Food and Tell » Book Review http://www.foodandtell.com Food and Tell is a collaborative food blog, focusing on eating and cooking in Vancouver and further afield. Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:50:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.1 en hourly 1 The Making of a Chef http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/07/13/the-making-of-a-chef/ http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/07/13/the-making-of-a-chef/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:15:55 +0000 jonathan http://www.foodandtell.com/?p=492 The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
chronicles the adventures of writer Michael Ruhlman as he attends the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) on a mission write a book about the experience.  In doing so he develops a healthy obsession with brown sauce and roux and ultimately, almost without realizing it, the writer becomes a cook. Along the way he gives an exciting inside look at the hallowed institution, its chef instructors, dedicated students and its supreme leader and then president, Ferdinand Metz.  Although informative about cuisine and cooking, the book’s central focus is the hard work and commitment that goes into becoming a chef and the exhausting standards of the modern CIA. 80 hour weeks slaving in 120 degree kitchens and working longer and harder is identified as the path to culinary excellence. And there is no destination to this journey, for most the rewards come in the form of occasionally divine flavors, not celebrity and riches.

makingofachef

]]> http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/07/13/the-making-of-a-chef/feed/ 0 BC Liquor’s Taste vs LCBO’s Food and Drink http://www.foodandtell.com/2008/07/01/bc-liquors-taste-vs-lcbos-food-and-drink/ http://www.foodandtell.com/2008/07/01/bc-liquors-taste-vs-lcbos-food-and-drink/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:12:15 +0000 Anne http://www.foodandtell.com/?p=18 food and drink magazinetaste_summer2008We’re on people. It’s the war of the Canadian liquor store magazines.

When I first spied BC Liquor’s TASTE I got really excited. After all, I’d just turned green checking out the holiday issue of the LCBO’s illustrious Food and Drink magazine. But my excitement fast grew stale as I turned page after page to find boring and redundant tasting notes for every must-buy must-have bestest bottle ever and scant mouthwatering recipes.

The best part of the issue was the calendar on the last page that lists all the fun drinking events hosted at BC Liquor’s flagship store on Cambie.

So I gave the magazine a second chance recently. After all, it’s summer and the cover with its icy cool cover bottle of Patron tequila was VERY appealing.

History repeated itself. Tasting notes from this issue include such doozies as: “it’s sweet and it’s sparkling” about an Italian bottle of sparkling red. This example of redundancy might give one the false impression that the tasting notes are geared at kindergartners.

Wrong. They’re targeted at toffee poncy butts. Who else would enjoy wading through such tripe as: “crisp and silky with caramel, toast, berry and baked pear flavours and a dry, green apple and lightly mineral finish” [about Lanson rose label champagne $69.99]. Or garner meaning from this mish-mash: “the fresh mineral, honey, butter, citrus flavour with just a touch of creamsicle in the finish gives it wide appeal” [on Santa Julia's Viognier $11.01]. Oh?

Your average British Columbian resident might as well be reading Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky (just think: “this Argentian Malbec offers gyre and gimble in the wabe with a finish of borogoves and outgrabe”). Only with worse illustrations.

Where TASTE is a baldfaced booze catalogue with obtuse language (albeit with heartbreaking potential), Food and Drink offers Joe and Jane the type of epicurean lifestyle that make you want to whip up countless dinner-cocktail-bbq parties riddled with booze and pretty decor and moreish morsels – all after reading one issue.

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