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312 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2000
I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere.
I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.I worked in restaurants through high school and college. I certainly hope things have changed over the last twenty years since this book was published, but Kitchen Confidential does a brilliant job of presenting the insanity of the aggressively masculine kitchen culture I remember. Some of the ‘trade secrets’ from when this book was first published (such never order fish on a Monday) have become conventional wisdom, but there’s still a great deal of smart observations and humor spread throughout. Well worth reading or re-reading. RIP, Chef Bourdain.
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So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here.