Foodie Central I: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain Reviewed

My journey to the kitchens of America begins in their seamy commercial underbelly. Chef cum author cum personality Anthony Bourdain writes a 300-page rant of a memoir of the pretty-good professional kitchen, complete with drugs, sex, cursing, alcohol, and what I came in for, the food.

The blessing and the curse of this book is, really, Anthony Bourdain. Maybe it's worse that I've seen him brooding on television a handful of times, a lanky bag of hung-over looking scowls. He describes himself as a mouthy punk at heart, a guy who learned workplace survival skills the way a teenager learns life lessons in an S. E. Hinton novel. His formative point as a cook, if you can call it that, is young Bourdain showing up for his first real gig, armed with the proverbial little knowledge, with a ton of smug in each of his 1974 vintage lapels alone. He goes on for another 250 pages about the colorful path down to humility and then back up, breaking the punk attitude and then owning it. The obnoxiousness is not something you miss. It never stops shining through even in the writing. But you have to give the man credit for self-recognition.

I enjoyed the kitchen scenes, and he captured the organized chaos, and the quick-fire mental organization, the commitment (he answered my question once and for all why chefs smoke), the loyalty. The scandalously delivered background sections were great too (why your food doesn't taste like his, revealing the dirty secrets of re-used bread and Monday fish specials). But the fundamental misdirection of Kitchen Confidential is that Bourdain isn't just a cook, he's a writer too. He's not half-bad at the job (for some reason, I've got a soft spot for self-deprecating wiseasses), but the writer in him can't hold back on the whole life's journey bit. He can't resist the urge to make a story out of it all, a rough tale of sin and redemption, but he fails to hit all the notes with the force that he's swinging for them. Love of food: check, but needed more of that, really. A bullshitter lets the coke and the booze get the better of him for a while as he chases a string of failures: yes, but okay already, and okay already. Rock bottom epiphanizing: it's not missing. Back to that basic foodie goodness and the balancing of the life: yeah yeah, now tell me more about the food in Tokyo.

I don't know how much I buy it all, really. I mean, I don't doubt that cooking, like any not-too-visible trade, attracts some rough practitioners, who are forgiven their sleaziness or extralegality for capability. I can't imagine your typical construction site has a significantly different cast of characters, nor your typical body shop. I even recognize some of these assholes from summers in the part-time dungeons. I don't doubt Bourdain's anecdotal veracity, but by his own admission, he's drawn to certain work environments, and, habitually, drags along the same talent from place to place to create them. But I also don't doubt that other people run a tighter ship. Hell, I know people who do.

...and the chefs are still stressed.