Get Read to Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.

As previously evidenced, I really love Anthony Bourdain. I think he’s an excellent TV personality, a good writer, and by all accounts a decent cook. I read his books out of order, but that didn’t seem to take away from anything.

Kitchen Confidential was everything I wanted it to be. Straight-forward (as much as any memoir is, I suppose), lurid, profane, and yet somehow elegant. Bourdain has such a distinctive voice, be in in television or writing, and there’s no question of ghostwriters other autobiographies may raise. You can really see everything he talks about, and if his cooking his half as good as his writing, it’s no wonder he’s gotten so far.

I really liked the organization of his book. It was mostly chronological, but there was some going back and forth in time. He’d reference someone, such as his sous-chef, but not really get around to details until chapters later. This was such an easy book to read, which made it a good choice for this time of year. Finals don’t really play nicely with extracurricular reading, and I could put this book down for a couple days, then come back to it when I had time. This book doesn’t always gloss over details, and reading the description of his hands while eating breakfast was not my best idea. I’m sure Bourdain had to play nice and either leave some things out or paint someone in a better light, as he was still a working chef when this book came out, but he doesn’t always shy away from criticizing people or restaurants.

I wouldn’t say this is a book for a foodie. Sure, there is some great food porn (a description of his first oyster as a boy in France, for example), but this focuses more on what it’s like to work in the kitchen of everything from a seafood joint in New England to a high-end Manhattan supper club. If you know someone who’s interested in that kind of career, or just likes to know what goes on behind the scenes, I would absolutely recommend it.  The one thing I would say is missing is how Bourdain got his start as Les Halles, where he was working during the writing of the book. He talks about working there, about how he was able to take a lot of the things he learned to run his own kitchen, but I had no idea how he ended up there. I think having that story would have connected a few dots for a more cohesive narrative. Other than that, and a few other minor quibbles, this was an excellent book.