

Loading... Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker,… (2006)by Bill Buford
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No current Talk conversations about this book. What is the source of Italian cooking? The author, Bill Buford, sets out to find it by working in the Babbo kitchen. And then, he travels and works in kitchens all over Italy chasing this elusive question. Did it come from France? Maybe, as it turns out. What a story he tells of his experiences along the way. ( ![]() This book was fascinating. I enjoyed this. I read Dirt first and that was better; more alive and personal. But this was still a fun read! I wish there was more Buford to read. One of my favorite books last year. Nearly made me want to quit my job and move to Italy to apprentice as a butcher. Actually, I only got a little over halfway through the book before I realized I had lost the momentum. It was really entertaining at first, but a lot reminded me of Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential without the cred. I couldn't help but start getting frustrated that Buford did not deserve the privilege and luxury of jumping from station to station in the Babbo kitchen just because he felt like it--especially when his colleagues had been busting their balls for years (and were largely getting it right where he failed). The bits on Batali's life were interesting for a while, but those began to peter out, and I did like the food history well enough, but not enough to keep going. Also, why only Italian food? The only reason Buford cites as his concept for this book/experience, as I recall, was his being an avid amateur cook and wanted to see what it was like to work in a professional kitchen. Is it just because of his in with Batali? It seems that if he knew Batali, he must have known other chefs. Was it because Babbo was so prestigious? Was it because Batali was getting his ego stroked on the premise that Buford would be writing a piece on him for The New Yorker? Was Batali the only chef willing to let this guy in? And all this led to further fascination with the particulars of Italian food? Perhaps it's all revealed in the chapters I won't be reading. no reviews | add a review
Writer Buford's memoir of his headlong plunge into the life of a professional cook. Expanding on his award-winning New Yorker article, Buford gives us a chronicle of his experience as "slave" to Mario Batali in the kitchen of Batali's three-star New York restaurant, Babbo. He describes three frenetic years of trials and errors, disappointments and triumphs, as he worked his way up the Babbo ladder from "kitchen bitch" to line cook, his relationship with the larger-than-life Batali, whose story he learns as their friendship grows through (and sometimes despite) kitchen encounters and after-work all-nighters, and his immersion in the arts of butchery in Northern Italy, of preparing game in London, and making handmade pasta at an Italian hillside trattoria.--From publisher description. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)641.59455 — Technology and Application of Knowledge Home and family management Food And Drink Cooking, cookbooks Cooking characteristic of specific geographic environments, ethnic cooking Europe Italy TuscanyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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