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The Sorcerer's Apprentices
Lisa Abend
A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria's elBulli
Simon and Schuster
April 2011
On Sale: March 22, 2011
304 pages ISBN: 1439175551 EAN: 9781439175552 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Cooking / Food
WHAT GOES ON BEHIND THE SCENES AT ELBULLI? Elected
best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine
an unprecedented five times, elBulli is where chef Ferran
Adrià’s remarkable cuisine comes to life—with dragon
cocktails that make the drinker breathe smoke and caviar
made from tiny spheres of olive oil. elBulli is also the
object of culinary pilgrimage—millions clamor every year for
a reservation at one of its tables. Yet few people
know that, behind each of the thirtyor more courses that
make up a meal at elBulli, a small army of
stagiaires—apprentice chefs—labor at the precise, exhausting
work of executing Adrià’s astonishing vision. In The
Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchenat Ferran
Adrià’s elBulli, Lisa Abend explores the remarkable
system that AdriÀ uses to run his restaurant and, in the
process, train the next generation of culinary stars.
Granted more access to Adrià and the elBulli kitchen
than any other writer in the restaurant’s history, Abend
follows thirty-five young men and women as they struggle to
master the cutting-edge techniques, grueling hours, furious
creativity, and interpersonal tensions that come with
working at this celebrated institution. Her lively narrative
captures a great cast, including a young Korean cook who
camps on the doorstep of elBulli until he is allowed to work
in the kitchen; an ambitious chef from one of Switzerland’s
top restaurants struggling to create his own artistic vision
of cuisine; and an American couple whose relationship may
not withstand the unique pressures of the restaurant. What
emerges is an irresistible tale of aspiring young talents
caught, for good or ill, in the opportunity of a lifetime.
Taken together, their stories form a portrait of the
international team that helps make a meal at elBulli so
memorable. They also reveal a Ferran Adrià few ever see, one
who is not only a genius chef and artist but also a boss,
teacher, taskmaster, businessman, and sometimes- flawed
human being. Today, food has become the focus of
unprecedented attention, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentices
also explores the strange evolution—in less than two
decades—of a once-maligned profession into a source of
celebrity.
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