Kitchen Consequential

32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line – Eric Ripert - Read by Peter Ganim (Random House Audio Books)

Aside from the occasional Julia Child, My Life in France, it is rare for even a so-called “celebrity chef” to become known for their biography. Traditionally chef’s sold collections of recipes dubbed cookbooks. Then along came Anthony Bourdain and his book Kitchen Confidential, a mix of tell all and inside stories from the kitchen and the celebrity chef world was set on its collective ear and soon everybody wanted to serve up a chef bio.

One that fits that mode is the multi-award winning, executive chef at the renowned New York restaurant Le Bernadine, Eric Ripert and his bio 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line. Ripert delivers and emotional, tale of lonely childhood and memories of the role food played in his life to the transition to making food/cooking his life’s pursuit.

For this audiobook version of the book, read by Peter Ganim, the story remains and times raw and moving, but may lose a bit of its original impact by not being told in the author’s voice. In the like all great biographical books, it is the story that separates 32 Yolks from the rest of the chef bio pack; it is a truly engaging and entertaining tale that offers insight into not only the food world but into one it’s great masters