Celebrity Chefs

The Phenomenon of the Celebrity Chef

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Michael Rulman’s book The Reach of a Chef is an interesting commentary on the rise of the “celebrity chef.” He talks about how the industry has changed since the chef became a brand, and cooking has become as much about “entertainment value” and “celebrity pull” as it is about flavor.

Ruhlman also discusses how the great celebrity chefs — including Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Anthony Bourdain — are so successful that they no longer have time to do what has made them successful in the first place.

The book also includes profiles some of the biggest influences on American cooking.

Wolfgang Puck’s Soups

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Here’s the closest thing most of us will ever get to asking Wolfgang Puck to be our personal chefs — ordering his special broths. Keep in your pantry and add new life to your soups and stews. You can also open the can, pour contents into an ice cube tray, and freeze. Then you can have chunks of broth for sauteeing vegetables or meat. Yum!

Wolfgang Puck on Failure

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Wolfgang Puck is one of the most famous and well respected celebrity chefs. But he’s had his share of failure.

He just doesn’t let it get to him. “I learned more from the one restaurant that didn’t work than from all the ones that were successes.”

He doesn’t really care much about the intrigue and competition that comes with being in the culinary industry. “Only you can judge your life. You have to live up to your own expectations.”

How Wolfgang Puck fed Hollywood

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Every year, WOlfgang Puck prepares the meal for the prestigious Oscars Governors Ball. Everybody who’s anybody is there. The ingredients must be perfect, the flavors perfectly orchestrated. After all, there are 1,500 celebrity guests there, and they will raise hell if the chicken is even the slightest overcooked.

Puck created a very elaborate menu
that included pizza with white truffles and kumamoto oysters. There were appetizer trays, tapas, sushi bar, seafood bar, buffet. Just a whole lot of food — and madness in the kitchen.

Consider the numbers;350 kitchen staff,6,000 Pieces of hand polished Flatware, and a really long shopping list:

500 Bottles of Laurent Perrier Champagne
2,000 Bottles of Sterling Wine
300 lbs. Smoked Wild Salmon
100 lbs. Natural Certified Angus Beef
600 ea. Spiny Lobster
10 lbs. French Farm Raised Osetra Caviar
250 Whole SMART Organic Chickens
16 lbs. Black Truffles from Perigord, France
10 lbs. White Truffles from Alba, Italy
15 Whole Yellowtails
150 lbs. Big Eye Tuna
25 ea. Thai Snapper
100 Dozen Kumamoto Oysters
100 lbs. Black Farm-Raised Mussels
150 lbs. Little Neck Clams, Farm Raised
300 lbs. Jumbo Shrimp
550 lbs. Snake River Farms Wagyu Beef (American Kobe)
25 Whole Wild Striped Bass