It was easy enough to prepare. Shove the lamb shanks in a pot with some tomatoes, carrots and wine, and leave it in the cooker at C.
Can you become a chef in four hours?
But the shape of the pot is crucial. Ferriss recommends buying a "Dutch oven", a roundish, high-sided thing that keeps the ingredients nice and compact. I didn't have anything similar, so I used a flatter, wider tray, which meant the meat wasn't completely covered by the tomatoes, and came out rather dry and bland. Given this is a book that targets ill-equipped food yokels such as me, and claims to explain things with the utmost clarity, its recipes really do need to be idiot-proof.
However, the Union Square Zucchini recipe number four was straightforward, and tasted outstanding. Slice a courgette into slivers, and saute them in ghee with lemon juice and chilli flakes — sliding them around the pan with a garlic clove on a fork — and the outcome is, in my brother's words, "the best starter I've ever had". To be fair, Tom doesn't eat many starters — but the point stands.
Quiero comer Union Square Zucchini. Most people seem to either hate Ferriss or swear by him.
I sit somewhere in the middle. Reading his book is a bit like being locked in a room with an especially arrogant version of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh: But somehow I can't begrudge him that. His central argument is that life can be made incredibly easy, which is fair enough, but what The 4-Hour Chef reinforces for me is that it takes time, dedication, and curiosity to become good at things — and cooking is no exception. This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Mattail rated it did not like it Apr 30, Ivan rated it did not like it Aug 06, Chris Hester rated it did not like it Jan 09, Evandro Pavei rated it really liked it Mar 02, David Kay rated it really liked it Nov 10, Harvey Morrell rated it did not like it Jan 02, Elvis Ozoria rated it it was ok May 23, Christopher rated it liked it Mar 31, Ashley Nelson rated it really liked it Mar 25, Patrick Kelligan rated it really liked it Jun 28, Phil rated it really liked it Jun 08, Kevin marked it as to-read Dec 07, George Cristian Matei marked it as to-read Mar 30, Michael marked it as to-read Nov 04, D W marked it as to-read Apr 29, Morpheyy added it Mar 14, Cecilia added it Aug 28, Drew, thanks for your thoughts.
I have to say, you lost me with this sentence: I've written a book review. If I see evidence that the author exaggerates his expertise or offers unreliable information--or for that matter if I see any weaknesses whatsoever in the book at all! Daniel - glad to share an alternate perspective. Please forgive me as I have miscommunicated my point. My point is not your lack of an alternate source, but that I believe you are taking a simple opinion from Ferris and misconstruing it to be a claim of steadfast expertise.
I don't believe Ferris is claiming to be an expert on squirrel season in the Catskill Mountains of NY, but is merely offering an opinion based on information gathered from true experts Steve Rinella. He does disclaim on the page before "the following is meant to be used as a guide". It's hard to believe that you would let a few questionable opinions stop you from listening to thousands of other jewels of advice offered by Ferris.
Foreign language, cooking, sports, or any other given subject. Even something as simple as the English language. No hard feelings - DK. Drew, no worries at all.
Casual Kitchen: The 4-Hour Chef: An Extended Review of a Terrible Book
As readers here know, I encourage people to disagree with me. This is how we all learn. There is useful advice in the book, no doubt about it. The issue, however, is author credibility. If there were just one or two examples of pretend or affected expertise in The 4-Hour Chef, that would be Critical thinking readers should ask themselves how many examples they will tolerate before beginning to doubt the overall credibility of an author.
I can get around a kitchen fine but am no expert, so would really like to take my cooking to the next level. I get that Tim's a relentless self-promoter, huckster, and maybe even snake oil salesman. And he's probably not an expert at squirrel hunting by any means. Given the book's namesake, did you guys see any problems with his content on cooking techniques or recipes?
Hi Peter, I'd say if you can already get around a kitchen just fine, then this book would be useless to you.
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In all likelihood you're already too advanced for it--both in context of his recipes and cooking techniques. Hey Peter, While maybe I agree with some of the comments about Tim's bombast, I found all the recipes I've tried to be phenomenal. I also, get around the kitchen pretty well, but found myself learning new flavors and a couple of techniques.
And anyone who has an advertisement on their site for "Eat this and never diet again" is more credible than Ferris? I read the 4 hour chef from cover to cover. I didn't become an expert chef in four hours but it got me started in the kitchen. The way I understand it is that I'll get a nice introduction to the fundamentals of cooking with the lessons of part one which is about 4 hours of prep time.
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It's not a perfect book because some of the nice gear is not available in my country but it's pretty good. An Extended Review of a Terrible Book. Tim Ferris is pretty good at a lot of things. He writes good copy and great titles--both of which are critical ingredients for any best-seller. However, what Tim Ferris is really good at is hype.
And let's be honest: The problem, however, is that all this hype makes Ferriss's books appear more rigorous than they really are.
What The 4-Hour Chef Didn't Tell You!
And as we'll soon see, what intelligent readers will mostly do while reading The 4-Hour Chef is question Tim Ferriss's credibility to write it. Affectation Speaking of and something men, here's yet another thing Tim Ferriss is good at: Like hype, affectation is utterly useless to readers, but it at least produces some unintentional humor.
If for some foolish reason you buy The 4-Hour Chef, prepare yourself for countless name-dropping experience brags like these: At the time his kitchen featured a walk-in whiskey library stocked with a fit for every palate, each scored from 4 being the best. They could also be the casually tossed-off comments of a garden-variety narcissist.
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But in a huge book that's scattered, disorganized, covers too much ground too superficially, contains perhaps pages of fluff, and contains all the bragging above, it suggests to me that Tim Ferriss doesn't know when he is outside his circle of competence. Reread the "squirrel brag" quote above.
Are we really to believe Tim Ferris has a favorite month for hunting squirrel? Expertise You Don't Have Sure, okay, it's just squirrel hunting. No big deal, right? We could laugh it off and not take it seriously. But I want to focus on this quote, because it illustrates an enormously important point about author credibility. This squirrel brag is one of dozens of examples in The 4-Hour Chef of what I'd call pretend expertise.
Ferris acts as if he knows, through personal experience, which months he likes best to hunt squirrel. But the problem is this: You'd have to do this before you could believably make the claim that you "particularly like" a given month.