The only reason I am guessing most people picked up this book -- myself included -- is because they wanted to hear about Top Chef from an insider.
WelThe only reason I am guessing most people picked up this book -- myself included -- is because they wanted to hear about Top Chef from an insider.
Well, spoiler alert, only two chapters of this book deal with Top Chef -- Chapter Eleven: At the Judges' Table and Chapter Fourteen: Sugared Up on Just Desserts -- and one of those is about the uninspired pastry spin-off. Even then, neither are particularly interesting, as she spends most of the former defending their judging decisions (we were fair and non-biased, I swear!), and the latter on how much harder it is being the host of the show and not a judge. Yawn.
Instead, she spends a large chunk of the book detailing her life growing up, which was as uninteresting as it was elitist. But don't take my word for it, judge for yourself. Here are some humblebrags snippets from her life growing up:
It was an upper-middle-class community, with a large Jewish population... our neighborhood was more or less spotless, and the schools were good.
It was the year of my bat mitzvah, so my father and I went to visit [my grandparents] in South Africa as part of the milestone birthday present.
I was thirteen, on Christmas vacation in Costa Rica. This was well over twenty years ago, when Costa Rica was not yet an eco-destination.
Upon graduating from high school three years earlier, my then-boyfriend and I decided to spend the summer in Israel.
I lived in Montreal for four years, attending McGill University, an Anglophone college, often called "the Harvard of Canada."
When I was nineteen, I spent the summer in Australia with my roommate, Cami.
Taking a semester abroad wasn’t a common thing to do in Canada when I was in college, but I was desperate to travel and decided to go to Spain with two of my girlfriends, Annaliese and Rachel.
From there, we spent several weeks backpacking through Europe together, from northern Spain into southern France, through the top of Italy down to Rome, then up into Switzerland, to Germany for a music festival in Nuremberg, and on to the Czech Republic, where I spent the morning of my twenty-first birthday wandering alone through a castle in Prague. From there, we went up to Holland and into Belgium, where in Bruges I visited the school my mother had attended so many years before, and to Paris for several days. I ended my trip in London, staying with family friends. I went to the Royal Ballet Theatre and a performance at the newly opened Globe Theatre.
And that was all before she finished college.
From there, she details her equally enchanted work history, where she falls into choice positions working at Le Cirque, for food critic Jeffrey Steingarten, and for chef Daniel Boulud. This is not someone who rose up the ranks from the position of dishwasher. A myriad of people in her life have handed her once-in-a-lifetime opportunities without so much as her prompting them with any interest. Oh, and she has never worked for or with someone that wasn't just amazing. Or, at least, that is how she tells it. Just how charmed can one person's life be?
I mean, she has only actually been upset five times in her entire life: 1) When her high school boyfriend broke up with her, 2) When her college boyfriend did the same, 3) When she got an overcooked omelette at a diner, 4) When she was turned away from a restaurant that was closing for the night, and 5) When her adopted brother had a mental break-down.
Instead of being subtitled "My Life as a Professional Eater," a topic this book doesn't delve into enough, it should be titled "Serendipity and Wealth," which seems to be the two defining traits that allow her to continue floating on her happy little cloud, high above the rest of us.
So why two stars? The book was easy reading -- I did manage to finish it, after all -- and Simmons does have some talent as a writer. So, there's that. There are also some recipes in the back of the book which may have some promise....more
A phenomenal, if slightly dated, reference book for anyone getting into homebrewing. If interested, an earlier edition of the book is available free oA phenomenal, if slightly dated, reference book for anyone getting into homebrewing. If interested, an earlier edition of the book is available free on the author's website. ...more
The artwork was beautiful and the premise -- food is the lone remaining form of entertainment, leaving chefs to rule "like crime lords" in the city --The artwork was beautiful and the premise -- food is the lone remaining form of entertainment, leaving chefs to rule "like crime lords" in the city -- piqued my interest. But the execution left a bit to be desired -- the introductory explanation of the dystopian future rang hollow, and the plot was disjointed and shallow. Also, the tone waffled between straight-faced and satire, leaving it too austere to be funny and too absurd to be taken seriously. ...more
As someone that worked in the food service industry for my college and grad school years (albeit as part of the wait staff Bourdain loathes), I found As someone that worked in the food service industry for my college and grad school years (albeit as part of the wait staff Bourdain loathes), I found segments of Kitchen Confidential to be very interesting. However, they are interspersed with other segments that just show the author as an arrogant, boorish lout that lacks the culinary merit to justify his behavior.
The book seems confused as to whether it wanted to be a look at the industry (the more successful bits), or a retrospective of Bourdain's career (less so). In the industry segments, Bourdain takes the reader through the different people that make the kitchen work, a day in the life of a chef, and tips for people that want to enter the field. In the biographical segments, he describes his first raw oyster, his first summer job in a kitchen, a myriad of failed restaurants he worked for, all while hinting at a full fledged drug addiction that never gets enough attention for how much it seems to have shaped his career. These introspectives slow the pace of the book at points, and take away from the stated goal in the introduction.
As for Bourdain's drug problem, he mentions regularly doing heroin, cocaine, crack, pot, and booze throughout the book, but never goes into detail on the specifics of any of his addictions -- how they started, how bad they got, when he hit rock bottom, how he recovered. If he wanted to write a successful memoir, these parts of his life shouldn't have been glossed over or omitted, as they could have given the story of his personal journey more realism and depth.
Had this been dissected into two different books, Kitchen Confidential and say, Anthony Bourdain Confidential, I think they both would have been more successful....more
This is not the kind of book that I typically read, but I was on vacation at Yosemite without a book and happened to glance this at the shop, and figuThis is not the kind of book that I typically read, but I was on vacation at Yosemite without a book and happened to glance this at the shop, and figured I would give it a shot. I am very glad I did.
I now feel much more enlightened when it comes to what I am eating and where it is coming from. It is amazing what happens when the veil of ignorance is lifted, and you know how much our food is mistreated, chemically fertilized, drugged, processed and packaged before reaching your plate. It is also disturbing to think about how terms like "organic" and "humane" are thrown around, and how the marketing of foods manipulates the general public.
My only criticism is that it belabored a few points overlong, and hence, was a little longer than it needed to be to successfully prove its thesis....more
A helpful, though not spectacular, guide to beer and pairing it with food. I did not read it cover to cover, and don't believe it is meant to be read A helpful, though not spectacular, guide to beer and pairing it with food. I did not read it cover to cover, and don't believe it is meant to be read that way -- it is one part encyclopedia and one part cook book.
The author, the master brewer at Brooklyn Brewery, certainly knows his stuff. His prose is easy to read, which certainly doesn't hurt. He also has a sense of humor, which is at its finest when he gently mocks wine snobs and the pairing of certain food with wine. ...more
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