Books from Andorra
32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line
Eric Ripert's memoir opens in the south of France, where his parents' divorce, when he was five, left him living with his mother and a stepfather named Serge who treated him with open hostility. Food became the one steady comfort. His mother cooked elaborate meals to lift his mood, though the relief faded once the plates were cleared.
A local chef and restaurant owner named Jacques took an interest in the boy, opening his kitchen to him after school, teaching him to make real chocolate mousse and telling him about his travels. Watching that pride in daily work, Ripert began to imagine a future in which cooking was something he could give to other people.
The book follows him from those years into the demanding kitchens of Paris, where he cooked under chefs including Joel Robuchon and Dominique Bouchet, and through time in Andorra, the small country in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. At twenty-four he moved to the United States. Written with Veronica Chambers, it traces the mentors and working rules that shaped him.
Plot
The winner of four James Beard Awards, co-owner and chef of a world-renowned restaurant, and recipient of countless Michelin stars, Ripert embodies elegance and culinary perfection. But before the accolades, before he even knew how to make a proper hollandaise sauce, Eric Ripert was a lonely young boy in the south of France whose life was falling apart. Taking us from Eric Ripert’s childhood in the south of France and the mountains of Andorra into the demanding kitchens of such legendary Parisian chefs as Joël Robuchon and Dominique Bouchet, until, at the age of twenty-four, Ripert made his way to the United States, 32 Yolks is the tender and richly told story of how one of our greatest living chefs found himself—and his home—in the kitchen.
