Cooking as Catharsis

By Warren Rojas

The Saucier’s Apprentice

What’s a celebrated music biographer to do when faced with an impending divorce, a string of fatally flawed dinner parties in his wake and a heart seized by pangs of unrequited love? Road trip through Europe, of course.

Too long in the tooth at 50 to enroll in boot camp, veteran author Bob Spitz opted to bring order to his life by at least honing his rudimentary culinary skills. His insanely naive plan: Spend three months interning at 18 different cooking schools and award-winning restaurants scattered across France and Italy. The resulting madcap journey is laid bare in “The Saucier’s Apprentice,” epicurean tell-all-cum-philosophical travelogue.
Along the way, Spitz devours meal after glorious meal (“The butter-and-cream sauce was as thick as cake frosting; the fennel was as sweet and fragrant as an Easter lily,” he wrote of one inspired fish dinner), pines for his lady love Carolyn and suffers bravely through a parade of culinary taskmasters—including a painfully comedic episode of expert omelet-making at the hands of perfectionist toque Yannick Alleno.

Can’t make the trip yourself? Spitz shares over two dozen of the hard-earned recipes he collected during his travels, including: “heavenly” biscotti, foie gras au torchon (salt- and pepper-crusted liver “cooked” in the freezer), wild asparagus ravioli with truffle butter, Brittany-style seafood stew (a butter- and cognac-fueled brew) and curried chicken fricassee.

“The Saucier’s Apprentice: One Long Strange Trip through the Great Cooking Schools of Europe.” Bob Spitz. Norton, 320 pgs., $24.95

(August 2008)

Tags: Chew on this, food for thought