Eric Ripert and Michael Ruhlman Cookbook - A Return to Cooking

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Description: It's a fundamental irony of the profession -- the more successful you become, the further you are taken from the work that made you a success in the first place, from what it was you most loved doing. When "chef" is your title but "cook" is your core, you can lose touch with your true self as your days get consumed with meetings and business decisions, menu writing and staffing issues, charity appearances and consulting work. It is, Eric Ripert admits, an exciting life, but there is this major problem -- when do you get to cook? 

A Return to Cooking is the antidote: a four-part journey in four different seasons to four different locales to "cook the landscape" and "cook from the guts," using local ingredients in season and experiencing the joys -- and occasional disappointments -- of this spontaneous, creative act. 

Ripert contends that much of the best cooking happens in the home with family or friends. And so he set off with a group of five who shopped together, cooked together, cleaned up together, and lived together in four different houses with ordinary kitchens. 

Colombian artist Valentino Cortazar -- who first sparked in Eric Ripert's mind the idea for the book -- sketched and painted as Ripert cooked and Tammarand Shimon Rothstein photographed -- the two men as well as the food. Award- winning author Michael Ruhlman captured in prose the thought process and lessons of the moment while Andrea Glick, Ripert's right hand, got the recipes down on paper to test and perfect. Everyone partook. Everyone -- and especially Ripert -- learned along the way. 

This eminently practical book, with nearly 150 recipes, is also a teaching book: Dozens of short essays instruct on subjects such as the handling of raw fish, the power of the vinaigrette, roasting, seasoning, poaching, sauteeing, cooking in the fire, even the merits of Tabasco, shallots, and lemon confit. And every bit as fascinating is the bird's-eye view of the magic that occurs when decades of cooking experience, the forces of intuition, the music of the season, the ingredients, the past, and the present coalesce. 

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Condition: Very good condition. Dust jacket's top and bottom edges are slightly creased.