Kitchen Confidential: Insider's Edition

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But as a lighthouse in the darkness of melancholy, with so much joy, passion, and pure happiness, Bourdain describes the time he realized he fell hopelessly in love with food - the first time he tried oysters in France as a child - the picture than lingered vividly in his memory. Bourdain doesn't pull any punches talking about the life of the kitchen staff fueled by drugs, alcohol, sexual innuendo, sarcasm, anger, impatience, and tyranny. Some how, as a result, schedules are met, food is delivered, and customers are satisfied. Food prep is a lifestyle that can occupy the serious chef 24/7. It is something I will not take for granted in the future. After his tragic demise in 2018, I felt something that I rarely feel from a celebrity death. Anthony Bourdain was a one-of-a-kind soul, an unparalleled talent, and a man who truly brought a never-before-seen look into his craft to the general public. This book encapsulates everything I love and admire about the man. While some people are put off by his blunt, profane, and occasionally jaded point of view, I think these qualities made him the greatest foodie there ever was.

Published in 2000, Kitchen Confidential mostly revealed his wild streak. During his early years, his behavior and speech reflected somebody who didn't care whether he was liked. Bourdain reeked of privilege that was topped off by an expletive-laced attitude coming from a drug-addicted snob. How could I have never reviewed this book? I read this at a key turning point in my life, and was one of those books that changed everything for me. I was 22. I had gotten married and gone directly to graduate school right after graduating with a BA in music, with a full ride and graduate assistantship in the School of Folklore at Indiana University. It wasn't a good fit for me. By the time I enrolled in the fieldwork class, I knew I was probably on my way out, and got permission to do my fieldwork assignments in restaurant kitchens. The culinary-school trained cooks in the restaurant commanded me to read this book when I was still just observing and volunteering (I later worked there until I moved away), and it solidified my love for an industry that I was already excited by because of my experiences. Reading this only now, in 2021, you could say I missed that gourmet meal when it was piping hot. The timing turns out perfect for that documentary that just came out, however, and I’ll try to watch Road Runner within the next few days. This wasn’t planned, believe it or not. A career in food is a hard, hard thing to do. I don't know if everyone realizes it's not really glamorous, that it requires the weirdest hours, the most strenuous pace and the most frustrating interactions. Bourdain wanted everyone to know what there is behind the curtain, who teams up to put together the beautifully plated and delicious things you eat at fancy restaurants. He did that with self-deprecating humor, and gave no-nonsense advice for people who want to cook like he did - at the risk of deeply offending vegetarians all over the world.To the extent which my work in Kitchen Confidential celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily, with real remorse. The audio version is read by Bourdain, which may be the most problematic aspect for me. In the first couple of chapters, Bourdain discusses his introduction to the world of cooking, followed by his experiences at the Culinary Institute of America and his forays into the cooking world after. I'm stalled out on recommendations for the home chef chapter, which I'd kind of like to finish. Here's the trouble: He takes us on a journey from his first realization that food was something more than just nourishment (when as an elementary student he tasted vichyssoise on the Queen Mary) through the various restaurants he inhabited for countless hours, to the heart of Asia where he learned that New York City was not the be-all and end-all of cuisine. The descriptions of certain food ‘encounters’ were probably some of my favorite morsels in the book. Bourdain’s experience with his first oyster was so vivid and tactile, sensual really, that I could well imagine it like it was my own. Such pleasure! It made me think of a certain scene from When Harry Met Sally. You know which one I mean.

Over Christmas, while visiting and bonding my foodie brother in Arkansas, he introduces me to Parts Unknown on CNN. I am hooked. I love Bourdain. I'm addicted to the show. It mixes things that mix well: my love for travel, my love for food, my love for a good damn story with interesting characters. So, I figure, I might need to actually read his book. Yeah this one. The one that put him on the map. The one that turned him from an executive chef with personality to THE chef with personality. I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere.Oh, Anthony Bourdain. The world lost a great chef and unmatched culinary ambassador the day you died. It tasted of seawater… of brine and flesh… and somehow… of the future… I had had an adventure, tasted forbidden fruit and everything that followed in my life – the food, the long and often stupid and self-destructive chase for the next thing, whether it was drugs or sex or some other new sensation – would all stem from this moment.” Okay, so there were some interesting bits if you just skimmed through all the abuse and the nasty bits. He offers some cooking tips and a pretty decent insight into dining for customers. I personally find that restaurants in Pune are mostly useless with loud music, large TV playing sports, unbearably bright lights, and indifferent service. It's like they can't decide whether they are a club, sports bar, or operation theatre. Reading Kitchen Confidential gave me some real insights into why restaurants would make it such a chore to sit through a damn meal. He sounds pretty much like a conceited, arrogant asshole, even as he's admitting he was a conceited, arrogant, twenty-year-old asshole. In this case, though certainly there is a feel of realism added by listening to him talk, it is far, far too much arrogance for me. I work with that type quite a bit, so I'm not really enjoying it during my free time.Bourdain had prominent personality traits that were present from early adolescence. This is how he described himself; Garlic is divine. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago, garlic that has been smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Sliver it for pasta, like you saw in Goodfellas. Smash it with the flat of your knife blade. And try roasting garlic. It gets mellow and sweeter if you roast it whole, to be squeezed out later when it's soft and brown. Released in 2000, the book is both Bourdain's professional memoir and a behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens.

Restaurants garnish their food. Why shouldn't you? Dip the sprigs in cold water, shake off excess, allow to dry for a few minutes, and slice the stuff, as thinly as you can, with that sexy new chef's knife. Good food is often simple food. Some of the best cuisine in the world - whole roasted fish, Tuscan-style, for instance - is a matter of three or four ingredients. Just make sure they're good ingredients, fresh ingredients, and then garnish them.Bourdain enters a lengthy period of unemployment, as his reputation and the mistakes he makes in interviews leave him unemployable. Pino Luongo, the owner of La Mardi, gives Bourdain a break, offering him the role of executive chef at another of his restaurants. Although Bourdain eventually leaves under a cloud, his career has been re-established. In 2005, the book was adapted into a television show of the same name, starring Bradley Cooper as a fictionalized Bourdain. The series was cancelled partway into its first season, and only 13 episodes were produced. [6] Subsequent work [ edit ] I became acquainted with Anthony Bourdain - brash, profane, yet witty - through his food porn shows on the Travel Channel. As I listened to Bourdain's narration of Kitchen Confidential, his memoir of how food transformed his focus and led to his culinary career, I still miss Tony and am saddened by his suicide. In his food shows, Bourdain's cynicism was readily visible, but it had always been eclipsed by his curious humility and openness to new cultures and their foods.

In a recent phone conversation, GQ food writer Brett Martin, who also authored the excellent 2013 survey of the early days of prestige television Difficult Men, reflects on this through the lens of two decades of hindsight: “I think people forget, in the sanctification that’s followed Bourdain’s death, that his persona early on was really sort of an asshole, shot through with this adolescent, faux-gonzo narcissism. He and [creator of The Wire] David Simon shared that weakness. But they also shared a clarity of vision and this jubilance and brilliance.” I was the Quiet American, the Ugly American, the Hungry Ghost ... searching and searching for whatever came next. Tony’s Compass: How Anthony Bourdain Became the Food TV Star of a Generation Our Great Ambassador: In Memory of Anthony Bourdain Parts Known: Anthony Bourdain and the Passage of Time While Living on TV Eating, Talking, and Listening: The Final Season of ‘Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown’ I first heard of author, Anthony Bourdain, in a review discussion of his exposé of behind the scenes restaurant life on BBC Radio Four over twenty years ago. Two days later I bought and read Kitchen Confidential, and was totally blown away. I bought copies for family members, bored anyone who'd listen with excerpts and advice from the book, then started on a succession of other cook's tales, but none was as funny, scary, evocative as that by Bourdain. He remained an hero throughout the years to come. His recent, sad departure from this world prompted me to read the book again but this time literally in his own voice as he is also the narrator. And if I thought it breathtaking before, well, he really has to be heard to be believed. But also, Bourdain was an incredibly charismatic, passionate, intelligent, well-read, eloquent, funny and honest human being, a sensualist that had plenty of life inside himself and who truly appreciated the pleasures of life. Under the strong facade he was deeply sentimental and empathetic, and also suffering from a raging depression he tried to self-medicate through large amounts of alcohol and all kind of drugs, including heroin, an addiction he later on recovered from. This passage shows the depths of his depression and is terrifying in the light of the future event.

Reviews

Fining both meaning and drive for life in sensory experiences is by no means a new stance in the world of literature. The ecstatic moments of sensual joy can be found in Proust's Swann's Way, and in Camus’s The Stranger and The Plague, where the characters experience the transference of absurdity of life in the sensory experience of the moment. But it is beautiful to find such an experience eloquently described in a memoir. Life replicates art and art replicates life. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, neither his viral New Yorker article nor "Kitchen Confidential" were his first run-ins with editors and publishers. According to the New York Post, Bourdain's mother, Gladys Bourdain, was a copy editor at The New York Times and recognized his writing talent early. And a fellow chef, Scott Bryan, told the New York Post that "Tony saw himself as more of a writer than a chef."