Michael Ruhlman - The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection

Table of Contents

Praise for The Soul of a Chef

One comes away awed by what great cooking demands of the practitioner, and reinvigorated too.

[The Soul of a Chef ] has all the makings of a summer potboiler: suspense, intrigue, drama, pathos, and even a little humor.

Im sure [Ruhlmans] a pretty good cook himself, but I would urge him not to give up his day job, because hes a terrific writer.

Each section of the book is fascinating in itself, especially the introductory section on the Certified Master Chef exam, an ordeal of almost hellish intensity.

Michael Ruhlman has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Gourmet, and Food Arts Magazine and is the recipient of a James Beard award for magazine writing. He is the author of Boys Themselves, The Making of a Chef, and Wooden Boats (Viking). He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with his wife and children.

A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colors, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and in the facts of life, what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essentialtheir one illuminating and convincing qualitythe very truth of their existence.... [I]t is, before all, to make you see.

Joseph Conrad
The Condition of Art

What interests me is how the quality of cooking in this country can be followed from a period of simplicity and function to one of goodness and bounty, then to an age of elaboration and excess, back again to functional (and for the most part, mediocre) eating. Finally, we hope, we are now in another epoch of gastronomic excellence.

James Beard
James Beards American Cookery

Everything is relative but there is a standard which must not be deviated from, especially with reference to the basic culinary preparations.

A. Escoffier
Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery

Chef Dieter Doppelfeld leads the way to kitchen station four, followed by two men in lab coats with clipboards. Brian Polcyn stands before these men attentive but at ease in a paper toque and chefs whites. He has set his stainless steel table with cutting board, slicing knife, bain-marie insert filled with hot water, and latex gloves.

Ron DeSantis glances at his clipboard and says, Chef, would you please tell us what you have prepared?

Duck terrine, Polcyn answers. Straight forcemeat with seared duck and shiitake mushrooms.

And the sauce?

Orange-ginger.

Polcyn then begins the presentation, first submerging the terrine mold for several seconds in water simmering on the stovejust enough to warm and loosen itthen upending the terrine mold on his cutting board and lifting it off the terrine itself. Dieter Doppelfeld, who has run this test for the past nine years, Ron DeSantis, and the third master chef judge, Fritz Sonnenschmidt, an authority on terrines, watch silently. Polcyns movements are unnatural and stiff, almost robotic; clearly he doesnt stand this straight while moving from stovetop to workstation at his restaurant or breathe so audibly. Its harder to drive a car perfectly when theres a cop on your tail.

Having successfully separated the terrine from its mold and pulled on the gloves, Polcyn removes the slicing knife from the bain of hot water, dries the blade. He places his left hand on the terrine, rests the knife on its center in preparation for the first cut, and for a moment holds still.

Polcyn measures five feet ten inches between his laced black shoes and his toque, which conceals abundant, wavy black hair. He is the thirty-seven-year-old chef-owner of Five Lakes Grill, a popular restaurant in the hamlet of Milford, Michigan, forty-five miles northwest of Detroit. He has been cooking professionally since high school and run the kitchens of some of Michigans finest restaurants. He is a food consultant for Northwest Airlines along with such luminary chefs as Waldy Malouf, Nancy Silverton, and Todd English. He has twice been a guest chef at the James Beard House in New York City. He has appeared three times in the prestigious Bocuse dOr competition. He once prepared a private meal for twelve for which the host, at a charity auction, had paid twenty-four thousand dollars. But never before in his twenty-two-year cooking career has he been as nervous as he is at this moment, his knife blade paused above this duck terrine, which he has seasoned with a Madeira reduction, inlaid with mushrooms and whole duck breast, and roasted to an internal temperature of 145 degrees.

Polcyn inhales sharply, strokes once through the terrine, once back, and he cannot believe his eyes. The knife has veered right. Polcyn stares at his hands as if they were not his own. The error ensures that the second slice will be slightly thinner at one end as well.

But the interior garnish of the seared duck breast is pink and glistening; he has cooked the terrine perfectly. He places the slices on a white plate, spoons his smooth bright orange-ginger sauce onto the plate, and sets it on the cloth-covered rolling cart for the judges to taste. Each judge samples the terrine and the sauce. Fritz Sonnenschmidt, a man who is very nearly a perfect sphere, asks, Were you to do this again, what would you do differently?

I might have added some pistachios for color, Polcyn says. But other than that, he thinks its pretty good.

Sonnenschmidt nods and looks to his left, beyond DeSantis, and says, Chef Doppelfeld?

I thought it was very pleasant to eat, Chef Doppelfeld says. Nice color, nice flavor.

There are some discreet clicks of pencil tips on clipboards. Before leaving, Ron DeSantis, a certified master chef like the others, a Culinary Institute of America instructor, and a former head chef of the United States Marine Corps based in Okinawa, says, The major thing is your knife skills. He looks Polcyn dead in the eye and says, You really need to have good knife skills.

Yes, Chef, Polcyn says. He swallows at the insult and cannot hold his tongue. Actually Chef, I do have the knife skills. Its just that sometimes they dont come out.

DeSantis leans into Polcyns face and with quiet menace says, During these ten days they have to come out.