The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen

by Jacques Pepin

ONE LINE SUMMARY: Jacques Pepin reminisces about his childhood and adult life in cooking.

This is not bad, but I was suprised that a memoir by a chef contains descriptions of food that are strangely distant and passive. There are no mouth-watering phrases as in Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires, and the recipes included in this book seem to involve ingredients too difficult to obtain for the casual reader.

The only sections that seemed to come alive for me were the ones describing Pepin’s daughter as a young child, and her involvement with food.

Posted by: ssjane | September 29, 2005 | 7:26 pm
Posted in: Books | Essay/Memoir