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Introduction
By Michael Ruhlman
Appears in
Published 2021
I’m a lifelong Francophile and since my teens have been fascinated by various regions of France: The Loire Valley, famed for its wines and chateaux. The amazing, rugged region of southwestern France known as Gascony, revered for its cassoulet and foie gras and Armagnac. Having studied at the Culinary Institute of America to write about it, I developed a love of, even devotion to, classical French technique.
This set me up beautifully to work with Thomas Keller at the French Laundry, an American whom Michel Richard once called the best French chef in America. I would go on to work with Eric Ripert, at Le Bernardin, equally Michelin-starred and devoted to classical technique. And, most recently, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who gained world renown for blending classical French technique with Asian ingredients. More importantly, though, this French chef was from a region of France called Alsace, in the very easternmost part of the country, bordered by Germany and Switzerland, a part of France I knew almost nothing about.