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Learn to COOK - Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
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List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $4.99
Your Save: $ 9.01 ( 64% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092
EAN: 9780060934910
ISBN: 0060934913
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2001-05-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: 2001-05-08
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Reviews:
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When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded that appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectable shocking banquet that lays out his 25 years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine. From his first oyster in the Gironde to the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Brings Back Memories
Comment: It has been over 20 years since I worked in the restaurant business, but reading Bourdain's book brought back a lot of memories of what the business and the many characters who inhabit it are like. I found Bourdain's book to be very entertaining and reflects much of what I remember about the world of food preparation and service. Bourdain's management style is quite different from my own and I am not sure that I would want to work for the guy, (or have him work for me), but he is a great writer and accurately depicts the life in the biz.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Oh the Memories!
Comment: I love how Anthony Bourdain can add sophistication to the grueling and raw life hidden behind the walls of our favorite resurtants. I worked in a kitchen growing up and it's amazing how universal some of his stories and lessons truely are! I LOVED IT!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Comment: It's amazing where writing talent is found. I originally discovered Bourdain via his "Les Halles Cookbook" -- one of the funniest cookbooks I have ever read. And then slowly, I began to remember -- hadn't this same guy written an earlier book, much more scandalous?
Well, this is that earlier book. You may not care for the tales it tells, or think very highly of the author, but the man writes like a god! Most of his best jokes are on himself, and all of the wimped-out sissy mistakes he made on the way to becoming a member of The Brotherhood, and its storyteller.
One of his bottom lines: "This stuff is EASY. My cooks are all recent immigrants from Latin America who had never tasted anything better than a taco in their lives. If they can learn, so can you."
It is also, for me, quite amazing to really sit back and think about a gang of five or six guys who actually manage to serve dinner to 600 people! Not once, but day in and day out! For this, you don't want no inspiration, you are not in the market for genius, man, you are a member of the freeping army/ballet corps, and everything depends on precise execution of tasks you have done a kazillion times before. (Oops, I slipped into quasi-Bourdain mode there.)
This book is really a lot better than Orwell's pretentious "Down and Out in Paris in London," especially when you learn that Orwell was basically a middle-class guy who volunteered to go slumming, and left when he got tired of it. This is not the case with Bourdain. This is HIS LIFE, and I for one really appreciate his gusto, his zest, and his willingness to work hard for what he wants.
Enjoy, enjoy (and don't order fish from a restaurant on Monday!)
Customer Rating:
Summary: All Irritating Attitude
Comment: Either the writer is an arrogant, obnoxious, irritating, attitudinal jerk, or he wants us to think that he is an arrogant, obnoxious, irritating, attitudinal jerk. Either way, I couldn't be bothered to finish this book. Sorry I bought it and thereby increased the guy's income.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Yes and No....
Comment: Maybe because I am a chef I did not find the book hilarious as would probably a person who is not in the business. But, there were times when I found myself laughing out loud. Unfortunately, not enough times. I also found myself skipping paragraphs and a few pages. I did not find it boring but it was too cutesy of writing. I enjoyed how it showed his time line and if you put your mind to it you can succeed. After awhile I was tired of his long winded decriptions of whatever he was trying to describe. It was okay at first but then became trite. The book was 310 pages and it could have been successful at 200 pages. I had to nudge myself at times to get through. I enjoyed reading about his misadventures with incompentent owners which I could definitely relate to. Also, enjoyed the makeup of the different cooks.
I would be reading and enjoying the book and I would think to myself that I was being too harsh on the author when I would get to the next paragraph and I would see that my original opionion of it only being 3 stars was correct. I would reccommend this book to everyone because everyone has different tastes.
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