Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Special thanks to Tasneem (Tazbites) for telling me about this book.

Right off the bat, Bourdain apologises to is fellow Chefs, colleagues and friends for divulging their worlds. He colours a vivid picture of what happens behind the swinging doors of a restaurant kitchen.

Doing nearly every drug there is and being on them for ages.

He doesn’t hide his disdain for vegetarians or people who don’t eat this or that.

Advises against brunch especially if you’re thinking of ordering anything with hollandaise sauce. Not hygienic and for pretentious people.

Butter and charlottes should be a staple in every kitchen.

Talks about the hard and fast life in the kitchen. Staff with such badly calloused hands that they can pick scalding hot skillets and dip hands in boiling water to pick potatoes. Every new burn or cut is celebrated and pus is poked out. Oh the fun! Still hungry?

Strict ethics and super organised procedures and systems. Making late suppliers unload the delivery and then tell make them return everything so they don’t mess up ever.

Suggestions as to your conduct, attitude and preparation for the path you intend to follow.
1. Be fully committed. Don’t be a fence-sitter or a waffler. Be ready to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

2. Learn Spanish! (Paras note: I guess this ones for Americans?)

3. Don’t steal, in fact, don’t do anything that you couidn’t take a poiygraph test over.

4. Always be on time.

5. Never make excuses or blame others.

6. Never call in sick. Except in cases of dismemberment, arterial bleeding, sucking chest wounds or the death of a family member. Granny died? Bury her on your day off.

7. Lazy, sloppy and slow are bad. Enterprising, crafty and hyperactive are good.

8. Be prepared to witness every variety of human folly and injustice. Without it screwing up your head or poisoning your attitude. You will simply have to endure the contradictions and inequities of this life.

9. Assume the worst. About everybody. But don’t let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining. This business grows assholes: it’s our principal export. I’m an asshole. You should probably be an asshole too.

10. Try not to lie. Remember, this is the restaurant business. Forgot to place the produce order? Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever.

11. Avoid restaurants where the owner’s name is over the door. Avoid restaurants that smell bad. Avoid restaurants with names that will look funny or pathetic on your resume.

12. Think about that resume! How will it look to the chef weeding through a stack of faxes if you’ve never worked in one place longer than six months. Under ‘Reasons for Leaving Last Job’, never give the real reason, unless it’s money or ambition.

13. Read! Read cookbooks, trade magazines-l recommend Food Arts, Savour, Restaurant Business magazines. They are useful for staying abreast of industry trends, and for pinching recipes and concepts. Some awareness of the history of your business is useful, too.

14. Have a sense of humour about things. You’ll need it.

Contents
Appetizer
– A Note from the Chef

First Course
– Food Is Good
– Food Is Sex
– Food Is Pain
– Inside the CIA
– The Return of Mal Carne

Second Course
– Who Cooks?
– From Our Kitchen to Your Table- How to Cook Like the Pros
– Owner’s Syndrome and Other Medical Anomalies
– Bigfood

Third Course
– I Make My Bones
– The Happy Time
– Chef of the Future!
– Apocalypse Now
– The Wilderness Years
– What I Know About Meat
– Pino Noir: Tuscan Interlude

Dessert
– A Day in the Life- Sous-Chef
– The Level of Disclosure
– Other Bodies
– Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown
– Department of Human Resources

Coffee & A Cigarette
– The Life of Bryan
– Mission to Tokyo
– So You Want to Be a Chef? A Commencement Address
– Kitchen’s Closed
– Acknowledgements