I have the cookbook. The recipes are solid and the food is delicious. It will take practice to get some of the techniques, though. Trofie come to mind.
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Watching professional chefs execute techniques I am not familiar with is probably the single activity that gave me a shot at success. I use Paprika for recipe storage & when I save a recipe with a technique that is new to me I always save the link to the video if there is one available.
Thank you for the link to a recipe 30 sample. After watching it I am adding to my list of stations to watch.
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This is so lovely. I hope my sons say this about me someday.
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Has anyone found a Chef, blogger or writer who is inspiring you more lately?
Impressed with some of Nik Sharma’s recipes recently.
Upon reflection, I rarely watch an episode of Lidia Bastianich or Stanley Tucci without trying at least one of the foods they featured, and loving them all.
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Additionally, Lydia’s books are reliable and down to earth.
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My Mom and Dad(mostly Mom) Jacques Pepin for his amazing technique and his show with Julia Childs, which always had me in stitches 
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Julia Child, and Craig Claiborne’s writing.
But I’m old …
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I loved Bitchin’ Kitchen. Miss that show.
Jacques Pepin is my main man. The simplicity, along with sound technique makes great food.
Julia Childs was my first, and very significant. I think I was 6 or so when I started watching her cook. Lesson learned: you’re gonna make mistakes. It’s not the end of the world. Cook on!
Martin Yan got me to expand my horizons. Got me the wok and cleaver set and that was my first cooking set up just for me. Started smashing garlic with my cleaver, just like Yan.
Justin Wilson just cracked me up. Big personality. Not a chef, but great guy.
I really don’t get much inspiration from what’s currently on TV. Sometimes, I’ll watch Chopped for background fodder.
I miss Bourdain.
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We always notice the skilled hands. Standouts are Jacques Torres, Martin Yan, and Pepin. Like him or not, Gordon Ramsay has admirable manual skills. Bourdain has trained hands, though nowhere approaching his gift of putting words to observations – right up there with Julia Child.
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I neglected to mention my first written chef, Fannie Farmer. Still have the Boston SOC book.
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(Re) reading that was all I needed to finally subscribe to Yes Chef!
It doesn’t take much, and no, I don’t get kick backs. 
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I’ve long admired chefs who have creative takes on flavor combinations, ideas that I would never have come up with on my own. When exciting flavors are combined with solid technique, I learn while making wonderful meals.
The chefs on my list are mostly the same ones whose cookbooks I would grab from the shelf in case of evacuation:
Rachel Yang
Jenn Louis (not always as creative with mixing ideas as the others, but very knowledgeable and thorough)
Yotam Ottolenghi
José Centeno
Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer
Another potential candidate is Joshua McFadden, mostly demoted because I’ve read he is (was?) unpleasant to work for.
Two more traditional cooks who have also had a big influence on how I cook and prefer to eat are the owner of the Chinese restaurant where I worked in college and my mother-in-law.
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This thread has been recently resurrected, and I don’t know if I had previously replied or not.
If not, then my answer (which may be dismaying) is Alton Brown. I was a so-so cook throughout the 1980s when I was in the Army. I was okay, but spent a lot of fiddling with this or that herb or spice. Mr. Brown’s show Good Eats gave me a lot of structure.
I’ve learned a lot since from the classics, Pepin, Child, etc, but it’s actually Alton Brown who got me going.
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Is this guy, Alton Brown, a chef ?
I thought he was a celebrity wanna-be try-to-be-important within food ‘journalism’ so called ‘chef’ ?
But I could be wrong 
My mother and my sisters were my main inspiration. I ate well growing up.
I got into serious cooking after I picked up a copy of the book, “French Cookery School” by Anne Willan, owner of the “La Varenne” cooking school in France (now closed). I learned a lot from that book, and from Jacques Pépin’s books. “The Cake Bible” taught me to bake; I have used it so much that it is now in tatters.
Of the TV chefs I like Chef Jean-Pierre best, more for techniques than recipes. I like Gordon Ramsay (minus the histrionics), but only in small doses; it makes me dizzy watching him bounce.
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Didn’t Claiborne write/compile the original NYT? My mother must have made every recipe in it when I was a kid, and they were all good. My copy is well thumbed and stained with drippings from messy things. Pulling it out to make cheese soufflé is a ritual in our home even though a soufflé can be made from memory and the NYT recipe has been edited with notes on that messy page. Butter a Charlotte mold and instead of flouring it, use finely grated Parm Reg. Use no nutmeg but replace with a liberal dose of Sriracha in the Mornay. Mix Gruyere and cheddar in the dish.
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Yes, he did. I probably have all his original NYT cookbooks. Many stained pages. Sadly, none are available as eBooks, as my iPad in the kitchen wipes down pretty easily.
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According to numerous bios, he graduated from the New England Culinary Institute. So, some training.
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It’s not uncommon to see TV food personalities described as “chefs” when , in fact, they are no such thing.
Here’s one, for example, which notes her as being a chef but, in detailing her career, it’s clear that she has never been one - either by training or employment. Actually a lawyer and now restaurateur.
