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The Apprentice : My Life in the Kitchen

The Apprentice : My Life in the Kitchen

List Price: $14.00
Your Price: $11.20
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A JOY TO READ AND SAVOR
Review: As satisfying as a 5-star meal, as delicious as his mother's cheese souffle, Jacques Pepin's autobiography is rich in scenes, friends, recipes, and anecdotes.

Surely one of the most famous chefs in the world who came into homes through his PBS cooking shows and popular cookbooks, Pepin now reveals the story behind the public face.

Born in prewar France to a cabinetmaker and an energetic woman who owned a small restaurant Pepin was enamored with the kitchen as a youth. He left his formal education behind at the age of 13 to sign on as an apprentice in the arduous training system then required. It was a difficult road he had chosen in a system reminiscent of feudal days. Yet the young man persevered, and before the age of twenty found himself in France's most elite restaurant. Next, he would become personal chef to Charles de Gaulle.

After coming to America he numbered among his friends those with like interests and gifts - Julia Child and James Beard. He also earned a degree from Columbia University, and began to work for Howard Johnson.

A serious automobile accident might have meant the end of anyone's career, but not Pepin's. When he was unable to keep up the daily routine in a kitchen he became a cooking teacher, and a television icon.

"The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen" is a joy to read and savor.

- Gail Cooke

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Creme de la creme -
Review: I have always had the greatest respect for Jacques Pepin based on the high reputation of his culinary books, collaborations with Julia Child, and great good humor and skills displayed on various television appearances, but I have always wondered how he reached a position of high respect within his profession without a connection to a major restaurant for at least as long as I have known of him (the last 15 years). This book answers my question and a whole lot more, confirming my impression of Jacques as a major figure in culinary America and a great gentleman as well.
Without giving away too much of the book's story, I must point out that Jacques was, by some great good fortune, the chef to France's President Charles DeGaulle at a very young age. In fact, he appeared on the TV show `To Tell The Truth' and the panelists did not pick him as DeGaulle's chef because he was so very young. Upon coming to the United States, he quickly attained a position as a line chef under Pierre Franey at the great Le Pavillion, following Franey to a position in the test and development kitchens at Howard Johnson's. For those of you post baby boomers, I can assure you from first hand experience that at one time, Howard Johnson's was often considered a very desirable place to eat out.
Jacques would probably now be the owner / executive chef at a major restaurant but for a very serious automobile accident which broke most major bones and which left Jacques with only a slim chance to even be able to walk. Miraculously, he mended well to the point where he returned to an almost normal life, but without the ability to sustain the 12 to 14 hours on his feet at a typical chef's station. This lead to his career as a teacher, followed by cookbook writing and TV cooking series a la Julia on PBS.
This book ranks with some of the best culinary memoirs by being both engaging, inspiring, and revealing of the nature of culinary professionals' work in the kitchen. Aside from his associations with Julia Child and Pierre Franey, he was a close friend to Craig Claiborne and well known to James Beard and his company. Without doing any gratuitous name dropping, Pepin also relates revealing stories involving Danny Kaye, Alice Waters and `the great' Paul Bocuse. This is not the first Danny Kaye culinary story I have read, and these little peeks into his cooking skills make me wish he had done a culinary memoir / cookbook similar to many less skillful non-culinary celebrities. The encounter with Paul Bocuse casts some light on the nature of the nouvelle cuisine movement in France.
One of the most interesting insights obtained from this book is the picture of the American culinary scene in 1960, as seen by a very experienced and talented French chef and how this scene has changed in the last 40 years.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone with a taste for culinary memoirs. This is one of the best. My only reservation is that it left me wanting more, as it seemed to give very few details about the last 20 years of his life. I hope that is not because they have been dull!
The book includes 24 recipes, the most interesting being the two attributed to his mother (apple tart and cheese souffle) and the one attributed to Danny Kaye (poached chicken salad).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better than hot chocolate....
Review: Jacques Pepin is very unassuming. This comes through in his recipes and his autobiography "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen." For anyone interested in cooking and learning more about those creative souls who bring new ideas to the 'family' kitchen, this is a great -- and very lite -- read. Jacques Pepin may very well represent a unique combination: a 'celebrity chef' who is above all well trained and truly dedicated to food ingredients in their most essential form: as elements of a creative process which at it's most essential is also most satisfying. Pepin's account of his life's journey combines bemusement -- in regard to his success -- and a certain amount of marvel at his naivete in regard to what it takes to be successful -- from when he left home, to when he journeyed to America, to his first (unsuccessful) forays into television. At the end of it all, you can't help both laughing and liking the guy. Unlike the recently published biography of Julia Child, "The Apprentice" is a warm and satisfying read... kind of like a good cup of hot chocolate.....

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better than hot chocolate....
Review: Jacques Pepin is very unassuming. This comes through in his recipes and his autobiography "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen." For anyone interested in cooking and learning more about those creative souls who bring new ideas to the 'family' kitchen, this is a great -- and very lite -- read. Jacques Pepin may very well represent a unique combination: a 'celebrity chef' who is above all well trained and truly dedicated to food ingredients in their most essential form: as elements of a creative process which at it's most essential is also most satisfying. Pepin's account of his life's journey combines bemusement -- in regard to his success -- and a certain amount of marvel at his naivete in regard to what it takes to be successful -- from when he left home, to when he journeyed to America, to his first (unsuccessful) forays into television. At the end of it all, you can't help both laughing and liking the guy. Unlike the recently published biography of Julia Child, "The Apprentice" is a warm and satisfying read... kind of like a good cup of hot chocolate.....

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A pleasant read from a consomme professional
Review: Jacques Pepin isn't like the rest of us. When he encounters some thousands of snails slime-trailing their way around the wet terraces of his vacation bungalow, Pepin doesn't just register their appearance as a curiosity and move on, as we might. He thinks "Dinner!" and runs around excitedly collecting the creatures in a wastepaper basket. When a friend complains that his boat's outboard motor regularly hits something hard in a particular shallow channel, Pepin investigates and once again finds a free lunch--the obstruction is a shoal of mussels from which he happily gathers a feast.

These stories hint at the most striking revelation of Pepin's autobiography, The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen: the man is obsessed with food. This ought not come as a surprise, I suppose. Pepin is, after all, a renowned professional chef. But not every professional is so taken with the subject of his expertise. Love of food and its preparation--foraging or fishing for it, prying it from the walls of a vacation resort, simmering it on his own stovetop or stirring up consommes in thousand-gallon vats--pervades Pepin's life.

In straightforward, readable prose, The Apprentice tells the story of Pepin's life in food, from his childhood in war-rationed France--where his father, a member of the Resistance, smuggled the occasional banana to his wife and sons; to his apprenticeship in the kitchens of his mother's restaurants and under a series of respected French chefs; to his increasingly successful career in America. Throughout, one marvels at the author's apparently flawless memory for cooking. Remarkably, Pepin describes in detail dishes he made decades earlier, their ingredients and preparation, how the meal was received. These sections of the book do not make for the most scintillating reading for those of us who are not food aficionados, but they are impressive even so. For those who *are* inclined to take to the stove, Pepin includes more than twenty recipes in the book.

Debra Hamel -- book-blog reviews
Author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Delightful Reading
Review: Julia Child (who should know!) has called him the best cook in America today. That's high praise.

Jacques Pepin's life in kitchens, beginning with his mother's cafes and continuing on the Food Channel, is a fast-moving and sometimes surprising journey. As a child he worked on a farm (sent there by his parents to avoid the bombs of WWII) but it's his experiences in his mother's cafes that confirms his culinary talent and hitches his wagon to international stardom in cuisine.

Entertaining and international, this is a book that should bring more admirers to Pepin's already crowded table.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Charming history of Jacques' life as a chef
Review: Not being a devotee of the Food Channel, I discovered Jacques Pepin by accident. Channel surfing one day, I stumbled upon Jacques' transforming a big slab of meat into a beautiful roast, trimmed and tied. The sureness with which he handled his knives, his knowledge of the animal's anatomy, and the warm confidence with which he shared his knowledge -- "of course you can do this at home!" -- hooked me immediately.

"The Apprentice" tells the story of how he acquired this deep knowledge, and does it with style and charm. The story opens in war-time France, where Jacques and his brothers were sent to farms in the remote countryside during the summers for their safety... and in the hopes of avoiding food shortages prevalent in urban areas. From his earliest days, Jacques shadowed the women in his life as they cooked for their families, from the farmers' wives to his mother, an accomplished cook in her own right.

After the war, his mother parlayed her cooking skills and entrepreneurial spirit into a succession of increasingly successful restaurants, with Jacques and his three brothers helping out before and after school. From an early age, Jacques knew he wanted to be a chef. He left school at 13 and began an apprenticeship at a nearby hotel. For the next few years he moved from job to job, city to city, working 16 hours a day to lay down the foundation of skills -- stocks! aspics! forcemeats! -- that are the hallmark of the classically trained french chef.

His career as a chef hit a peak a few years later, when in his early 20's he found himself cooking for french Presidents, including a memorable stint for De Gaulle. He then came to America, and embarked on what must have been a very unorthodox career. He served as an Executive Chef at Howard Johnson's and ran his own soup restaurant before settling in as the author, teacher, and TV chef we know today. Along the way he tells the stories of the kitchens and personalities he encountered, from French politicians to American food luminaries such as Craig Claiborne, Julia Child, Pierre Franey. All in all, a charming and engaging read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easily the Best Memoir I've Read this Year
Review: The skills that make an awesome chef are the same skills that make an awesome writer, patience, a loving devotion to detail, an appreciation of the sensual - this has it all. It's a great slice of history and does what a great memoir is supposed to do - it allows you to enter the world of another.

Jacques Pepin's book, "The Apprentice : My Life in the Kitchen", is a light and compelling, can't put it down read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Charming, delightful, lovely writing
Review: What a marvelous read!! What's not to like about this memoir? Jacques is a life-loving man who has had a fabulous life cooking and living. The book reveals a man very much like the generous, creative, charming cooking teacher I've admired for so long. His book now demonstrates his skill as a writer and raconteur. Do yourself a favor and read this remarkable book. I was sorry when it ended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Another culinary autobiography, but from the best
Review: Withy a great history of formal French training, Pepin has earned the right to toss out a cheesey 'my life in the kitchen'. His story though is much more exciting than that.

All the while, Pepin has a pretty modest posture in his story. As a fan of his TV show, I'm glad I learned of his training and his contributions to cuisine.


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