Celebrity Chefs

The modern celebrity chef is a creation of cable TV.  Prior to cable TV networks, celebrity chefs created memorable restaurants and maybe a masterwork cookbook.  Today celebrity chefs are entertainers. Food television is all about entertainment, not teaching or learning about cooking.  Julia Child showed a recipe, listed ingredients and proportions, and demonstrated techniques.  Not much of that in today's food television.  The difference between a decent home cook and a great home cook is mastering technique, starting with knife skills, sauteing, frying, grilling, roasting, boiling, simmering, and basic sauce making.  I like reading cook books.  Most read like chemistry books, the worst of them warn against varying from the recipe, as if leaving out or substituting one ingredient will result in a culinary disaster.  Great cook books talk about technique and concept.  If you understand technique and concept, you can widely vary the ingredients and create great masterpieces.  This is what great chefs do.  Jamie, Mario, Emeril great modern innovators,  great modern celebrity chefs.