Hans Gerlach worked for seven years as a trained chef in many of Europe's top-rated restaurants. This specialist in food styling and recipe development has written many successful cookbooks. He became known through his column "Cooking without Recipes" in the magazine of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and has since carried it on as "Gerlach's Alphabet of Fine Cuisine". His ability of explaining technical processes clearly and simply is certainly a product of his other avocation: he is a professional architect with a doctorate in engineering.