I just finished reading Kitchen Confidential while waiting for the GF to get home so we can leave for my buddy Paul's wedding tomorrow in Santa Monica. Anthony Bourdain's autobiographical account of the inner workings of the restaurant industry as he's seen it, was an interesting, funny trip into a universe which I admire immensely. His unique voice rich with vulgarity is a candid, honest revelation about what goes on behind the kitchen. Those people who prepare our overpriced meal at a fancy schmancy restaurant actually do work hard to make our food as presentable and edible as possible. Those unseen sous-chefs, patisseries, grill-men, sauciers actually have faces, lives and stories. Kitchen Confidential is a tell-all of how an ex-junkie, coke-head, pothead, alcoholic, food-snob made his bones in the fast world of good food, bad restaurants and off-hour debauchery.
Kitchen Confidential made me want to be a chef. To drop everything, learn spanish and enter the universe of oven-burned, blistered fingers, callused palms, truffle oil, fancy italian words, stainless steel blades, fresh fish, incredibly beautiful, delicious unaffordable food.
I've thought better of it though because I love to cook. Why ruin a good thing?
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