kitchen confidential by anthony bourdain

I’m not some embittered hash-slinger out to slag off my more successful peers (though I will when the opportunity presents itself).” Sure, I graduated CIA, knocked around Europe, worked some famous two-star joints in the city - damn good ones, too. “So, it’s not Super chef talking to you here. Character you either have or you don’t have.” “The restaurant lifers who read this may or may not like what I’m doing. I’m calling my sous-chef, or a former sous-chef, or my saucier, someone I work with or have worked with over the last twenty-plus years.” On being a writer but identifying self as a chef: If I need a favor at four o’clock in the morning, whether it’s a quick loan, a shoulder to cry on, a sleeping pill, bail money, or just someone to pick me up in a car in a bad neighborhood in the driving rain, I’m definitely not calling up a fellow writer. But it is warm and juicy, full of laughable moments, and leads to the reader feeling hungry. It should be noted that this book has no mystery, and no concrete story, and as it is about Bourdain’s experiences, it is reasonably narcissistic. Every time I eat a new item, somewhere in the back of my mind I analyse it like Bourdain suggested, and recreating it becomes an easy task. His insistence that real cooking is simple, easy and uncomplicated gave me confidence to try the oddest of dishes at home. Anthony Bourdain speaks to the likes of me, enticing with stories about eating real sushi in Japan, to the tricks and must dos for the cooking enthusiast. Not only is it a great insight in to the hotel and hospitality industry, but it is also an honest recollection about the experience of cooking by someone who truly understands food. And anyone who have even a quarter of affection for food like I do should read Kitchen Confidential. I am aware that I live to eat, and give the experience of eating too much importance in my life.

If I even need to make my day better, all I need to do is make a good cup of coffee, and after a long day of work, it is cooking a simple but lavishly flavored chicken curry that does it for me. Even my enthusiasm for travel comes from the understanding that a simple chane ki daal can be cooked in distinct flavors unique to different parts of our country.

Food became powerful to such a great extent that my life goals began to revolve around it. It may have come from my deep rooted affection of yogurt since before I learnt to speak, or with the discovery of existence of coconut chutney and paper dosa in a tiny Madarasi dhaba while in 3rd grade. I cannot remember when was it the first time I fell in love with food.

Kitchen confidential by anthony bourdain