I enjoyed the descriptions of food and of Italy, but I frequently found myself comparing Buford's self-assigned temporary experience as a journalist-turned-culinary-kind-of-person to Bordain's authentic experience as an actual chef in n  Kitchen Confidentialn. Overall, I preferred Bordain's account of the fast-and-furious culinary lifestyle.

The best written mid life crisis I've seen.

Well, I love the premise of this book, and I began it with gusto (insert lame gastronomy joke here), but it became a little too detailed and meandering in parts for me and I lost interest.

I was really excited by Buford's accounts of working in the kitchen at Babbo, a restaurant I used to walk by, gaze longingly towards, but never ate at. It sort of read like a long New Yorker article, which makes sense, and is a good thing, but began to wear thin when Buford travels to Italy (See Valerie's review).

I guess I'm glad it's not Bourdain or anything, but maybe I just needed a little faster pace. What can I say, I watch too much Top Chef or something. It's worth reading for the parts about working in the kitchen, and how hard it really is to be a chef of such high caliber as Batali. I just skimmed the rest...

First, I didn't choose to read this book--someone gave it to me to read.

Second, I'd give this a higher rating if a predominant amount of the book hadn't been about a certain chef named Mario.

Third, because so much of this book was about said chef, I do not recommend it. I despised reading the repulsive, chauvinistic, sexist comments this guy said not only to the author's wife, but waitresses as well as others. I could give quotes, but I'd rather not. If you choose to read the book, you will just see for yourself.

Fourth, I enjoyed all other aspects about this book -- well written, interesting, informative, makes me want to go out and have some good Italian food, or go to Italy, or just make my own.

This one is going into the give away bag.

hated it. Just couldn't relate to the rantings and ravings of this chef, his travels and cooking.

Wonderful exploits of kitchen life. I didn’t mind a whole chapter on when eggs started getting added to pasta but I could see that being a reader’s boiling point

Outstanding on audio.

Over the last couple of years, I have been reading my way through some of the more well-known "cooking" books, which tend to be more memoir than actual cooking: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Yes, Chef and Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef come to mind. Much of the writing is about the lives of these chefs and how they started cooking. Then it follows their restaurant careers and the success that they have today. Don't get me wrong, these books are great! It's just that Heat takes the concept to a whole other level.

Buford gets interested in cooking in his 40s. As you read about his experiences in the cooking world, it's clear that Buford is really interested in the art of cooking where he will likely always be a student of that art, rather than an owner of that art, or restaurateur. Buford's book isn't about Buford as a kid, or his marriage, or how his family impacted his life - it's about FOOD. It's about life in a hot NYC kitchen doing prep work and then learning to run the grill. It's about Buford's treks to Italy to work for nothing to learn under unknown cooks about making pasta or butchering a cow.

The book also provides some gossip around what it is like to work with Mario Batali and other greats within the elite cooking/restaurant world. (Cool scoop: Mario is a major boozehound. He can drink 18 whiskeys in one evening. He's also a bit of a pig, who likes to get dirty with the ladies. Yep, sometimes what you think you see, is what you actually get.) There's even a bit of the Food Network and how it evolved since it first aired in the 1990s.

Buford doesn't let his love of cooking and slow food diminish his sense of humor. He can rip a funny yarn, and the reader of the book really did an excellent job of capturing Buford's spirit.

Overall, this book set the standard of what people who love food should be writing about. I highly recommend it.

I started reading 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.

But the focus of the book is not only Batali (although he steals the show, in my opinion). Actually written by Bill Buford about his time spent in one of Batali's restaurant kitchens (Babbo in NYC), Heat also tells the story of his progression from home chef (and former New Yorker writer) to that of a line-cook and ultimately a pasta maker at the restaurant. It also serves as a memoir of his own time spent in Italy learning to cook pasta and butcher, as well as a history of Italian food.

I felt that the most interesting parts were those chronicling his time in the kitchen at Babbo and telling Batali's personal story. The parts that, in the end, were the least interesting to me were those detailing the regional gastronomy of Italy, or the history of pasta... even as a person interested in food and cooking, some of these histories just went into too much detail and were too lengthy to hold my interest (for example, a seemingly unending chapter on when and why cooks starting adding eggs to their pasta dough). I was starting to lose interest in finishing the book, but what I found to be the most engaging part of Buford's personal experience (working with one of the best butchers in Italy) drew me back in.

Heat did inspire me to check out some Batali cookbooks from the library, because since I finished reading it I've been having some incredible cravings for pasta with Bolognese sauce. It's also another book in the same vein of those that emphasize knowing your food - where it comes from, its quality, and really how to cook and enjoy it - that seem to be all the rage these days.

If you: A) are really into Mario Batali, or are: B) willing to hand-roll sheets of pasta until they're translucent, or are: C) considering buying a whole pig at the farmer's market and butchering it yourself in your apartment, this is likely the book for you.

I loved the first half of this book, but really lost interest by the end. I think what happened was that as the story focused more on the author and less on the world around him I became less interested. Kitchen Confidential was definitely a better book in this genre.

I really skimmed a lot...not as good as 'Kitchen.'

I enjoyed this, but not as much as the author’s later work, Dirt. I really liked the first third of the book set in The Babbo kitchen and I loved the last third, in Tuscany with Dario and The Maestro. But, my interest wained somewhere around the middle. I did really love the focus on “small food” and the emphasis on the treatment of and appreciation for the animals we eat as food. I passionately believe that everyone should understand where their food comes from and that their bacon comes from an actual living pig who is either humanely raised on a family farm or tortured every day of his life as part of “big food” on a factory farm. I was pleasantly surprised that this book dealt with that subject and how well the author put this concept to words.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but I really liked this book. It jumps around from bio of Mario Batali, a history of Italian cooking, and random stories from the author's time working at Babbo and a butcher's shop in Italy. It really made me appreciate Italian food and wine. The only bad part: I craved pasta every day while reading it.