Kitchen Confidential (2000) | Anthony Bourdain

In the pantheon of celebrity chefs nowadays, Anthony Bourdain has to be one of the most free-wheeling guys out there. He's probably living the life with the dream job of a travel-hungry college kid. He sports a travel TV show, an online series about excellent craftsmanship, and has written multiple books over the years. (I'm distilling his work too simply and too generally. I'm sure he's done way, way more than the last three sentences.)

What wasn't apparent to me was the work and culture that cooks and chefs swam in. From an outsider's perspective, there were always stories of nastiness and gruesome things that happen in kitchens abound. Thus it might have seemed like a speakerphone for that scene when Anthony Bourdain released Kitchen Confidential. A culture heard and now represented, a loud grunt that went "yep, that's exactly what goes on!"

 And that's exactly how the book seemed like. The TL:DR version is Anthony Bourdain grew up in a relatively affluent family, a bit of a mischievous kid who toyed with some terrible substances and eventually brought that into adulthood. He had a lot of stints with different restaurants and had been responsible for a lot of people's careers.

 What you don't get to see is the details in between those stints: the tough environment, the politics, the un-motivating business side, but also the sheer machinery and pride of what the culture produces. Bourdain captures it to a mesmerizing memory; an obnoxious representation. To an outsider like me, when I go to a restaurant, now I know that there are stories behind those kitchen doors; that there's a chef taking helm of the ship, sous-chefs standing second in command, and many many other participants making sure the ship takes the right course.

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