Kitchen Confidential: Insider's Edition

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The man was really messed up. I am not surprised he committed suicide. It appears he supported the Me Too movement and regretted this horrible memoir before his death, but it's too little too late if you ask me. A lifetime of promoting toxic masculinity cannot be erased with a few words in old age. And this book would serve better as a coaster. I have long been a Bourdain fan, we watched all of his shows and his enjoyment of food and travel has encouraged us more than once to get out of our comfort zones and to embrace new and unique experiences. I was devastated when I heard news of his suicide, I feel like the world is a bit less bright without him in it. But even during his so-called "wilderness" years, his love of food led to an atypical perspective on race and kitchen people, his tribe. 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. My chef friends in New York would have gouged out an eye or given up five years of their lives for the meal I was about to have... Each time the chef put another item down in front of us, I detected almost a dare, as if he didn't expect us to like what he was giving us, as if any time now he'd find something too much for our barbarian palates and crude, unsophisticated palates.

Sure, reading Kitchen Confidential made me sad as I realized once again the magnitude of Bourdain's loss. But I'm also so happy he left such a rich legacy, in print, on television, and of course, in food. Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman — not an artist... Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I'll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day. The book was disgusting in other ways too. Bourdain is against vegetarians and frankly I am glad he hated us. Bourdain's never ending descriptions of groping and namecalling in his kitchen got on my nerves very fast. He calls a sexual abuser - one who gropes everyone in the kitchen - his best friend because he was oh, so efficient! But it appears he was more bonkers than ignoring just what many other men like to do. One of my feelings was constant, that by telling the macho stories Bourdain tried to hide the depth of his psychological suffering that became painfully evident in only a few, but terrifying passages. Bourdain explains how a commercial restaurant kitchen works, using his own relationships with the people he works with to illustrate the carefully coordinated tasks and roles that each member of the staff performs. This extends to people outside the kitchen, as Bourdain offers an overall view of the restaurant business, displaying a mastery of the whole enterprise. He asserts that being a chef is essentially masochistic, and only people with an obsession with cooking have a chance at being successful in what, in many ways, is a perverse business.

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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. No one understands the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards more than a non-American,” Bourdain writes. “The Mexican, Dominican, and Salvadorian cooks I’ve worked with over the years make most CIA-educated [Culinary Institute of America] white boys look like clumsy, sniveling little punks.” There is little doubt that Bourdain understood that the “CIA-educated white boys” epithet applied to himself. 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. 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 had Kitchen Confidential for quite a while lying in my e-reader and I thought it was about time I read it. I wish I hadn't now! I had thought a book about food can never possibly be so boring and disgusting. But Anthony Bourdain's personality permeates throughout the book and put me off completely.

I confess I'm a full-blown foodie. I love trying new restaurants, finding new things to eat that I've never had before. That moment, when you take the first bite of a never-before-tried dish and realize you've found a new favorite, it's one of the best feelings in the world. And Anthony Bourdain passionately embodied that. To read about his early days is an honor, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. Kitchen Confidential will make your mouth water while your belly aches with laughter. You'll beg the chef for more, please. 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. Other parts will disgust you and leave you nauseous. You will never look a restaurant food the same way - and may not want to eat it at all unless you get a good look at the kitchen and the people preparing the food.

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The writing style is also somewhat over-done. It reminds me of when I was in high school and a group of us learned how to write humorous essays, that mostly consisted of wild exaggeration coupled with sarcasm. It's tiring. 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. In particular, his chapter on his first visit to Japan has all the flavors of what would become his trademark later. His unabashed enthusiasm for trying new foods and experiencing new cultures, and his innate understanding that the two are inextricably linked. To read his words is to feel his emotions, and they are tinged with the bittersweet—wonder for new culinary adventures but also sadness for all that he wouldn't have the chance to experience.

I liked this book but didn't love it. I loved that he reads the audiobook, because hearing his inflection and emphasis made me know when he was being serious and when he was being sarcastic. Some parts of this book are eye-opening and interesting, you definitely won't look at a restaurant or its food the same way again. Yet other parts of the book get really tedious, going through endless names of people and different restaurants kind of made me glaze over. I am not familiar with any of these people or places, so those parts didn't connect with me. Bourdain believes that the workplace is not for hobbyists and that anyone entering the industry without a masochistic, irrational dedication to cooking will be deterred. 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. 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.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:

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. In a professional kitchen, we sauté in a mixture of butter and oil for that nice brown, caramelised colour, and we finish nearly every sauce with it (we call this monter au beurre); that's why my sauce tastes creamier and mellower than yours. Margarine? That's not food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I can. If you've ever worked in a kitchen, this is how it really is. Not how it "should" be, but most of the time how it actually is. This book is written by Anthony, but could have thousands of other names as the writer. But only he, it seems, could have put it in the words that he has. A great tribute from all of us that have gone through it. I'm asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it's this: to be a part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one's hands--using all one's senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure...Oh boy. Where to begin? I found this book - and by extension Anthony Bourdain - somewhat distasteful. 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.