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A review by ktc8
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Updated Edition) by Anthony Bourdain
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
unflinching and wild, makes me miss this man and his style/ways of seeing the world through food. and also reconsider any romanticizations of the restaurant business i somehow still had after working in one.
Such great quotes though, here are like a dozen:
"I want the readers to get a glimpse of the true joys of making really good food at a professional level. I’d like them to understand what it feels like to attain the child’s dream of running one’s own pirate crew"
"Maybe I’m not wrong about everything. All cooks are sentimental fools. And in the end, maybe it is all about the food."
"Be amused by what you see and suspect."
"my purveyors know me as a dangerously unstable and profane rat-bastard"
"Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman–not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen–though not designed by them. 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."
"People confuse me. Food doesn’t."
"The goads, curses, insults and taunts of my wildly profane crew are like poetry to me, beautiful at times, each tiny variation on a classic theme like some Beat era jazz riff: Coltrane doing ‘My Favorite Things’ over and over again, but making it new and different each time."
"Like I said before, your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. Sure, it’s a ‘play you pay’ sort of an adventure, but you knew that already, every time you ever ordered a taco or a dirty-water hot dog."
Such great quotes though, here are like a dozen:
"I want the readers to get a glimpse of the true joys of making really good food at a professional level. I’d like them to understand what it feels like to attain the child’s dream of running one’s own pirate crew"
"Maybe I’m not wrong about everything. All cooks are sentimental fools. And in the end, maybe it is all about the food."
"Be amused by what you see and suspect."
"my purveyors know me as a dangerously unstable and profane rat-bastard"
"Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman–not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen–though not designed by them. 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."
"People confuse me. Food doesn’t."
"The goads, curses, insults and taunts of my wildly profane crew are like poetry to me, beautiful at times, each tiny variation on a classic theme like some Beat era jazz riff: Coltrane doing ‘My Favorite Things’ over and over again, but making it new and different each time."
"Like I said before, your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. Sure, it’s a ‘play you pay’ sort of an adventure, but you knew that already, every time you ever ordered a taco or a dirty-water hot dog."