Scan barcode
krisres86's review against another edition
5.0
This book is amazing. Poignant, poetic, engaging…just written so incredibly well. Eric Ripert has been my favorite chef for a while but this book solidified that for me.
janeleng's review against another edition
A very different approach to the chef memoir than others I’ve read this year. Instead of lauding his many accomplishments like David Chang does in Eat a Peach, Eric Ripert instead focuses on his childhood and young adult life growing up in Andorra and France and ends just as he’s reaching the US, where he will later go on to make a name for himself.
And while obviously a love of food and fine dining is a constant theme throughout, I was surprised by how much time Ripert’s memoir spent covering things not remotely related to food. A good chunk of the first quarter of the book rarely mentions food at all, instead detailing a number of traumatic events that happened to Ripert. While this might be an unconventional choice, it’s probably also the more genuine. 32 Yolks is comfortable discussing events that don’t ever circle back to food in someway or serve as a metaphor for his cooking. Instead, food in the book is something that he keeps coming back to it by choice rather than through a deus ex machina inevitability and in that way his love for cooking shines through more for me than other food memoirs.
Overall I enjoyed the book, even though it was so heavy in parts that I would have to take days-long breaks. I do wish that the relationship between his Buddhism and cooking were explored more. It gets brought up right as the book as ending, and to be shoehorned in the final pages shows it holds great significance to him. Given the abusive culture of fine dining kitchens and their chefs, I would have loved to hear more about how Buddhism affected his own approach to running a kitchen.
And while obviously a love of food and fine dining is a constant theme throughout, I was surprised by how much time Ripert’s memoir spent covering things not remotely related to food. A good chunk of the first quarter of the book rarely mentions food at all, instead detailing a number of traumatic events that happened to Ripert. While this might be an unconventional choice, it’s probably also the more genuine. 32 Yolks is comfortable discussing events that don’t ever circle back to food in someway or serve as a metaphor for his cooking. Instead, food in the book is something that he keeps coming back to it by choice rather than through a deus ex machina inevitability and in that way his love for cooking shines through more for me than other food memoirs.
Overall I enjoyed the book, even though it was so heavy in parts that I would have to take days-long breaks. I do wish that the relationship between his Buddhism and cooking were explored more. It gets brought up right as the book as ending, and to be shoehorned in the final pages shows it holds great significance to him. Given the abusive culture of fine dining kitchens and their chefs, I would have loved to hear more about how Buddhism affected his own approach to running a kitchen.
lnhalsell's review against another edition
4.0
32 Yolks by Eric Ripert is a great book! The early parts dealing with his childhood were very moving, bringing me to tears a few times. His heartaches were described so poignantly that I felt them deeply.
His perseverance and tenacity provide a template for anyone who has their heart and mind set on pursuing a difficult path to achieve a high goal.
Read, savor, enjoy!
His perseverance and tenacity provide a template for anyone who has their heart and mind set on pursuing a difficult path to achieve a high goal.
Read, savor, enjoy!
jennybpenny's review against another edition
4.0
"One evening during service, the chef poissonier asked me to open two dozen little-necked clams for him. A simple enough task, but I'd rarely done it before, and I was very clumsy. I was not a trained fish chef...So I lined them up on the shelf and waited for them to open. When a clam opened a little, I shoved my oyster knife in and shucked it. When the chef poissonier returned, I handed him three clams. 'Where are there rest?' He asked. I pointed to the shelf. 'There, I'm waiting for them to open.'"
lediamond4's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.0
In an attempt to “Read Around the World” I ran into a bit of trouble when I came to Angorra. Books translated into English are hard to come by especially since I’m limiting myself to what my library system has to offer. At the end, I do intend to go back and “revisit” the ones I had to bend the rules for and look beyond the library and Angorra will be the first.
For the time being this was a lovely little stay. And I hesitate to say lovely because Ripert spent a large chunk of his childhood in Angorra but it was not a happy time for him. His once loving parents divorced, his stepfather is abusive, his mother and father are both VERY passive in allowing this abusive, and he’s sent away to a boarding school. His time as a chef is so stressful I found myself twisting strands of my hair around my fingers and pausing every once in a while to take it all in.
But there’s just something that’s so utterly engaging about Ripert’s story. Obviously he’s easy to root for, but the way he talks about food and preparing these elaborate dishes I know nothing about is so filled with passion and excitement that ultimately I couldn’t stop reading. So yeah, this was lovely.
For the time being this was a lovely little stay. And I hesitate to say lovely because Ripert spent a large chunk of his childhood in Angorra but it was not a happy time for him. His once loving parents divorced, his stepfather is abusive, his mother and father are both VERY passive in allowing this abusive, and he’s sent away to a boarding school. His time as a chef is so stressful I found myself twisting strands of my hair around my fingers and pausing every once in a while to take it all in.
But there’s just something that’s so utterly engaging about Ripert’s story. Obviously he’s easy to root for, but the way he talks about food and preparing these elaborate dishes I know nothing about is so filled with passion and excitement that ultimately I couldn’t stop reading. So yeah, this was lovely.
wifienabled08's review against another edition
5.0
What a great read. Just like Pepin's, The Apprentice, Ripert's story is touching, sad, inspiring, and delicious all at once. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to just spend a day reading on the couch.