The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (December 8, 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0544657497
• ISBN-13: 978-0544657496
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces

Review The sparkling personality, sense of humor, and charmfamiliar to Jacques Pépin’s television audiences carries over to the page inthe superstar chef’s humbly titled memoir, The Apprentice. A clever,mischievous, and very likable boy, Pépin’s earliest food memories are hungryones from his childhood in war-torn France. After World War II, his firstrestaurant job was peeling potatoes for his mother at her restaurant, and hebecame an apprentice in a hotel kitchen at age 13. In this delightful tale heworks hard, plays fair, is kind to others and good to his family, and hisefforts take him to Paris, and then New York. Except for the terrible caraccident that required him to reinvent himself as a teacher and televisionpersonality, he seems to have always been in the right place at the righttime. He cooked for Prime Minister Gaillard and then General Charles deGaulle, met Pierre Franey, Craig Claiborne, and Julia Child, and turned down ajob cooking for JFK to accept one with Howard Johnson. But just asentertaining and enjoyable to read about are his tender memories and thoughtsabout his relationships with his parents and brothers, and with his wife anddaughter. We all wish we could cook like Pepin (and every chapter ends withone of Pépin’s favorite recipes), but this enchanting tale will make you wishyou knew him. The clear, simple way he expresses himself and the honesty withwhich he tells his story will bring you to tears, and make you laugh out loud.–Leora Y. Bloom –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable editionof this title. Read more From Publishers Weekly In this fast-moving and oftentouching memoir, Pepin recounts his journey from the kitchen of his mother’shumble restaurant in rural France after World War II to his current positionas author of 21 cookbooks, star of 13 PBS cooking shows and dean of specialprograms at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. Along the way hedescribes everything from the tough French apprenticeship system that saw himdropping out of school at 13 to work in Lyon to the beginnings of the HowardJohnson’s chain. Pepin accepted a job in the Howard Johnson’s test kitchenover a stint at the White House cooking for John F. Kennedy , but shows nosigns of regret. In fact, if there’s a flaw here, it’s that Pepin’s eternallyupbeat attitude is sometimes a little hard to buy-although he does seem tohave been born under a lucky star. Pepin came to the U.S. just when a culinaryculture was building and fell into friendships with Craig Claiborne, then foodeditor of the New York Times, and Julia Child. Even a bad car accident when hewas 39 turned out to be a godsend, as it got him out of the restaurant kitchenand into the teaching profession. Pepin mines a lot of humor from thedifferences between French and American attitudes toward food, as when herecounts how he and a French friend once stopped by a farmsomewhere in theU.S. with a sign reading “Ducks for Sale” and wrung the neck of the duckthey’d just bought in front of the horrified proprietress. Each chapterconcludes with one or two recipes, many of them surprisingly earthy, such asOatmeal Breakfast Soup with leeks and bacon.Copyright 2003 Reed BusinessInformation, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable editionof this title. Read more See all Editorial Reviews