Kitchen Confidential
Anthony Bourdain, 2000
A chef's memoir of the restaurant underworld: late nights, bad behavior, raw oysters, and the strange brotherhood of the line. Bourdain's voice is fast, funny and profane, carrying you through late nights and kitchen chaos with a curious, gothic edge.
Feels like curiosity and wonder. About freedom.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy blunt, funny memoirs about work, food and the people who choose night shifts. Be aware that the language and stories are often crude, with drug use and rough behavior described plainly.
Why read it
A lively look at the restaurant underworld, useful if you want a funny, unvarnished account of work and appetite.
A page from the book
The people who cook your dinner are not who you think.
So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn’t be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts ‘fringe elements’, people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn’t make it through high school, maybe they’re running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. Anthony Bourdain.Bourdain's 1999 New Yorker essay 'Don't Eat Before Reading This' led to this book and made him famous.
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Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Kitchen Confidential for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy blunt, funny memoirs about work, food and the people who choose night shifts. Be aware that the language and stories are often crude, with drug use and rough behavior described plainly.
- What is Kitchen Confidential like?
- Bourdain's voice is fast, funny and profane, carrying you through late nights and kitchen chaos with a curious, gothic edge. Feels like curiosity and wonder. About freedom.
- What should I read after Kitchen Confidential?
- If you liked Kitchen Confidential, try Shoe Dog (Phil Knight), Trump (Donald Trump with Tony Schwartz) and The Joy of Sex (Alex Comfort).
A taste of the feed
The difference between a job that empties you and a calling that spends you.
I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.
Shoe Dog · Phil Knight
The case for leaving your door open and your calendar empty.
Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don’t carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.
Trump · Donald Trump with Tony Schwartz
What the anger is doing for you, and what it spares you.
I’m becoming an angry person with no tolerance for anyone. I’m aware of this shift and yet have no desire to change it. If anything, I want it. It’s armor. It’s easier to be angry than to feel to pain underneath it.
I'm Glad My Mom Died · Jennette McCurdy
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