I’ve been playing a little catch up lately with posts and orginally I wanted to feature these books separately but I don’t have the time to right now. So here is a quick burst of three books that I recently purchased that are guiding me in the right direction.  If you haven’t noticed that my cooking has started to become a little more extravagant over the last month or so then I guess I need to read more!

Thomas Keller is the man. I wrote a paper on him for class and I have read all of his books (French Laundry, Bouchon, Underpressure and now Ad Hoc). When I found out he was coming out with a home-style cookbook based off of his family-style restaurant Ad-Hoc I immediately snapped up a copy. The guy is a genius and I wanted to see what he would do with traditional home recipes.  Well, he did exactly what I was looking for.  He took those everyday recipes that we all love and know, then refined them, explains why, then makes them perfect.

The best part is there are tons of pictures! I especially like how he deconstructs salads, dressings, and other meals to show the simplicity of them.  A few ingredients here and there and you have a great food item!

If you cook at home then you should definitely buy this book.  Thomas Keller is a master Chef and one of the people I look up to the most in the culinary world.

David Chang has released his much awaited cookbook featuring the stories and recipes of his four restaurants in New York (Momofuku Noodle Bar, Momofuku Ssam Bar, Momofuku Ko, and Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar). He talks about abandoning the world he used to live and then devoting himself to food.  He worked in some of the best restaurants in New York then gave it up to work in noodle houses in Japan…..that is some serious dedication.  He came back and opened Noodle Bar and after a year or so of struggles his restaurant took off which then lead to the success/struggles in his other restaurants.

Reading his story of how he made his transition from normal dude to kick ass cussing Chef made me feel like all the stuff I’m doing is worth it.  I’ll shut up now and let you look at the food!

That is not even scratching the surface with this book. It is amazing and definitely worth picking up. DROOL!

I hope you can read some names on the front cover.  Serious culinary masters choosing their favorite 100 contemporary chefs (David Chang is on the list!).  I bought this book at Costco after I remember my first quarter Chef instructor telling me that sometimes you can find great cooking books there.  I have been searching for about two months now and then I stumbled on this and while the cover doesn’t really do anything for me, the names do.  So I snapped it up, got home and busted the cover open and instantly shocked my self back to reality.  I have a looooooooooong way to go and I realized this when I started flipping through the pages of this book.

100 Chefs from around the world……all on top of their game…….all great stuff.

There is so much in this book and I haven’t been through it all but I have made this my gold standard. One day I want to be in this book, there I said it. I need to go work on a few things so stay tuned!

Eric