Foodie reads

Ever since I moved into my own apartment after college, I've gotten kind of serious about cooking. I've baked with my mom for as long as I can remember, but cooking was solely my mom and grandma's domain. I started learning to cook for myself in college, but I didn't have easy access to groceries and claiming kitchen time when you have 5 roommates can be nearly impossible. So when I moved into my one-bedroom apartment where the refrigerator and kitchen were for my use alone...I got pretty excited. I'm always borrowing cookbooks from the library and looking up recipes online and I even subscribe to a cooking magazine (Everyday Food). And recently I've gotten onto this kick of reading books about food. Not cookbooks, but more like non-fiction books written about cooking and food by people who really like food, aka foodies.

I think it might have all started with Kitchen Confidential, the short-lived FOX comedy from a few seasons back. I really loved it so I went to go read the book it was based on, by Anthony Bourdain. That then led me to watching his Travel Channel Show, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, which led to my general fandom of anything Bourdain (I was ecstatic when he showed up on Top Chef last season), which led me to a blog that he did a few guest blogs on, Michael Ruhlman's blog. Which led me to Michael Ruhlman's books.

The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the CIA - This book is not new, it was published back in 1999, so it's a little silly that I'm reviewing it now, but it was just such an extremely interesting read. Ruhlman got the opportunity to "audit" many of the classes in their culinary program, from Skills Development up to working the line at the CIA's top restaurant, American Bounty, and describes everything in great journalistic detail. I visited the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in Hyde Park, NY with my parents once a long time ago, but I wasn't as interested in cooking back then and truthfully I don't really remember what I saw or ate there. But now I have renewed interest and I'd definitely want to go visit it again someday. They also have these "culinary boot camp" 2-week courses for non-professionals that sound kind of awesome, although incredibly expensive.

I'm now reading his follow-up, The Soul of a Chef, which is broken up into three parts: the first follows a group of chefs taking the CMC (Certified Master Chef) exam, the second is about Michael Symon, a chef in Ruhlman's hometown of Cleveland, and the third is about Thomas Keller, whose restaurant the French Laundry, in Napa Valley, is said by many to be the best restaurant in the entire country. While reading The Making of a Chef made me want to cook, this book makes me want to eat. I haven't eaten at a lot of high-end restaurants but after reading Ruhlman's descriptions of the dishes they serve at these kinds of places...I now really want to! Also the French Laundry is now on my list of strangely specific places I want to visit in the world (already on the list: Prince Edward Island and Neuschwanstein Castle,among others).

Ruhlman also has a third book, The Reach of a Chef, which is next on my list. Bourdain also has a couple of other books I want to read, and then there's Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, a food critic, and Heat by Bill Buford, about an amateur cook working on the line at a Mario Batali restaurant...the list goes on and on.

Also, some of my favorite food-related websites:
The Girl Who Ate Everything - run by Robyn, who also takes pictures of everythig she eats
Simply Recipes - run by Elise, my favorite recipe site
Serious Eats - food related blog with news and recipes
Chowhound - if you need a restaurant recommendation, go here
101 Cookbooks, Delicious Days, The Wednesday Chef - see what other people are eating and cooking