots as “shal-outs”, etc. Flat affect, but otherwise okay.

The Making of Chef

I love it so much that I hit replay to soak it all in again! It was incredibly insightful, and I can’t get enough of it.

Great content, sterile narration

I have always wished to go to culinary school. I love reading books about it, listening to chef interviews, experimenting with foods in my own limited, but game , way. I was so excited to find this audiobook, as I spend 90 min on my commute to and from work each day. What a chore to get through! All due to narration. The story was fascinating, but what flat, robotic delivery! Also the editing was atrocious. He finished a sentences and then stated "Chapter 3" (pick your chapter), all in the same breath- very jarring. Then there would be a long, dramatic pause to the point that I thought my phone had malfunctioned, only to be followed by a mundane sentence. WRONG narrator for the book, he sounded like a video I had to watch on how to use a new IV pump.

Loved it.

If you love food and culinary memoirs, it’s a great inside look at the CIA.

The beginning of my addiction

I read The Making of a Chef when it was first published and it was literally the start of my ADDICTION to cooking & restaurant stories. Absolutely loved it! Michael Ruhlman does an amazing job of making you feel like you're actually experiencing what he writes. Like you're actually there in the kitchen, with sweat on your brow!

I loved being able to listen to it again, now on Audible! I really enjoyed the narrator's voice but I think this might have been done in the early days of audio b/c it does sound a little AI and numerous words are mispronounced.

Regardless, 10 stars from me!

Excellent book, narrator…not so much

This book stands up to the rigors of the passage of time. Despite 90s-era defunct descriptors, there are so many authentic pearls of wisdom distilled into relatable story-telling. It’s also great re-read if you haven’t read it in a while.

The narrator, though…. Ouch. As a culinary school graduate and lover of books and language, the mispronunciations and sometimes strange tonal phrasing is a bit like being served a burnt parsnip chip or a tea bag soaked in cold water.

Excellent book, mediocre recording

I read the hardcover version of this a few years ago, and loved it. I'm enjoying listening to it, but the recording itself can be a little irritating. Would have been much better if Ruhlman himself would have recorded it. This particular narrator mispronounces words a lot, and even pronounced the same word two different ways within a few seconds. There are some strange gaps in the recording, too, which are an editing problem, not a narrating problem. This book and its author are widely respected among professionals, and I'm disappointed that more care was not taken in its presentation. Other than the mispronunciations and gaps, the narrator does a decent job and doesn't display any other annoying tendencies.

Good Info, hard to care

This book would be a great primer for those considering jumping in, checkbook in hand, to a culinary program. It is written about one of my favorite subjects - the culinary field and the people who chose it (I'm a personal chef). But, the narration and the story itself is plodding. I don't need to read about famous chefs and their experiences in culinary school (if they even attended culinary school)to find it interesting, but this was definitely needed "something". It was lacking spice and a reason why I should care about what the author went through in his quest for knowledge. Some stories "read" better when NOT told by the person who wrote the story. Not everyone can use their voice to simulate emotion and inflection, and just because the author lived the story and wrote the book does not qualify him to read it back to others in such a way that they would want to hear it. I really, really wish I had found this more interesting, I desperately wanted to!