Book Review

Kitchen Confidential was an interesting read. Anthony (Tony) Bourdain has certainly lived quite the interesting life. He learned to love food from his family visits to France and decided he was going to be a cook/chef. He worked his way up from dishwasher in a seafood chef on the East coast and started working up the line, going to the CIA (no not the Central Intelligence Agency but rather the Cullinary Institute of America when at the time it was a hard place to get into and it meant a lot.

He then started his run at many east coast, mainly New York restaurants, as he says, he helped many restaraunts that were on their way down go out of business. Along the way he works at and for some illustreous restaurants (the famed Rainbow Room - which sounded like a an big assembly line to me) and working for a man he calls BigFoot who taught him a lot and even some members of what he would consider the mob.

The man had a really bad drug problem and discovered he wasn't going to make it, live, if he didn't fix himself. Towards the end there is a great chapter about when he is asked by Las Halles (the restaurant he is head chef in NY) to go and help the Tokoyo restaurant become more French. His experience with the truely local food there is great. He didn't want to leave in the end.

There are points when he can get tiring and boisterous. You can see his potential and there are so many times he screwed it up for himself. But then you do come away with respect for anyone who chooses to cook as their calling. It is hard work. Most work 6 days, long days too. You always work the holidays, always standing, often in the extreme hot and you could harm yourself in many ways just by doing the job you set out to do. Then there is the language barriers because so many of the cooks in our country are not from here. And it's not the Europeans usually, but from Spanish speaking countries in our hemisphere so he reminds you it is essential to speak Spanish.

After reading this there are few delusions that being a cook is a hard job, not like the jobs the perky people have on the Food Network where they don't get dirty, have everything prepped for them and don't have to answer to a crowded restaurant
audience that is very particular.

Anyone who thinks they might want to do this as a job should read this, it's an eye-opener.