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[srhcb]

An exchange from The Motley Fool, Gestalt of Cooking Discussion Board:

ChocoKitty: "I want to know how (Ruhlman) is so #@^$#@$%* prolific!"

SRHCB: It's easy. While doing research for his books he just adapted the "restaurant kitchen division of labor model" to his own line of work. Just like the celebrity chefs he writes about, he has all the dirty work done by his minions.

Somewhere there is a metal building in an industrial park where scores of Central and South American immigrants labor under harsh conditions to sort, sift, cut and paste the prospective material. Lack of Englsih literacy is no impediment at this level of production.

The rough material is delivered twice a day by courier to one of those anonymous looking office parks, where cubicles full of tranlators, (most of whom are actually US Citizens), shape the rough material into basic components of the finished work.

Next, the material moves downtown to fancy designer decorated offices. There, under the watchful eye of washed out former writers whose predilection to drink shortened their own careers, young interns, grad students, and food-writing groupies assemble the final product.

Finally Mr Ruhlman shows up. He adjusts a few phrases here and there, okays the dust jacket design and blurbs, and poses for photos with the finished work.

Then, after a short meeting with the publicist to arrange his next tour, he jets off to California to dine at French Laundry with his celebrity buddies before going on vacation to conceive his next project.

Nothing to it!

[Michael Ruhlman]

I'm afraid that's almost exactly right (I'm no longer admitted to the French Laundry, alas).