Anthony Bourdain, after my own heart
April 9th, 2008 • chatter
Last night I started reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and I’m blazing through this thing. I’ve been waiting to read this ever since I started watching No Reservations on TV a few years ago and always thought of the guy as a gastrointestinal idol. The man eats anything, turns nothing down, even if it looks like it will send him fleeing to the john in minutes. Which apparently happened to him a few years ago, eating mussels at a two star deal up in Soho. The guy’s got food gestalt, as any good chef does. All the chefs that I know that are picky about what they eat are typically pretentious about food in general and don’t “get” bizarre delights like boiled tripe or blood sausage or testicles. Anyway, the book.
First thing I’ve read all year that’s not school related. I also started reading, or tried to read, Daniel’s Dennett’s Breaking the Spell yesterday but just couldn’t do it. Granted, it was an ebook and reading on my PC while dodging work is a less than successful venture to begin with. I managed to skim about 3 pages before putting it down and picking up Bourdain’s book. Given the fact that I’ve now read about 100 pages since last night — a feat for me since I read no faster than a 10 year old, purposefully — it’s a light read. He’s after my own heart linguistically. Bourdain’s not pretentious or haughty with his literature, just straight forward, to the point, and vulgar. The more “fucks” the better, the man’s from New York after all. When I was a cook, there was only one place where I didn’t swear like sailor at my coworkers and that was because I worked for an ex-girlfriend’s father. He didn’t like the foul language so I just didn’t say anything. Fryer guys, broiler guys, preps, and all the rest are going to swear up and down and it’s acceptable, it’s a cooking thing. Reading this book makes me miss being a line cook or working a broiler but I don’t miss going home dirty and covered in grease or whatever else there was around. I definitely do not miss that. At all.