If You Can Stand the Heat or Quick Easy Asian Vegetarian Recipes

If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs

Author: Dawn Davis

This informative, dishy insider's collection features interviews with some of the country's leading chefs and helps answer commonly asked questions. Experts share recipes, business tips and secrets. 50 photos.

Publishers Weekly

This collection of career profiles of well-known chefs posits itself as a guide for those who fantasize about starting restaurants themselves. Chefs ask repeatedly: Have you got the stuff?. The family who founded Boston's French-Cambodian restaurant, the Elephant Walk, recounts a story of immigration and struggle. Harvard graduate Andrew Pforzheimer, who now owns three restaurants in Connecticut, trained, among other places, at a "jewel-box" restaurant (kitchen staffed by immigrants) in Beverly Hills, and Marc Jolis of Atlanta's Cafe Sunflower studied at a culinary school. None of the chefs makes the work sound easy, although Anthony Bourdain's tales of "snorting rails of coke that we'd run from one end of the bar to the other" may appeal to some. Davis includes informational sections such as a list of the 10 culinary schools with the highest enrollment and the top four reasons that restaurants fail, according to Gary Goldberg, director of the New School's Culinary Arts program. Each chef interviewed contributes one or more recipes (Marc Jolis's Sweet and Sour Lemongrass Saffronated Pasta with Apricots and Strawberries; Alan Wong's Grilled Lamb Chops with Macadamia-Coconut Crust, Cabernet Sauvignon Jus and Coconut-Ginger Cream), which are interesting but seem discordant with the body of this fairly encyclopedic vocational tool. BOMC selection. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Rozanne Gold
Feel the sweat. An outsider's "look-see" into the passions of chefs and the industry that drives them. Interesting, informative, intuitive. (Rozanne Gold, Chef and Award-winning Author of Little Meals; Recipes 1-2-3; Recipes 1-2-3 Menu Cookbook, and Entertaining 1-2-3

Bradley Ogden
A valuable and amusing collection of tales and tips from back and front-of-house industry leaders. The books will both entertain and inform foodlovers, professionals and anyone thinking of going into this exciting business. (Bradley Ogden, author of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner)

Marcus Samuelson
Fantastic. Both professionally, as a chef, and personally, as a reader, I couldn't put this book down. I was drawn to these great portraits of passionate people who, though they come from diverse culinary backgrounds, share a common love for food. (Marcus Samuelson, Executive Chef of Aquavit and winner of the 1999 James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year Award)

Go to: Benjamin Franklin or The Case for Big Government

Quick & Easy Asian Vegetarian Recipes

Author: Periplus Editions

Highly nutritious, easy to digest, and always delicious, Asian vegetarian cuisine offers a healthy, tasty alternative to meat-based meals. Recipes include Brown Rice with Stir-fried Vegetables, Chinese Angel Hair, Green Pea and Tender Tofu Soup, and Fragrant Noodles with Chili and Sesame Sauce, among others.