If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs

This collection of career profiles of well-known chefs posits itself as a guide for those who fantasize about starting restaurants themselves. Chefs ask repeatedly: Have you got the stuff?. The family who founded Boston's French-Cambodian restaurant, the Elephant Walk, recounts a story of immigration and struggle. Harvard graduate Andrew Pforzheimer, who now owns three restaurants in Connecticut, trained, among other places, at a ""jewel-box"" restaurant (kitchen staffed by immigrants) in Beverly Hills, and Marc Jolis of Atlanta's Cafe Sunflower studied at a culinary school. None of the chefs makes the work sound easy, although Anthony Bourdain's tales of ""snorting rails of coke that we'd run from one end of the bar to the other"" may appeal to some. Davis includes informational sections such as a list of the 10 culinary schools with the highest enrollment and the top four reasons that restaurants fail, according to Gary Goldberg, director of the New School's Culinary Arts program. Each chef interviewed contributes one or more recipes (Marc Jolis's Sweet and Sour Lemongrass Saffronated Pasta with Apricots and Strawberries; Alan Wong's Grilled Lamb Chops with Macadamia-Coconut Crust, Cabernet Sauvignon Jus and Coconut-Ginger Cream), which are interesting but seem discordant with the body of this fairly encyclopedic vocational tool. BOMC selection. (Oct.)