When I called for directions—my pretext for meeting him, though I hardly needed one, was to find out how his three weeks in Brazil had gone—he said, “I live in the wilderness.” He said his nearest neighbors were the kinds of folks who put broken washing machines on their front lawn. Behind his rented ranch-style house, cornfields extended for miles, it seemed, and beyond them were the Catskill Mountains, a hazy blue when I arrived on that warm bright summer afternoon. His dogs Pumpkin and Early yapped and danced as Pardus welcomed me and led me to his kitchen. He was dressed in jean shorts, newly cut off and without fray. He had been crushing ice.
“I was just about to make myself a mint julep,” he said. “Care to join me?” I said I would very much care to. “I’ve got mint growing in the backyard,” he said, noting that juleps were the very best possible use of mint he knew of. I was inclined to agree, especially on such a fine warm late afternoon as this.
We sat on a small patio in his backyard and chatted, drinking from our enormous glasses perfect examples of the mint julep, and the sun hovered over the Catskills. He told me about Brazil and how the wheat there was different, and therefore sauce making was different because the roux was different. He went through the logic, returning me instantly to Skills class. “Where is our wheat grown?” he asked me. “What are the characteristics of that wheat?” The harsher the climate, I’d learned from Chef Coppedge, the stronger the wheat; the thing that made wheat strong was protein. Wheat grown in the harsh weather of the Great Plains was very high in protein. “Where is theirs grown?” Pardus continued in his manic way. “So that means what? Theirs is going to be low in protein, low in gluten, and high starch. So to make a roux you need more of everything and you can cook sauces forever without getting the starchy taste and feel out.” Because of their geography, his students in Brazil used pure starch, such as arrowroot, to thicken sauces. “Arrowroot grows down there,” Pardus told me. “You can buy it fresh in the market.”
He showed me pictures of the friends he’d made, pictures of the kitchen and his students.
Then we sat back and relaxed. What a fine evening to be drinking a gigantic mint julep, I thought, after a long day cooking, and now surrounded by a sea of corn, hazy and almost glowing, backlit by the sun descending over the mountains, the dogs dashing in and out between the stalks and romping throughout the herb garden. A small fig tree, a gift from Chef Griffiths, grew in a pot beside the garden. We were shaded by a young beechnut tree. It was a perfect summer evening, and, recalling the blizzards of winter, it was an apt time to say what I had wanted to for some time.
“Chef, I want to thank you,” I said. “I know I’m a writer and not a cook”—I was always careful to make this distinction, especially around Pardus—“but I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing had I not started in your Skills class.”
“Hey, Michael,” he said. “You’re a cook. If you’re working the grill station in American Bounty on a Saturday afternoon, you’re a cook.”
I felt a powerful surge of emotion. My God, I was a cook. This had been something that I’d wanted to achieve, to be, since that winter storm. John had given me a great compliment that afternoon, but now the name had been bestowed on me by the only person who could rightfully do it, my Skills teacher. I was enormously, irrationally proud. Proud to be a cook.
Appendix
The CIA Curriculum: Associate Degrees
CURRICULUM: ASSOCIATE DEGREES*
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MICHAEL RUHLMAN is the author of twelve books, including The Elements of Cooking and The French Laundry Cookbook. He lives in Cleveland with his wife, daughter, and son and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Gourmet as well as his highly popular blog at www.Ruhlman.com.
THE MAKING OF A CHEF. Copyright © 1997, 2000 by Michael Ruhlman. Introduction copyright © 2009 by Michael Ruhlman. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Originally published by Henry Holt and Company
Designed by Betty Lew
eISBN 9780805095746
First eBook Edition : September 2011
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Henry Holt edition as follows:
Ruhlman, Michael, 1963–
The making of a chef : mastering heat at the Culinary Institute of America / Michael Ruhlman.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
1. Ruhlman, Michael, 1963–. 2. Cooks—United States—Biography.
3. Culinary Institute of America. I. Title.
TX649.R8A3 2009
641.5092—dc22
2008039616
[B]
The Making of a Chef Page 38