false 139220 15 Bill Buford's funny and engaging book <i>Heat</i> offers readers a rare glimpse behind the scenes in Mario Batali's kitchen. Who better to review the book for Amazon.com, than Anthony Bourdain, the man who first introduced readers to the wide array of lusty and colorful characters in the restaurant business? We asked Anthony Bourdain to read <i>Heat</i> and give us his take. We loved it. So did he. Check out his review below. <i>--Daphne Durham</i> <hr size="1"><span class="h1"><strong>Guest Reviewer: Anthony Bourdain</strong></span><br><br><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1582344515.01.SWATCHXX.jpg" size="THUMB" border="0" align="left"><span class="small"><b>Anthony Bourdain is host of the Discovery Channel's <i>No Reservations</i>, executive chef at Les Halles in Manhattan, and author of the bestselling and groundbreaking <i>Kitchen Confidential</i>, <i>Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook</i>, <i>A Cook's Tour</i>, <i>Bone in the Throat</i>, and many others. His latest book, <i>The Nasty Bits</i> will be released on May 16, 2006.</b></span><br><br> <i>Heat</i> is a remarkable work on a number of fronts--and for a number of reasons. First, watching the author, an untrained, inexperienced and middle-aged desk jockey slowly transform into not just a useful line cook--but an extraordinarily knowledgable one is pure pleasure. That he chooses to do so primarily in the notoriously difficult, cramped kitchens of New York's three star <i>Babbo</i> provides further sado-masochistic fun. Buford not only accurately and hilariously describes the painfully acquired techniques of the professional cook (and his own humiations), but chronicles as well the mental changes--the "kitchen awareness" and peculiar world view necessary to the kitchen dweller. By end of book, he's even talking like a line cook.<p> Secondly, the book is a long overdue portrait of the real Mario Batali and of the real Marco Pierre White--two complicated and brilliant chefs whose coverage in the press--while appropriately fawning--has never described them in their fully debauched, delightful glory. Buford has--for the first time--managed to explain White's peculiar--almost freakish brilliance--while humanizing a man known for terrorizing cooks, customers (and Batali). As for Mario--he is finally revealed for the Falstaffian, larger than life, mercurial, frighteningly intelligent chef/enterpreneur he really is. No small accomplishment. Other cooks, chefs, butchers, artisans and restaurant lifers are described with similar insight.<p> Thirdly, <i>Heat</i> reveals a dead-on understanding--rare among non-chef writers--of the pleasures of "making" food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenelin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. One is left with a truly unique appreciation of not only what is truly good about food--but as importantly, who cooks--and why. I can't think of another book which takes such an unsparing, uncompromising and ultimately thrilling look at the quest for culinary excellence. <i>Heat</i> brims with fascinating observations on cooking, incredible characters, useful discourse and argument-ending arcania. I read my copy and immediately started reading it again. It's going right in between Orwell's <i>Down and Out in Paris and London</i> and Zola's <i>The Belly of Paris</i> on my bookshelf. <i>--Anthony Bourdain</i> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"><br> 996750 30 5 2006 Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany total:4340|5:940|4:1933|3:1178|2:252|1:37| 4340 16507 6080 1009 3 4 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 23 10:34:32 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 21:20:47 -0700 2008 Heat without any prior knowledge of Mario Batali. I'd never cooked from any of his cookbooks, or seen his show. That said, the book was an interesting look at his life - an absolutely crazy one filled with gluttony, extreme restaurant hours and seemingly never-ending partying.
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In one passage of the book, Bill Buford becomes preoccupied with researching when, in the long history of food on the Italian peninsula, cooks started putting eggs into their pasta dough. He decides to go on a quest to Italy and meets with the co...more...]]> 2 2 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon May 14 07:44:33 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 02 13:51:40 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 2 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Apr 24 06:23:07 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 24 06:23:13 -0700 2007 Kitchen Confidential). This is the story of an editor for the New Yorker who ends up in the kitchens of Mario Batali - it is an encounter of his experiences in the kitchen, ...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Mar 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 22:13:49 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 20:16:16 -0700 2009 Chocolat without chocolate, it would be rude not to eat pasta and drink red wine while this book's in your life.
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Heat by Bill Buford
Reviewed by Tom Carrico

Bill Buford is a former editor of the “The New Yorker” magazine, founding editor of “Granta” magazine and publisher of Granta Books. His hobby was cooking. He cooked for friends and business associates and o...more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jul 01 12:35:49 -0700 2007 Mon Jan 14 13:12:56 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Sep 04 08:12:08 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 23 07:10:29 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 04 08:11:52 -0700 2007
- a business
- an artform
- an intellectual interest
- a link to the soil
- a tenuous and evocative link to the past

plus:

- recipes (of a sort, since recipes are for home cooks, we learn) for linguine with clams, the tuscan version of be...more...]]> 2 2 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 15:54:18 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 15:54:18 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Dec 05 10:06:15 -0800 2007 Tue Mar 31 20:44:18 -0700 2009
I was really excited by Buford's accounts of working in the kitchen at Babbo, a restaurant I used to...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 07 16:05:49 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 07 16:06:06 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Sep 11 14:02:14 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 27 23:11:27 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sun Jul 08 17:18:56 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 08 17:32:19 -0700 2007 Kitchen Confidential. Overall, I preferred Bordain's account of t...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:39:50 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:39:50 -0800 2009 When great reportage meets a great subject it's a recipe for success, and Bill Buford, a staff writer at the New Yorker, rises to the occasion. As in his previous book, Among the Thugs, on soccer hooligans, he revels in his cast of alpha males, especially "Falstaff with a spatula" (Washin...

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