Kitchen ConfidentialAdventures in the Culinary Underbelly
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Audiobook Download Information
- Edition:
- Unabridged (Random House Audio)
- Length:
- 8 hours, 19 minutes
- File Size:
- 228 MB (123 files)
- Published:
- October 2005
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Review by Elisa Ludwig, eMusic
There are no easy miracles in professional cooking. Gruff, growling, misanthropic Anthony Bourdain, the antithesis of Rachael Ray and her chipper Food Network colleagues, reveals that restaurant work is hard, dirty and performed by sordid characters who can barely talk, let alone flash toothy grins as they plate steak au poivre. A supreme storyteller, Bourdain recounts his own early discoveries in a Provincetown kitchen during a college summer, and the career passion that led him to his post as executive chef at Les Halles in New York City. Along the way he shares his own adventures in the back of restaurants, his tussles with drug abuse and some of the naughtier goings-on between kitchen staff, plus some grim facts about food handling. Now a television personality, Bourdain has built a following on his caustic wit and searing judgments — all evidenced here in this early memoir.
Quotes from the Critics
"In a style partaking of Hunter S. Thompson, Iggy Pop and a little Jonathan Swift, Bourdain gleefully rips through the scenery to reveal private backstage horrors little dreamed of by the trusting public....You may find this revolting. I think the guy is hysterical. He's also, beneath it all, devoted to good food and the very difficult life that goes with cooking it professionally." - New York Times Book Review
"KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL discloses further restaurant secrets (you may think twice about ordering chicken, for example), but it's more a rollicking tale of Bourdain's culinary journey....But what is most striking about KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL is the utmost passion Bourdain displays." - San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"[T]remendously appealing, joyously penned....[A]n elegant meld of insider reporting on the food business and personal memoir....Resentment and rage, Bourdain's cherished motivators, fuel many of his life choices but not this narrative. He knows that the curiosity and aggression that might have made him a suicide or a killer are the same that turned him into a cook. He needs to be contained (pretty much every minute of the day and night), and he's found his ideal holding cell in the restaurant kitchen, where he's free to be a barking, swaggering, finger-sniffing, keen-eyed beast." - Los Angeles Times Book Review
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