Sherrie's review
rating:
bookshelves:
2006booklist
recommended for: cooks and food lovers.
Mr. Buford, a writer for the New Yorker, had Mario Batali, celebrity chef, as a dinner guest. After Batali (a well-known partier) leaves his house at 3:00AM, Buford decides to do a piece on Batali. To get up close and personal, Buford decides to work as a “kitchen slave” in one of Butali’s NY restaurants. The author learns about the inner workings of a 4 star restaurant. The character’s he meets are so over the top, they are almost fictional. The kitchen world is filled with betrayal, honor and trust. He learns each station in the kitchen and he and the reader learn very valuable lessons about the correct way to make pasta (it’s the water, don’t drain out all that beautiful pasta water!), chopping vegetables without cutting half your hand off, to laying low when tirades pervade the kitchen. The author then finds himself in Italy, learning exactly how Batali learned to cook. The author works with masters of Italian cooking. I have always known that we as American’...more
Mr. Buford, a writer for the New Yorker, had Mario Batali, celebrity chef, as a dinner guest. After Batali (a well-known partier) leaves his house at 3:00AM, Buford decides to do a piece on Batali. To get up close and personal, Buford decides to work as a “kitchen slave” in one of Butali’s NY restaurants. The author learns about the inner workings of a 4 star restaurant. The character’s he meets are so over the top, they are almost fictional. The kitchen world is filled with betrayal, honor and trust. He learns each station in the kitchen and he and the reader learn very valuable lessons about the correct way to make pasta (it’s the water, don’t drain out all that beautiful pasta water!), chopping vegetables without cutting half your hand off, to laying low when tirades pervade the kitchen. The author then finds himself in Italy, learning exactly how Batali learned to cook. The author works with masters of Italian cooking. I have always known that we as American’s eat like crap. That we do not respect our food and those that make/create/grow/give their lives for it. The author points out that we distance ourselves from the food…ie. fast food restaurants, creating names for food that disguise what it is. I think of this when I’m in a room with a “Sandwich Platter” or “Sub Platter”. It’s crap, that’s what it is. Rolled up, processed crap which in all probability came from factory farmed animals who were first fed shit, were frightened and then killed in horrendous ways. AND let’s face it…in all probability a lot of that food, which is leftover, is just thrown away. (And don’t get me started on the price of health care because of people who eat like shit…AND then I have to pay the same price in the long run:::grumble::::) In Italy, we learn that meat from animals that are stressed and frightened are filled with adrenaline which makes the meat unsavory. We meet a butcher who can eat a piece of meat and tell what that animal was fed. The author apprenticed at a butcher shop where the meat was treated with respect and not wasted. In this same butcher shop, we meet the proprietor who is taken to spewing Dante at any opportunity. I think that’s very fitting. All in all, I learned a LOT about how good food is raised/made and how people should really pay attention to what they eat. In all actuality, the story of Mario Batali in this book is a footnote. He was just the means to an end. I also learned that one does NOT order Linguini and Clams for the clams. Read the book, you’ll find out what I mean! Oh..and don’t forget the pasta water! Book #62 of my 2006 Book List, finished reading it on 12-17-06....less
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany