I just finished listening to a dramatic reading by the author of Anthony Bourdain's books, Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw. Basically, the two books are well worth the acclaim which led me to 'read' them. They are really fun, smart, and entertaining.
The first is Kitchen Confidential which is the life and times as a New York City Chef, Mr. Bourdain's career. He describes in vivid detail the draw to the culinary world, how he enters it and then all of the roller coaster action after. What I got most out of the book was a sense of 'the path not taken'. For me it was glimpse into the professional world of cooking that I may have gone but chose not to. Not the drugs - lets say right now that would never have been my shtick as I early on decided I never wanted that. No, what I saw in myself in the book was making food my life.
Mr. Bourdain has the wonderful showmanship in his words to be fun and entertaining even when describing the most horrific of scenes such as stabbing his chef in order to avoid anal penetration. It's horrifying but I guess ultimately it all worked out. And he is twice as fun and entertaining when he is describing a scene that I could imagine myself in such as his first wonderful food experience - that oyster straight out of the ocean.
Listening to his telling add dimension to the storytelling. He is a dramatic reader and it is so easy to just sit back with my knitting and get caught up in his world.
As for his second book, Medium Raw, I enjoyed it ten times as much. I was able to connect much more deeply to the subject matter. For the first book it was all about dick and drugs when it wasn't about cooking. Not my thing. But the second book, it was a wonderfully insightful telling of his view of the culinary world as we know it today. At least three times I found myself thinking "How did he know?" as he describes exactly something I would do. Omelets after sleeping over at the boyfriends or curling up with my box wine to watch food porn (Top Chef).
I felt love for Mr. Bourdaine though we have never met because of his passion that matches mine. His passion about vegetarians while at the same time finding some common ground with the nit wits, his concern and insight into mass production of food today, and what I truly love the best - that for every problem he identifies he has a real solution that I agree with. I whole heartely wish there was no ammonia anywhere near my beef and that accountability is much needed.
In Medium Raw Mr. Bourdaine describes his astonishment of vegetarian folks who go to other countries and refuse to eat the local cuisine. He relates it to going to grandma's house and not eating her cooking. I find this very easy to relate to - and don't even have to leave the continental US to find examples. Just last week I was at a retirement party. This is being held in central California and the food was a taco cart. Some family that had flown in from the Carolina's asked the taco cart proprietor "If I was to order this in a restaurant, how would I ask for it?" He just tried to not look at her like a crazy, stuck up, white girl that she was coming off as and focused on grilling the tortillas. Instead one of companions informed her that these are tacos. She makes an observation, that in all honesty, is truth. That these are not like any tacos she has ever seen. I can forgive her that, I too had a surprise to find the huge difference between a California taco to the east coast taco. What gets me upset at her, this stranger, who is a white girl like me and therefore makes me look bad, is when she then goes on to describe what a taco should be. What she is actually describing is an east coast taco that is a bastard third cousin of the actual taco. And she has so much hubris and plain blind superiority that anything she was exposed to was the correct, and only, way a thing should be. This white girl making the white privlage mistake that I hate to see - that she couldn't see beyond her own upbringing. That the way she grew up and ate as growing up must be standard and only way to be - including having it never occur to her that the tacos she ate on the east coast are not anything close to the real thing. That when presented with the real thing - she wants to act like the genuine article is the knock off and not the other way around. I can only imagine, and cringe, as to how her privliged, self centered ass hole self would behave if she was to ever step outside of the US.
So there's my mini rant when I was trying to do a book review.
All in all the books were a great read. Basically, it's funny cause it's true.