Jack has been reading Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. As he styles it, it is a narrative of ‘adventures in the culinary underbelly‘. Wickedly funny, and great descriptive passages of his passion as it developed. He gives memorable glimpses of his life and times in the culinary trade over a 25 year time span. An interesting side feature of the book is an insight into kitchen ‘speak’ and industry behaviors – good, bad and risque.
One of the most fascinating accounts takes place very early in the book when, as a child, spending vacations with his parents in France, his father’s ancestral homeland, Anthony came to discover the mystique and magic of fresh oysters on the shell picked right off the sea floor. ‘I took it in my hand, tilted the shell back into my mouth as instructed by the now beaming Monsieur Saint-Jour and with one bite and a slurp, wolfed it down. It tasted of seawater … of brine and flesh … and somehow … of the future.’ He had become a man, had had an adventure, tasted forbidden fruit (His parents and brother displayed expressions of revulsion at the though of eating an oyster), and everything that followed – the food, the not so smart things he did from time to time, the chase for the next thing or a new sensation–would all stem from that moment.
From that point on, the book follows Bourdain through his early kitchen gigs, graduating CIA in New York, and a tour over the years leading up to today where he is Head Chef, at Brasserie, Les Halles in New York, or more correct, Chef at Large, as he spends much of his time traveling for his program No Reservations on the Travel Channel.
Some of Anthony’s other writings are shown below. They are all in his inimitable style and great reads.
