What are man. What a character. What a life. I read the physical book in tandem with the audio, and it was the best experience, like having him back again. He was a true badass rock star in the culinary world. This book is outrageous, hilarious, and really informative. I'm a dummy for waiting so long to read it.

“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential



There is a certain thrill to being the first person to reach the top of a mountain, the first to eat at a soon-to-be famous restaurant, the first to discover an author, a band, a new food or experience. Well friend, the thrill of a late discovery (even when you are 15 years late to the party) is still pretty damn sweet. I might have seen Bourdain's books as I wandered through a bookstore. I might have seen him on CNN, the Travel Channel or the Food Network while searching for another show on another station. I didn't hardly notice him. He was like that girl you know in class but have never given much real attention to (only later to discover she is witty, wicked, and everything you want in a lover and fear in a daughter).

Over Christmas, while visiting and bonding my foodie brother in Arkansas, he introduces me to Parts Unknown on CNN. I am hooked. I love Bourdain. I'm addicted to the show. It mixes things that mix well: my love for travel, my love for food, my love for a damn good story with interesting characters. So, I figure, I might need to actually read his book. Yeah this one. The one that put him on the map. The one that turned him from an executive chef with personality to THE chef with personality.

The book is a quick read. It dances. It seems to operate with a certain mechanical, hyper-caffeinated efficiency. Whatever money it made Bourdain, he probably deserved even more. Right now, I've muted my desire to put it on the bookshelf next to my other just reads. I want my wife to read it first. Oh, I've got a friend who would love it too. My initial reaction to finishing this book is the same I get when I discover a fantastic new restaurant (Republica Empanada in Mesa, AZ) -- I want to take friends and family to it. I become not just a disciple, but a crazy-eyed evangelist.

This was a good read, although I need a reread to give a full review. Bought recently a new copy for myself, with new sidenotes and the afterthoughts to be read, which gives another reread reason. :)

DNF. Read about 75 to 80% and while it's well written, it's like spending all day with a serious cokehead: entertaining to begin with but repetitive and unenlightening when all is said and done. I guess it shows its age. If there's a lesson to be learned, it's that it takes all sorts to skin a rabbit, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor.

There's one very interesting anecdote about the unions in here that almost compensates for much of the braggadocio, but it only serves to highlight the lack of options for resistance available to the workforce. If a workplace is dangerous for employees, it's not an indication of masculinity, machismo, or virility: it's a sign of exploitation and desperation. I still remember vividly my first job in a hotel kitchen and wouldn't wish such a life on my worst enemy. I hope all these first-world sweatshops get shut down soon.

I am a budding cook, and a pretty subpar one. But I have ambitions. I'm not interested in learning the basics; I'd much rather dive right into the dishes that require blowtorches and shit. That's why I'll never be a great cookerman. I'll have about five or six dishes that I can make that will wow people, but if someone puts five ingredients in front of me, I'll have no idea what combination makes a coherent meal. "Make a white sauce." "Er, what? Is that, like, mayonnaise?" "I need some acidity to tone down this sweetness." **Opens up D-cell battery and pours contents into mixing bowl.**

I want to be a rock star cheffyperson and there's no one who embodies that ideal more than Anthony Bourdain. Sort of. At least, that was my impression at first. He's somewhat of a contradiction. He glamorizes the lifestyle of the restaurant kitchen: the sweat, the blood, the drugs, the trysts in the dry goods room, and most importantly, the $@#%*%&@*@&$&$ing delicious food. But in the next breath, he makes the lifestyle seem like drudgery, the worst of all possible worlds. Megalomaniacal head chefs and managers, the long, grueling hours, the burns, blisters, and knife wounds.

Mostly what I learned is that being an above average cookerfoodmakerperson is dedication. You have to be in the kitchen all the time, you can't let a bloody thumb or sore feet keep you from honing your skills. You need to learn from people who are better than you. Put in your 10,000 hours and you might be able to make something that transcends Mom's pot roast. This is another reason I will never be a great cheffycookiedude.

Bourdain has some good tips for people like me, though, people who want to level their skills up just a little bit. He tells you what kind of knife you should get, what kind of pan is best, and other foodcheffycook things like that.

So if you want to learn about cheffycooks and how to be a good cheffycook, you should read Anthony Bourdain's Kitcheffy Cookydential: Adventures in the Cheffyfoodery Underbelly!!!! Yuuuummmmmmm!!!

"I don't know, you see, how a normal person acts. I don't know how to behave outside my kitchen. I don't know the rules. I'm aware of them, sure, but I don't care to observe them anymore because I haven't had to for so many years. Okay, I can put on a jacket, go out for dinner and a movie, and I can eat with a knife and fork without embarrassing my hosts. But can I really behave? I don't know."

I can't explain why it's taken me this long—nearly 20 years since it was published—to read Anthony Bourdain's n  Kitchen Confidentialn. Having attended culinary school, I'm fairly obsessed with all things cooking-related, and consider myself to be a bit of a foodie. I was also an enormous Bourdain fan, religiously watching his television appearances and loving his take-no-prisoners philosophy when it came to adventurous eating (not something we shared, per se). Yet only now, in the few months since his shocking suicide, did I sit down to read his nearly 20-year-old look at his journey to executive chef, the knowledge he gained and the trouble he stepped into, time after time.

While certainly it's a little eerie (and a little sad) to read a memoir by someone who subsequently dies, that didn't spoil my enjoyment of this terrific, brash, funny, and at times introspective, book. Bourdain was a natural storyteller—not only did he use food to tell the stories he (and his bosses) wanted to create, but he also loved to talk about the ways the culinary world has changed through the years, how what restaurants serve (and what people eat) has changed, and how the role of the chef has changed with it.

Unlike many memoirs, Bourdain was never afraid to admit his flaws, his transgressions, his pet peeves, all of which served to make him more human and make his story more compelling. I loved everything about this book—from his days of being a cocky young man thinking he knew more (and could do more) than those who had been cooking for years, to his struggles to find the chef's job in a restaurant where he felt he belonged for more than a few weeks. He doesn't skimp on his addictions to cocaine, heroin, and whatever else he could find, and he was candid about how those problems nearly ruined his life and his career.

While there are moments of vulnerability, there are more moments of humor, mischief, and tons of information about the life of a chef (at least in 2000), and why some restaurants and chefs succeed while others fail. The infamous chapter, "From Our Kitchen to Your Table," in which he warns of some restaurant tricks to get rid of older food (although not all of the things he discusses are still true today), is terrific, if not a little bit disturbing. How can you not love a book in which the author says, "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living." (I guess if you're a vegetarian or vegan, you might take umbrage...)

I love Bourdain's writing style, so I'll definitely be picking up some of the other books he wrote. Even if you're not an aspiring chef or a foodie or even a home cook, you may enjoy this simply for the pleasure of hearing his words, which are so vivid you probably can imagine him reading them to you. It's a great book for cooking pros and novices alike.

Sure, reading n  Kitchen Confidentialn made me sad as I realized once again the magnitude of Bourdain's loss. But I'm also so happy he left such a rich legacy, in print, on television, and of course, in food.

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com, or check out my list of the best books I read in 2017 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2017.html.

I enjoyed this book by Mr. Bourdain. I like his attitude.

This is an entirely different world from what I live in. I've never worked in the food service industry, is it still like this nowadays? A world where you can never be sued for sexual harassment and foul language? I have a boring office job and this is so foreign to me.

Because this is so far removed from my own experiences of the world - heck, I've never even been to New York and seldom eat at fancy restaurants - I liked it. It was fun. And eye opening.

AB you are sorely missed!

It’s about time I got around to listening to his book which has been sitting in my audible library… for years!

My first exposure to Anthony Bourdain, via his show No Reservations, left me with with the sense of a true asshole who sneered down his nose with aging punk-rock disdain at people and things he deemed beneath him, and, honestly, it seemed like most people and things were beneath him. For some reason, even though he crossed my Southern sensibilities and turned me off to him on that first exposure, I kept watching the show and realized that there is a lot more to him than that first impression suggested. No Reservations is now my favorite show and when I saw a copy of Kitchen Confidential for sale in the book store, I snapped it up and began reading it that night. I unfortunately wasn't able to keep his voice in my head (his delivery is a large part of the draw of his show for me) but the series of stories from his past that he lays out are captivating even when heard inside my skull as coming from the disembodied larynx of my standard reading voice.

Personally, I didn't find the shocking bits all that shocking. I've been backstage at good restaurants. I've heard it all before. Honestly, I'm not really all that hung up on food safety. Instead it was the parts dealing with his own erratic career path that kept me interested. Instead of leaving this book with the impression that Bourdain was an even bigger jerk than my first impression left me with (as someone suggested would happen), I left the last page of the book with an even more positive view of the guy. Sure, Bourdain is still cynical, obscene, and wears that brusque New York attitude like a badge of honor, but what stands out in his book is his glowing admiration for people who earned his respect for their willingness to work or pushing him down the right path as a chef (his almost loving references to Bigfoot and Pino are prime examples), his seeming compulsion to take in less than desirable underlings, and his complete willingness to point out when and where he screwed up. In this more recent update, he even points out that he learned he was wrong about Emeril Lagasse (as a chef and person, not as a TV Celebrity) and frequently comments that he isn't a top-tier chef because of his own mistakes. He even goes so far as to point out that the only reason he is able to hang out with and talk to the Michelin-starred chefs he always admired from afar is because of his notoriety as author and TV host.

This isn't some self-aggrandizing piece literary self-pleasuring. This is a very human piece of literature that reveals its author to be a man who may have grown up a couple of decades too late, but isn't too vain to admit that when he did it was in a large part because of those who took a chance on him and supported him when he was at his worse.

I am ashamed to say I knew very little about Anthony Bourdain before he died. I knew he was a celebrity chef, with a pile of published books, TV shows and a reputation for being abrasive, but not much else. After reading this, I regret not paying more attention when I could, because I found Mr. Bourdain to be an incredibly passionate, well-read, deeply articulate, hysterically funny and brutally honest human being. It is creepy to think I could have crushed on him super hard was he still around?

I'm amused by people who think he was arrogant: I mean, half French, half New Yorker is not a blueprint for humility, but I also found him to have worked his ass off and to have earned his success. He decided he wanted to be the best, and then single-mindedly gave everything to that goal. There's a strong working class ethic that transpires from his writing, a love of work well-done, of hard work that makes him someone with very high standards - because he knew how tough it is to do your best. I have a lot of respect for that, and as far as I am concerned, he earned the right to be a snob. He also acknowledges how grateful he is to anyone who helped him, anyone who gave him an opportunity, anyone who showed loyalty and shared his love of food and good work. That shows a lot of heart; most prickly people are kinda gooey in the middle, and I feel that Bourdain was like that too.

A career in food is a hard, hard thing to do. I don't know if everyone realizes it's not really glamorous, that it requires the weirdest hours, the most strenuous pace and the most frustrating interactions. Bourdain wanted everyone to know what there is behind the curtain, who teams up to put together the beautifully plated and delicious things you eat at fancy restaurants. He did that with self-deprecating humor, and gave no-nonsense advice for people who want to cook like he did - at the risk of deeply offending vegetarians all over the world.

Reading this after Bourdain committed suicide is a bit rough, because while he certainly had a tendency for self-destructive behavior (he mentions excessive drinking and developing a heroin addiction), he also clearly loved to feel alive. How hard it must get for a man who loved life as much as he did to decide it wasn't worth living anymore is beyond what I can imagine, and it makes me incredibly sad to think he took his own life.

Four and a half stars, rounded down because I know a few of those chapters are old articles Bourdain wrote for various publications, and I think the book would hold itself together better if it had been a more continuous narrative. But I will be looking up his other books and scour Netflix for his shows.

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Additional thoughts:

-Yup, food is sex. I can't trust people who don't enjoy food, who eat just to sustain their bodies and not for the amazing sensual pleasure that eating can be. Maybe its the French and Italian upbringing, but that's just not right to me. Love and fully experience your food! Giving someone delicious, lovingly prepared food is a profound act of love in my opinion. All these thoughts also apply to sex. Obviously.

-My (French) father always said that margarine is the devil's lubricant, and I think he would have disowned me if he had ever found that greasy blasphemy in my fridge. It's nice to have this opinion vindicated. Apologies to my father-in-law and his "I can't believe it's not butter" spray bottles: I will never surrender, Ed!

-Sorry my darling Anthony, but demi-glace is overrated. And no one gets between me and a plate of smoked salmon eggs Benny and lives to tell the tale. Hollandaise is LIFE. Bacteria, shmackteria. What happened to living dangerously?!

-Yes, excessive meat consumption increases the risk of lifestyle diseases. It's also terrible for ecological sustainability. Less meat and a lot more veggies is definitely the way to go, but people who preach about veganism and try to make other people feel like bad human beings for not hopping onto their high-horse really, really need to pipe the fuck down.

-This book made me fall in love with Bourdain; I started reading all his other books and binging every one of his shows I could find. A piece of my heart will always belong to him - not just because he was a smokin' hot, smart-mouthed hunk, but because of how inspired I am by his work, and because of how much I've learned reading him and watching him explore the world. Thank god he wrote this book, which started it all.

2017: My first audiobook ever! I enjoyed the heck out of it. This was a reread and I was quickly reminded why I loved it so much when I read it 7 years ago. Listening to Bourdain narrate was a treat!


2010: If you're an Anthony Bourdain fan then definitely read this book! It's interesting, funny, crazy, crude ... and very well-written. AND ... it was actually published before he started doing his show "No Reservations" on Travel Channel (a fabulous show if you've never seen it). Bourdain writes the same way that he speaks and this book takes on a very real and entertaining tone. LOVED it.

"Anthony Bourdain, 61, suicide" I want to un-know the news I woke up to this morning. Restless soul, brilliant, funny, beautiful man: I've been half in love with you and with your seemingly perfect life of travel and adventure. Mine is just one of many broken hearts today... May you find peace, and may the daughter and others who adored you find a way to understand without self-blaming.

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There are three kinds of people: people who think Anthony Bourdain is too arrogant, people who think he's no more arrogant than he deserves to be, and people who don't give a damn which kind we think they are. Anthony Bourdain is the third kind. He is the last legitimate journalist on CNN and a tireless adventurer. I want to travel the world at his side, eating tentacled things to impress him. I would give him a baby if I could find a baby that I think he'd like to have.

Also, this is a pretty good book.