The Kitchen Reader, an online food book club that I joined a few months ago encouraged its members to review any cookbook, old or new, that they love for December.

I had no doubt that for me it would be  Secrets of the Best Chefs  by Adam Roberts, a food blogger, and the creator of the Amateur Gourmet.

The book is chock-full of lessons, tips, techniques and recipes from 50 of the best chefs and home cooks in America.

Adam and his team traveled to 11 cities in the country for one year to visit those 50 professionals and prepared dishes with them. He took notes while cooking alongside the chefs, then adapted and tested each recipe in his tiny home kitchen.

In each section there is a side bar of a chef’s kitchen know-how plus three to four creations. From Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley California, for example, Adam learned that if there are no farmer markets in your town, find out where you can go nearby to pick fruits and vegetables. Alice shared her recipes for Farmer’s Market Salad with Garlic Vinaigrette, Charred and Cheesy Garden Salad Tacos, and Olive Oil-Fried Eggs with a Crown of Herbs.

While most chefs spend their careers honing their technical skills, Adam wrote, very few chefs or home cooks work on developing their palates like Alice Waters.

The parts on Alice Waters and other chefs are not only about kitchen know-how and recipes, but also stories about the chefs in their kitchens and their philosophies. 

In presenting the final recipes for the book, 155 of them, he considered affordability, practicality and whether or not specific steps were possible to re-create for home cooking.

Adam’s professional story is as interesting as the stories about the chefs and home cooks in the book. Since he began cooking and blogging in 2004 (as a relaxation from pressure in law school), Roberts has hosted several shows for Food Network online. He writes for Food & Wine, Salon, Serious Eats, The Huffington Post, and Epicurious.

I have been following his blog, The Amateur Gourmet, and subscribe to its newsletter for a year before the book came out.

When Adam posted about the upcoming Secrets of the Best Chefs in August of last year I was very excited, but knew it would be a little hard to get one. We do not have that many choices of books as in the States.

A few months later I was happily surprised to see the book at selected bookstores in Jakarta. So I emailed Adam to congratulate and inform him that the book is available in Indonesia. I would have thought that with tons of emails he is receiving and how busy he is, he would not have time to respond. But he did, nicely.

My favorite food writer Dianne Jacob portrayed Adam Roberts as a witty and charming writer. He posts several times a week on restaurant meals, cooking a new dish, hosting dinner parties, and other adventures and experiments. He is also good at coming up with attention-grabbing posts that go viral.

In addition to the tips and tricks from the chefs for his book, Adam lined out what equipment you need to cook good food at home, and ten essential rules for cooking like a chef. He also listed online resources for mail order of ingredients in the book.

Adam’s works for Secrets of the Best Chefs consist of cooking with Jose Andres, chef-owner of American Eats Tavern and several other restaurants; Asha Gomez, chef of Cardamom Hill in Atlanta; Roy Choi, chef and co-creator of Kogi Truck in Los Angeles; Ana Jovancicevic, a famous dinner party hostess in New York; Tom Douglas, chef-owner of a number of restaurants and cookbook author in Seattle and many more.

Published by Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc., Secrets of the Best Chefs is illustrated with strong and exquisite images.

In the words of host of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerns: "As interpreter, tour guide, doppelganger, chef-speak translator, and technical test bunny, Roberts heightens the experience of cooking with the greats by giving us the inside track on accessing the greatest kitchen talent of our time."

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Text: Amanda Niode

Images: Omar Niode Foundation