Madeleine Kamman

[Brad S]

I see you studied with Madeliene Kamman (i'm assuming at Beringars School for American Chefs?)

I can see through your writtings that she must have influenced you in your approach to cooking and it's history. Studying with her changed my culinary life.

Can you tell us how some of the chefs and culinarians influenced you?

TIA

Brad

[Andrew&Karen]

Hi Brad,

It's hard to know where to start, because it's not just the chefs I've worked with who have influenced me, although indeed they have -- I've written about the influences of Chris Schlesinger, who gave me my start at the East Coast Grill; Lydia Shire, who opened my eyes to "food without boundaries" and gave us the most delicious wedding ever imaginable (at Biba); Anne Rosenzweig, who helped to refine my approach to food at Arcadia; and others, including sous chefs like Paul O'Connell (who's gone on to make a name for himself in Boston), Susan Regis (who's done likewise), Rebecca Charles (now of Pearl Oyster Bar in NYC), and Tony Bonner (who's Rebecca's lunchtime sous chef at Pearl), etc.

Studying with Madeleine Kamman at the School for American Chefs was the single most inspirational episode in my culinary education. For a change, it was great to have the luxury of time to be able to taste and talk about the dishes we made -- and to be outdoors while doing it made us all feel an even stronger connection to the food we were preparing. In addition, Madeleine could talk about the science of cooking as easily as she could the artistry that went into each dish.

I recommend Madeleine's book THE MAKING OF A COOK to anyone who's serious about food -- it's a brilliant book by a brilliant woman.

Andrew