There is a chilling bit of Kitchen Confidential that should probably be more off-putting to me than it was, but for me it was the best reason for readThere is a chilling bit of Kitchen Confidential that should probably be more off-putting to me than it was, but for me it was the best reason for reading the book, and it redeemed some of Anthony Bourdain's worst excesses (particularly his love of adjectivally laden similes).
The moment comes when he is discussing the suicide of a Sous Chef, the assistant to a friend, who killed himself the night he was fired from his job.
A few things come out of this. Bourdain expresses an anger towards those who would kill themselves, yet he also sees suicide as an inevitability for those who take their own lives. He seems to see suicide as destined, something that no one but the one who kills him/herself can be responsible for. Simultaneously, he sees suicide as something that can be staved off, and that those who speed the coming of suicide through their actions are absolutely responsible for, even complicit in the suicide. He reveals his anger at both life and death. He offers, moreover, a warning about the industry he loves so much: that restaurants and the life of food service is a life that lends itself to suicide by attracting the suicidal and giving them a place to exist for a short time that can only end badly.
And this is all so chilling because only a few month ago he took his own life. Whatever note Bourdain left when he killed himself, he had already written his true suicide note eighteen years before his death. Kitchen Confidential is a manifesto of how to live while living, a desperate cry for help, an act of penitence, a farewell.
It's not the best book I've ever listened to, but listening to Bourdain speak his own words with his suicide in my mind made Kitchen Confidential intimate and more powerful than it could ever have been on the page. ...more
This is a great cookbook, and not just for fans of Aubrey/Maturin, but being a fan of theirs doesn't hurt.
Anne Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas put This is a great cookbook, and not just for fans of Aubrey/Maturin, but being a fan of theirs doesn't hurt.
Anne Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas put together a fascinating mix of literary veneration and nautical cooking, collecting all the recipes eaten by Jack and Stephen over the course of their adventures so that we, their fans, can eat everything from lobscouse and spotted dog to bashed neeps and voluptuous little pies.
I used the book in December 2008 to make my family a Christmas at Sea meal. The thought of hare was too much for my mother when trying the hare stew, but even she took a bite, despite her fear. The bashed neeps and stuffed pork roast were the real hits of the night, and my father and I got to share some winks and chuckles over the appropriate Aubrey/Maturin quotes we read from the book as we ate (particularly the whining from Killick).
The best part of Grossman/Thomas' book is that the food is incredibly edible. I expected most of it to be brutal fare, but everything I have tried so far has been delicious.
I makes me wish that tortoise wasn't on the endangered list because that turtle soup looks very yummy. Mmmm.
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