Chef Paul Personal Chef &Amp: Fill & Download for Free

Of all of the “celebrity” chefs out there, Gordon Ramsay is, by far, one of the best around. He has actually walked the walk, and can now talk the talk. I respect him, and his culinary accomplishments. I personally can’t think of another “celebrity” chef with his resume’ and list of accolades.

Well, yes.Following recipes isn’t always as easy as it seems. There’s a lot of skill, practice and techniques used, not to mention focus and direction when cooking. And while anyone might be able to follow the basics of the recipe, making it can be a challenge in itself.And of course, every single cook out there is following a recipe made by someone else or tweaked it for themselves.(from Southern Accent Restaurant)The gent above is the late Chef Paul Prudhomme. I was first trained to cook in my preferred style, cajun and creole, based on his recipes. Some I stick to, and some, like his Turducken, I’ve made some adjustments and changes with my own stuffings and other touches to the skin and the spices.Once you know the basics, and you’re willing to start cooking and adjust it to your personal taste, I would say that you can probably call yourself a cook. If you have a LOT of practice, and you know the basics well and can tweak and adjust an existing recipe into something that’s your own, then you might even be able to call yourself a good one.But here’s what it comes to. ALL COOK and CHEFS are building from the classics at the start. All cooks and chefs start by just repeating recipes to begin with, and then eventually expand and grow. It’s a matter of learning to crawl before running.So…. if you can recreate any existing recipe, then yes, you can probably call yourself a cook. You can probably even call yourself a good cook. When you introduce and create your own style that people love, then you can even eventually say that you’re a pretty darn good one. As for being a great one, or a chef, well, that’s just a matter of earning your stripes.(from Acadiana Table - Crawfish Etoufee, one of my favorite recipes)

The moment I couldn't stop my colleagues from clapping for a world-famous football club.Okay, long backstory time. In my late teens-early twenties, I worked in a five-star hotel in Japan. This hotel was located near the stadium that traditionally hosts the FIFA World Cup Final, and over the years we had a number of Premier League champion clubs stay with us.For the duration of the tournament, or however long the club stayed with us, our hotel would clear out one of its restaurants to be used exclusively by the players. Football clubs usually have personal chefs that accompany them everywhere, so those visiting chefs would work alongside the existing head chef and kitchen team of the chosen restaurant to make the players' meals.One year, the visiting chef was a Brit who spoke exactly one word of Japanese. This would normally not be a problem, except that the restaurant chosen that year was our first floor cafe bistro, and the bistro's head chef spoke only Japanese.So, one day I'm working down in my kitchen on the B2 floor when the Executive Chef of the whole hotel (let's call him Chef Taro) walks in, followed by tall blond man with a startling resemblance to Paul Bettany.“And this is the butcher kitchen, which prepares the meat and fish for all nine of our restaurants and our banquet kitchens,” Chef Taro was saying, in his halting English.The visiting chef, “Paul”, visibly brightened when he saw me. We started to speak in English, to Chef Taro's apparent delight.Before he left to continue his tour of the other kitchens, Paul paused. “Will you be working with us in the Bistro kitchen?” he asked me hopefully.I was shaking my head “no”, just as Chef Taro excitedly replied, “Yes! If you'd like her to!”So that's how I ended up leaning against a counter at 10 pm, after a full shift in my actual kitchen, talking to Paul in the Bistro's kitchen as we waited for the team to return from the Final.They'd lost. Paul was devestated, and kept scrubbing his face miserably with both hands. After a week of interacting with and translating for the players, I was also quite disappointed despite not having a particularly keen interest in football.Then the phone rang. The team was in the lobby, on their way up to eat.Paul sighed. “Can you tell the floorstaff to not mention the match at all? The team will probably be feeling pretty wretched.”I said I would, and pushed off the counter just as Chef Taro burst through the back door, the hotel's General Manager and a few other fat cats hot on his heels.“Everyone line up by the entrance to the Bistro!” he shouted to everyone. “We must greet the team!!!” He and his posse continued on into the front of the house to round up any stragglers.This is a very traditional thing in Japan, so I didn't think much of it. Before heading to the entrance, I pulled aside the maître d' to pass on Paul's request. Do. Not. Mention. The. Match. He agreed to pass it on.That's when I heard Chef Taro's voice carry into the now-empty kitchen:“Now, when the players come inside, everybody smile as wide as you can and… clap! Show them they have nothing to be ashamed of!”Oh my God, I thought in horror. Oh my God, no. My heart jumped into my throat and I sprinted towards the entrance, but I was too late. The clapping had begun, and by God- it was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.The players entered one by one, looking exhausted and downtrodden. I still remember each of their faces to this day, the way their expressions changed to show their confusion and embarassment and- in one case- anger. That walk through the entrance, flanked on both sides by grinning and cheering Japanese people, must have seemed an eternity.Paul appeared at my side. He grabbed my arm and asked me, aghast, “What the hell are they doing?”To which I could only reply, miserably: “Being Japanese.”So, that's it. My biggest facepalm moment. When I had to stand by and helplessly watch a Premier League Champion club be enthusiastically applauded for losing a FIFA Club World Cup final.