Main photo:
Eli (left) and

Max Sussman
check out the
produce.

Cooking
Course

A pair of brothers team up to teach college
students the art of a good meal.

WRITTEN BY KERI GUTEN COHEN I PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE KLEIN

B 1 8 •

AUGUST 2008 •

EN platinum

Chefs Max and Eli Sussman are prod-
ucts of their environment — a home in
Huntington Woods with no junk food,
no bottled salad dressing and a mother
who cooked inventive meals from scratch
nearly every night. The brothers went
from sous chefs in their mom's kitchen
to revolutionizing the "cuisine" at their
childhood camp to professional cooks to
published cookbook authors.
Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless
Cook to Creative Chef (Huron River
Press; $17.95), which hits bookstores
this month, is a hip, thoughtful, good-
humored primer for novice cooks — an
idea that developed from Eli's experience
living at Michigan State University with
roommates who had little clue how to
cook while he whipped up accomplished
meals with ease.
Offering recipes ranging from BBQ
chicken and Ultimate Chocolate Fudge
Cake to sushi and tzatziki in a man-
ner that takes the mystery out of home
cooking, Max, 25, and Eli, 23, provide
clear step-by-step instructions (boil-
ing pasta), explanations about cooking
tools (choosing the right knife) and
techniques (how to clean leeks), time
requirements, tips for buying locally
produced food — and savvy, humorous,
personable commentary.
While writing the book, the broth-
ers — who shopped their concept to
only two publishers before landing a
deal just a year ago — bounced e-mails
and phone calls between Eli in Los
Angeles, where he is a part-time chef
for catering companies and a fill-time
assistant media buyer at advertising
agency the Gary Group, and Max, a
cook at Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann
Arbor who spent five months of the year
as a sous chef at a fly-fishing resort in
Patagonia in southern Chile. Before that,
he honed his skills at eve - the restau-
rant, also in Ann Arbor.
"We both bring unique abilities to the
table," says Eli. "Max has a more high-
end culinary background, where I have
experience working in fast breakfast and
lunch joints where speed is a necessity,
but the quality is still high."
Working summers in the kitchen at >