Heat - Bill Buford

Year of Publication: 2006
Recipes? None that I've gotten to.
Grade: N/A.

I don't think I'm the right person to review this book, and thus I have finished reading it at page 82. Other reviews I've read of this book are positive, and although there are far too many cringe-inducing phrases for my taste (none of which I'm willing to go back and find for you) and I never cease to be taken aback by people's surprise at the number of illegal immigrants working in kitchens, maybe these reviews are right. I don't know. This book wasn't written for me.

Reading this book is like listening to the totally inept new guy tell a bunch of awed housewives how to do your job. He gets everything wrong. He exagerrates things he has no right to exagerrate—it is NOT that hot, the hours are NOT that long, it is NOT that big of a deal to burn yourself—because he hasn't really experienced those things yet. He brags. He treats a profession that employs millions of Americans like a hobby, like an exhibit for bored, over-paid, under-worked “foodies.”

I guess maybe what I'm trying to say is this book is a little classist? I don't know. Whatever, I'm returning it to the library. Go read Kitchen Confidential for your kitchen-pirate fix, at least Bourdain knows what he's talking about.