Hello all! I hope this finds you wings spread in flight towards your dreams. As has become my custom in the past couple of months I picked up a couple of books last week. The first is written by Michael Ruhlman called “The Soul of a Chef… The Journey Toward Perfection.”
Michael Ruhlman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruhlman or http://ruhlman.com/) is a true original. As I sat at the bookstore looking through the various books that I could get I kept on coming back to the one I ended up getting. Something about the title intrigued me as I am not entirely sure that there can be “the” soul of a chef. Nonetheless I picked it up and immediately began reading it.
Ruhlman chose to write about the Certified Master Chef test which is put on by the Culinary Institute of America. The CIA is the preeminent school on this side of the Atlantic for the culinary world. From its grounds on the Hudson River, students from all over North America come, to begin the wonderful journey to becoming or improving as a Chef. However, the rare breed that chooses to do the CMC come from far and wide to prove something not to their teachers but to themselves.
The CMC is a grueling ten day adventure which causes the candidates to the rigorous standards of the CIA. To put this in context sine the test was created in the early 1980’s fewer than 100 people have become CMC’s. Ruhlman, as a writer, traveled through the testing following as 7 candidates tried to become the newest CMC’s. What follows is an interesting tale of perseverance, success and failure. It is an interesting expose of how detailed one has to be in order to become a CMC. I must admit that the read is fascinating. Moreover, that it causes one (i.e. ME) to look at what it is I really want.
If anyone out there is interested in professional cooking I do strongly suggest reading this book as it illuminates quite clearly the dedication and force of will that one requires to enter this world.
On a personal note I had a conversation with Head Chef about the CMC resultant from reading this book. I asked him whether or not it was relevant to go after your CMC or note. Thoughtfully he explored both sides of the equation for me. As Ruhlman explains in the book, those who adhere to the principles of the CMC think that it is an extremely valuable test which vaults those above. However, Head Chef did point out to me that most Chefs look at the CMC as less than ideal. It tests classical cooking such that Escoffier might produce and in fact the test (the classical portion) is heavily rooted in Escoffier philosophy.
Head Chef told me that it is an extremely personal decision to take the CMC. It is a standard by which others are measured but that measure may or may not be respected by those Chefs that are in the trenches of the hot line every day. Day in and day out, toiling, sweating, creating and pushing through the demands of every day kitchen life. Many that take the CMC end up running large industrial (read Hotel or cruise ship) kitchens and many do not cook at all and when they do it is in ‘competition.’
Reading Ruhlman I thought about whether or not I found the test relevant for myself. I asked myself the tough questions but none more important than what is the soul of a chef.
Not yet a Chef I explored my own personal biases as to what I thought the soul of a chef was and how that related to my own personal experience. What I came up with is what follows;
The Soul of a Chef is composed of the following things;
A desire for personal greatness
A solid foundation of creativity from which to express the inherent qualities of an ingredient with an adherence to integrity and honesty
A belief that you can always do better
An understanding that perfection is unattainable but its pursuit is gloriously hard and rewarding
A personal honesty that extends beyond the kitchen and in fact touches all areas of your life
A desire to learn everyday
A passion for relating to others what you have learned on your own journey thus aiding others personal odyssey
The understanding that each day offers new and exciting possibilities
The knowledge and firmly held belief that tomorrow is another day
The knowledge that mistakes happen and that they are the most rewarding because they inform your future
A desire to help others
A desire to inform
A desire to get better each and every day
The ability to play just as hard as you work
This is what I believe the Soul of a Chef is today. I think that as my personal experience continues this list will expand to include much much more and it has caused me to start working on my own personal manifesto.
Ruhlman also spends a lot of time with Michael Symon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Symon) who is the Chef Patron of Cleveland’s Lola (http://www.lolabistro.com/) his personal blog can be found at (http://www.symonsays.typepad.com/). I like Michael Symon. A LOT! If I could spend some time with any one Chef right now it would probably be Michael Symon because I believe that I fit into his model of the world. I believe that his food is honest. That he doesn’t try to be or represent something other than he is. If I could spend time working with him I feel like I could learn a lot. And who knows maybe someday I will.
Ruhlman also speaks of how he became the cowriter of Thomas Keller’s “The French Laundry Cookbook.” Believe me sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. But I will leave you to discover that story on your own.
At any rate, I think that Ruhlman’s “The Soul of a Chef” is a great read. So much so that I went out and bought his other book “The Making of a Chef” which naturally I will tell you all about in a future post.
Mario Batali once said; “When I was a cook and 24 years old... I read the kinds of books that were the inspiration to understanding the value of simplicity in cooking.” Funny, that’s what I’m doing 9 years later.
Dream big and inspired.
A la prochaine
SDM
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