LETTERS TO A YOUNG CHEF

Name: LETTERS TO A YOUNG CHEF
Author: Daniel Boulud
ISBN: 0-465-00735-X

by Daniel Boulud ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 2, 2003

Something more fascinating than advice and admonitions: the chance to live briefly inside the head of a great chef who keeps...

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Stern but realistic advice to those with their hopes pinned on the art of cooking, along with some strangely obvious culinary comments for such an audience.

Boulud’s short, formal-toned work is ostensibly aimed at those who have already logged some substantial hours in the kitchen: “You, on the other hand, having spent three years in cooking school, know a lot more about our craft than I did when I threw myself into this career.” But why, then, does he write, “It all starts with heating the ingredients”? Doesn’t his audience know, when it comes to roasting and sautéing, that this is the case, or that “braising means to cook on a braisier”? Such comments suggest that Boulud, celebrated chef at New York’s four-star Daniel, among others, is reaching for a wider audience, but it also reveals a modest lack of focus, for most home cooks don’t need to know his more arcane details—for instance, that venison “does not have space in its fibers to absorb and hold moisture.” Still, there’s information here that anyone with a glimmer of interest in top-level kitchen life will find intriguing, including even the dedication: “When you are not working, you are thinking about work.” Boulud tells us everything from where the profits come from (dessert and wine) and what the team character of a great kitchen is like (woe to the sous-chef who forgets that “there is only room for one ego in a kitchen when the crush of service is on”), to the need for paying your dues at each station in the kitchen and the absolute necessity of attention to detail, from the quality of the ingredients to the welcoming smile of the maitre d’.

Something more fascinating than advice and admonitions: the chance to live briefly inside the head of a great chef who keeps more balls in the air than any juggler ever attempted.

Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2003

ISBN: 0-465-00735-X

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE LIVES OF DANIELLE STEEL

THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD'S BESTSELLING AUTHOR

by Vickie Bane & Lorenzo Benet ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1994

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Danielle's dirty linen. A lot of this unauthorized biography is about legal wrangling, much of it to do with child custody. It's a good story, but Steel could have told it better. Bane and Benet, People magazine staff reporters, follow up on their Steel exposÇ of 1992 (written with Paula Chin) with this book cobbled together from interviews, court depositions, and letters Steel wrote to her second husband, Danny Zugelder (most while he was in prison). Heaven knows Steel's life is more than the stuff of romance. She was a neglected child. When she was hospitalized with ovarian cancer at 16, her parents never visited her. She married two convicts: Zugelder, a car thief and bank robber, who was also jailed for assault and rape (they were married in a prison ceremony and consummated their relationship in a bathroom); and Bill Toth, a heroin addict imprisoned for fencing stolen goods. Toth and Steel fought over custody of their son, Nicholas, and much of the last half of the bio comes from trial depositions and interviews with Toth and his lawyers. Steel finally found her putative Prince Charming in John Traina, who the authors take pains to point out is not and has never been a shipping magnate, though he does have a dynamite collection of cigarette cases and closets full of designer clothes. With their nine children, Steel and Traina bought the enormous Spreckels mansion in San Francisco. They also own a mini- compound in the Napa Valley, where they house a fleet of cars and a staff of thousands. For the sins of success, eccentricity, and a strong sense of privacy, the authors try to build a case against Steel. But in the end she comes through as a hard worker and a gritty survivor. It's you-can-run-but-you-can't-hide journalism, gossipy with a sound foundation, and not too high on elegant turns of phrase. (First printing of 100,000; author tour)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-312-11257-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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EGYPTIAN MUMMIES

UNRAVELING THE SECRETS OF AN ANCIENT ART

by Bob Brier ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 1994

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Everything you always wanted to know about the ancient Egyptian practice of mummifying corpses—and so much more. Brier (Ancient Egyptian Magic, 1980) sets the tone early: ``For 15 years,'' he states matter-of-factly, ``I had been working toward the goal of mummifying a human.'' Imagine his surprise and disappointment when the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University (where he is chairman of the philosophy department) declined the honor of being the site of this project, which among other things would have entailed keeping an unembalmed corpse on the campus for 70 days. The text treats the reader to a scattershot review of the wide variety of information Brier learned about mummies while doing research for the mummification. These range from clinical descriptions of the process (derived from Herodotus and other ancient writers as well as from archaeological evidence) through an account of the development of mummification in ancient Egypt to a fascinating look at medical information scientists have derived from mummies (for instance, that ancient Egyptians suffered from often fatal tooth decay and arterial diseases). Brier discusses French scientists' close, but disappointingly unfruitful, study of Ramses the Great's mummy, briefly takes note of the Egyptian religious and cultural practice of mummifying animals, and inventories famous royal mummies. He concludes rather far afield with a discussion of ``The Mummy in Fiction and Film.'' Mercifully, the book closes before he embarks on the macabre task of actually mummifying a medical cadaver in the ancient manner, which is scheduled to take place this summer. A great gift idea for the hard-core Egyptologist in your life. General readers with strong stomachs may also enjoy Brier's eccentric ramble through the ancient world. (125 b&w photos, not seen)