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Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) (平装)
by Anthony Bourdain
| Category:
Restaurant business, Cooking, food and wine, Memoir |
| Market price: ¥ 160.00
MSL price:
¥ 138.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
In this book, the arrogant, self serving, and foul mouthed chef Bourdain gives us a powerful insight into the massive egos, high stress, and horrific working conditions in restaurant business |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 5 items |
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Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2008-11-05 00:00>
Chef at New York's Les Halles and author of Bone in the Throat, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. His fast-lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things: Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others, and he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food. The latter was born on a family trip to France when young Bourdain tasted his first oyster, and his love has only grown since. He has attended culinary school, fallen prey to a drug habit and even established a restaurant in Tokyo, discovering along the way that the crazy, dirty, sometimes frightening world of the restaurant kitchen sustains him. Bourdain is no presentable TV version of a chef; he talks tough and dirty. His advice to aspiring chefs: "Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: 'Shut the fuck up.' " He disdains vegetarians, warns against ordering food well done and cautions that restaurant brunches are a crapshoot. Gossipy chapters discuss the many restaurants where Bourdain has worked, while a single chapter on how to cook like a professional at home exhorts readers to buy a few simple gadgets, such as a metal ring for tall food. Most of the book, however, deals with Bourdain's own maturation as a chef, and the culmination, a litany describing the many scars and oddities that he has developed on his hands, is surprisingly beautiful. He'd probably hate to hear it, but Bourdain has a tender side, and when it peeks through his rough exterior and the wall of four-letter words he constructs, it elevates this book to something more than blustery memoir. |
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New York Times Book Review, USA
<2008-11-05 00:00>
Hysterical... Bourdain gleefully rips through the scenery to reveal private backstage horrors. |
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USA Today, USA
<2008-11-05 00:00>
... the kind of book you read in one sitting, then rush about annoying your coworkers by declaiming whole passages. |
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New York Magazine (MSL quote), USA
<2008-11-05 00:00>
Utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and precise ear for kitchen patois. |
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A guest reviewer (MSL quote), USA
<2008-11-05 00:00>
This book should be required reading at every culinary school in America. It should be the book you bring as a hostess gift when your friend (who's a fabulous chef) has another dinner party but won't stop talking about how, someday, she wants to open 'a little restaurant.' In short, it is 100% the real deal when it comes to what it's like to be a professional chef. It captures the excitement, the misery, the pain, the anger, the pride and the abuse that is part and parcel of cooking in a restaurant. As a pro-chef-turned-pro-writer, it is the book that I always wanted to write but never did because, frankly, I wasn't in the life long enough to do it justice. In that short period, I had a freakish ascent from prep cook to bistro sous chef (and w/out the benefit of cooking school). During that time, I witnessed everything that Bourdain writes about - and quickly realized that I didn't love the world of 24/7 back-breaking work in someone else's restaurant to make it my calling. And as for the idea of opening my own place - as Bourdain himself said in a recent online chat, 'NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER.' Not only do 80% of restaurants die a horrible death within 5 years of opening, but those that survive extract an incredible toll on their owners. (You've got to be a little of a masochist to be chef, but you are a victim of psychosis if you become a chef-owner.) Bourdain is justifiably proud of his current post as a journeyman chef as NYC's Brasserie Les Halles, but I think he should be even prouder that he managed to capture everything it means to be a chef in his first nonfiction book - something that The 'BAM!' Food Channel, with its dozens of programs, doesn't even begin to understand. Bravo, chef! |
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1 Total 1 pages 5 items |
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