Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Summary

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Zero to Well-Read: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Podcast: Zero to Well-Read (Book Riot)
Hosts: Jeff O’Neal & Rebecca Schinsky
Date: June 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jeff and Rebecca revisit Anthony Bourdain’s legendary memoir, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, on the eve of what would have been Bourdain’s 70th birthday. They dive deep into why the book endures, its influence on food writing, memoir as a genre, American culture, and the unique literary swagger only Bourdain possessed. The show is both a tribute to Bourdain’s legacy and a critical look at his impact, complexities, and the lasting questions his work raises.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Structure of Kitchen Confidential

• Memoir Meets Exposé: Combination of personal narrative, essay collection, and industry tell-all—a "tasting menu" (05:27).
• Bourdain’s Beginnings: At 19, Bourdain becomes enchanted with kitchen culture, leaves Vassar, enrolls at the CIA, launches his chef career, battles addiction, then writes his revelatory 1999 New Yorker essay “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” leading to Kitchen Confidential (05:27–07:39).
• Voice and Appeal: “It’s just so enjoyable and it’s so singular… No one has managed to write about food or to write about really anything in this way that opens the door for so many other people. It’s just compelling and addictive.” —Rebecca (13:59)

2. Why It Matters: Bourdain’s Cultural Impact

• Food as Worldview: Bourdain, alongside Julia Child, emerges as one of two “most iconic American food figures,” reaching beyond the kitchen to explore forgotten, authentic places and cultures (08:53).
• Philosophy & Respect: “For all the swagger in Bourdain’s language... there’s real humility. He operated with remarkable humility and respect for the people who did most of the cooking, primarily immigrants from Central and South America.” —Rebecca (09:12)
• Opening Restaurant Culture: The book demystified the “back of house,” making the kitchen a “legible world to regular people” and exposing the realities behind the curated experience of dining (30:16).

3. Bourdain’s Life: Complexity, Restlessness, and Sadness

• Restless Soul: “It’s hard not to read it with the patina of how his life ends... It’s someone always who’s never comfortable.” —Jeff (22:49)
• Addiction & Depression: The memoir mentions addiction but glosses over details. Later, Bourdain becomes more transparent about industry issues and personal struggles (26:30).
• Tragic End: The hosts discuss the circumstances of his death with sensitivity, emphasizing that his issues cannot be simply reduced to substance abuse—a loss that reshapes reading his work (31:43).

4. Kitchen Culture: Beauty & Brutality

• Honesty & Self-Exposure: “He’s open and willing to be unflattering about himself... sometimes I’m a rat bastard... he just goes in because that’s the role someone’s got to play.” —Rebecca (18:07)
• Meritocracy & Craft: For Bourdain, a kitchen was an “effortocracy”—“If you can cook consistently at a high level... what you look like... what language you speak... is all up for grabs.” —Jeff (43:38)
• Toxicity & Change: Kitchen Confidential glorified chaos and “pirate ship masculinity,” but Bourdain later reflected critically: “To the extent which my work in Kitchen Confidential celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently... is something I think about daily with real remorse.” —Rebecca quoting Bourdain (33:42)

5. Authorial Voice, Literary Style, and Influence

• Unforgettable Voice: “This is maybe the best example of authorial voice... many have tried to sound like Anthony Bourdain, and you just sound like a person who’s trying to sound like Anthony Bourdain when you do it." —Rebecca (38:48)
• Cinématic Feel: Bourdain’s prose is fast, sensory-rich, filled with lists—a “well-crafted mess.” (47:52)
• Influence on Pop Culture: Shows like The Bear owe their “chaotic kitchen” feel directly to Bourdain. He paved the way for food television that’s about more than recipes—food as cultural narrative (40:13).

6. Reflections on Memoir and the Role of Obsession

• Obsession as Double-Edged Sword: “It’s the obsession that leads you to put in the time... But that, damn, that is a hard fire hose to turn off.” —Jeff (89:36)
• Paying Your Dues: A major theme is the necessity (and brutality) of working up from the bottom in kitchens—echoes of the American Dream but from the margins (54:53).

7. Legacy, Critique, and Double-Edged Nostalgia

• Legacy: “If you have enjoyed The Bear or Stanley Tucci in Italy or any food memoir… you have Anthony Bourdain to thank.” —Rebecca (88:42)
• Changing Standards: Both hosts are glad for improvements in kitchen culture but grateful Bourdain captured an era before its “Reformation.” (81:00)
• Outsider Perspective: Bourdain identified with the misfits—always an insider-outsider, both critiquing and reveling in the kitchen’s chaos.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Bourdain Ethos: “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the Ride.” (64:13)
• On Life’s Edge: “Good food and good eating are about risk… the more adventurous the serious eater, the higher the likelihood of later discomfort.” —Jeff, quoting Bourdain (68:30)
• On Memoir as Art: “You can see, like, I just think you can’t teach style in this way. Bourdain just had this and he carries it through.” —Rebecca (47:52)
• On Inclusion: “Show them respect by bothering to know them, learn their language, eat their food. It will be personally rewarding and professionally invaluable.” —Rebecca, quoting Bourdain (66:43)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Bourdain’s Timeline & Origin Story: 05:27–07:39
• Impact on Food Culture & Writing: 08:53–13:59
• Masculinity, Meritocracy, and Toxicity: 33:42–37:27
• Bourdain’s Literary Voice and Influence: 38:48–41:37
• Sensory Language and “A Day in the Life” Chapter: 48:27–52:09
• Reflections on Memoir, Craft, and Obsession: 54:53–57:46
• Notable Quotes & Goodreads: 64:13–68:30
• Final Scoring & Takeaways: 90:22–93:14

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Cocktail Party Crib Sheet: Top Takeaways

• Kitchen Confidential launched a food writing revolution—blending culinary grit, behind-the-scenes chaos, and literary bravado.
• Bourdain “opened up the world of restaurants to serious writing, art and storytelling” (89:08).
• The book’s voice, honesty, and depiction of both the beauty and brutality of kitchen culture made it instantly iconic.
• Bourdain’s later remorse over toxic aspects of chef culture marks him as both a product of his time and a rare reflective voice (33:42).
• Shows like The Bear and modern food media are direct descendants of Bourdain’s literary and television legacy (40:13, 88:42).

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Readalikes & Influences

• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
• Eat a Peach by David Chang
• I Hear She’s a Real Bitch by Jen Agg (for a woman’s point of view)
• Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman (industry exposé, writing parallels)
• Ball Four by Jim Bouton (sports memoir, raw honesty)
• Barbarian Days by William Finnegan (surfing culture, obsession, memoir)

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Lingering Questions and Thematic Reflections

• What is the good life? Who is my neighbor? Who are my people? (71:37)
• Can obsession be separated from greatness? (89:36)
• What does it mean to find value and dignity in craft, on the margins of society? (43:38)
• How do we reckon with legacies built in problematic cultures? (33:42)

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Rating (1–10 scale)

| Category | Score | |---------------------------|------------| | Historical Importance | 6 | | Readability | 9 | | Relevance/Questions | 7 | | Book Nerd Cred | 7 | | “Oh Damn” Factor | 8.5 |

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“If you want to feel like an insider in a now bygone or radically transformed subculture that the public perceives as glamorous, Kitchen Confidential really does take you in there. If you like voice-driven writing, if you know Bourdain’s TV work but haven’t read the book—just get in here.” —Rebecca (70:03)

“He both embodied it and was looking for it at this point, same time. And I find it to be generative and renewing to go back and encounter Anthony Bourdain this way.” —Jeff (92:24)

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For further discussion, the hosts announce a bonus Patreon episode about their pantheon of food memoirs, and encourage listeners to send in questions and reflections for a mailbag episode. Kitchen Confidential remains a touchstone memoir, equal parts intoxicating, sobering, and compulsively re-readable—much like its author.

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Transcript

[A]

This episode of Zero to well Read is sponsored by ThriftBooks.com today on the show, a favorite of ours, personal favorite, close to both of our hearts. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. A now iconic cover of Bourdain holding a knife in his whites with Lahal behind him. Very cool edition. There's a 25th hardcover edition you can pick up, but one I discovered I have never seen before. You can get it new or used on thriftbooks.com it's an animated edition that has pictures that aren't in the original book, which I wish I had. I just found out about it while doing research for this spot. That's what can happen when you browse thriftbooks.com, get free shipping in the US and orders over 15 bucks, which is enough to cover this one. Thanks to Thriftbooks for sponsoring this season of Zero to well Read. Welcome to Zero to well Read, a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you read. I am Jeff o' Neill and I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[B]

If you can't take the heat, get out of the podcast. Friends, today we are talking about the late, great Anthony Bourdain's landmark memoir, Kitchen Confidential.

[A]

It's 25 years, Rebecca, since this book came out. We're going to be talking about the history, what Bourdain was. This is a book that means a lot to you and I.

[B]

It does.

[A]

You and me personally, for a variety of reasons. That is it just about food, though. Certainly is about that. At the same time, we're going to get all that here. If you want to see what else we're going to do with our read along this summer, which is the Odyssey. Of course, you can go to the show Notes and become a member for access to that and also early ad freed episodes and bonus content. That'[e-mail] 0to well read. For this particular episode, we're going to be talking about some of our favorite food writing memoirs and books, things that have come out of Bourdain's toque to a larger and lesser degree. And I think it's fair to say, Rebecca, we're always looking for the high, that oyster, that Vichy soie that Bourdain refers to that we'll talk about oft imitated, never quite replicated. Anthony Bourdain.

[B]

Yes, exactly the phrase that I was thinking about this morning when I was finalizing my notes. Many have tried. There are many descendants from the grand line of Bourdain food writing, and some of them are quite good. But this is a legendary book for a reason. We're also talking about it right now because Anthony Bourdain, were he still with us, would be turning 70 this week as the show is coming out. His birthday is on June 25th. And just conveniently, like, I've been planning this episode since last year because any opportunity to talk about Kitchen Confidential, we've

[A]

done this before together for the Booster Crab podcast.

[B]

We did it in 2020 when the book turned 20 years old. So happy to be doing this again. But also just conveniently for us, there is a movie about him or inspired by his called Tony coming out later this summer as well. So maybe you found your way here because you're looking for more Anthony Bourdain. And we are happy for a reason to give it to you.

[A]

Yes, indeed. If you do have a moment, a reminder to rate and review wherever you're listening. Apple Podcasts, Spotify. On the US Apple podcast, we just ticked over to 800 ratings. Don't think I'm not taking a look at that. We gotta think of something to do for a thousand to get people to go to a thousand. If you have an idea, shoot us an email at our email inbox. 0 to well [e-mail] I know people listen to these out of order. They come to them late, they skip stuff. It doesn't matter. Time is a flat circle in the zero to well read inbox. You can email us about any episode at any time. I will respond to some of them. Some will save to mailbags. Some of them are well wishes and thank yous. We appreciate all the things. Thank you all so much for listening. Always a good time here. All right, Rebecca, So this is memoir. Is this our first memoir we've done on the show?

[B]

We've done I know why the Caged Birds.

[A]

Oh, I'm sorry. Gosh, that's right. So a couple memoirs in a row, but a more modern one. This one was published in my living memory. I was 22 when this book came out and it's a living document for us, but it's hard to remember. What is it about Rebecca? Is that right?

[B]

You were older than 22 in 2000, right?

[A]

No, I was 22. I was born in 1978. Did I do the math?

[B]

Oh, you know what? No, I'm doing math wrong. You know how old you are?

[A]

Well, I wouldn't take that. I know how old I was in 2000. How old I am now is a completely different question.

[C]

All Right.

[B]

I think that's in the spirit of Bourdain. We just, you know, got swept up in the moment.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Also, I was 18 when this came out, so. Yeah, that tracks. That math tracks.

[A]

So it's a memoir. Expose, I guess. It's betwixt and between. Right. It's a collection of essays. It's a memoir. It's a. Yeah, I'm not really. It's nonfiction, I should say it. Can you. There's parts of it that read like memoir. It's definitely his time. He tells us about who he is and how he got there, though he leaves some things out that we'll get to. But then it's also many forays and profiles and experiences and admonitions and recommendations, wherein. So it's a bit of a potpourri or a tasting menu, I guess, for Bourdain's literary writing.

[B]

Yes, it's wonderful. And just to give a brief overview before we really get into the details, the way this all comes about is Bourdain was 19 years old in 1975. He had spent the summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with friends. He was on a break from school. He was in college at Vassar. But he was just crashing in this beach house with friends all summer, and they got tired of him not paying any rent. Everybody else had a job. So he goes down and gets a job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant just to help cover his expenses for the season, and becomes totally swept up in and enamored with the kitchen culture there. This, like, merry band of misfits, he calls the restaurant the Dreadnought. He presents everybody as pirates. He talks about the place as this, like, pirate ship that was fueled by sex and drugs and rock and roll. Like, it is 1975. The hippies are hippieing. And after working his way up from dishwasher to line cook over the course of a couple of summers, he changes the whole course of his life. He drops out of Vassar, decides to make a go of it in the restaurant world, and then eventually enrolls at the Culinary Institute of America, called the CIA. So from there, he launches a career in fine dining and hard living, like, really hard living that carried him through the next 25 years until the moment that he writes this book. There are occasional detours into rehab. He was doing hard drugs. He was addicted to heroin for a while. And then after that, as he's rebuilt his life and his career, in 1999, he sends in an unpublished, unsolicited essay to the New Yorker that is later published as Don't Eat before reading this. And he reveals industry secrets, like gloriously messy stuff about New York's restaurant culture. And that leads to a book deal that becomes Kitchen Confidential. Its subtitle is Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. And that's exactly what this is. It feels like accounts of different adventures that he has and that the sort of wide cast of characters in this culinary world have. And that blew up his life in every conceivable way. He was 44 at the time. And we got 18 more years of Anthony Bourdain before he died by suicide.

[A]

Only 18. We'll talk some more about him in a minute. So then why are we talking about this book? So it launches Bourdain, who becomes a critic, figurehead, apostle, spreading the good word of a certain worldview which builds off of food, but it's not exclusive to food. As it comes to do his subsequent TV programming, food becomes an anchor. Right. To hitch onto to ground his explorations and thinking of the world. And it's forgotten, underrepresented, authentic places. And then also just a figure like, I think it's not unfair to say that he and Julia Child, Rebecca, the two most iconic sort of American food figures. I was struggling to. This was in my Hot Takes or Straight Thoughts. I wasn't sure to what put it, but I was saving here for why it's important. Because if you put someone on screen, I mean, maybe Rachael Ray or Emeril are some of the Food TV people, but people that reach beyond the Food TV to become cultural figures of their own.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I think it's Bourdain and Child at this point.

[B]

I think you're right. I think you are. And there's this, his philosophy driven really by, like, curiosity, appetite and deep respect. Like, there's real for all the swagger in Bourdain's language. And this, like, the swagger is the thing you come for.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's just off the charts. There's this. I think he operated with remarkable humility, respect for the people who did most of the cooking in most of the big restaurants of the world. He's very active and upfront talking throughout this book and all the rest of his career about those are primarily immigrants from, you know, Central America and South American countries who are willing to do the kinds of labor that kitchens have a hard time hiring other people for, that immigrants really do hold up the restaurant industry. He's on this. He's actively talking about it. He encourages readers. And the other he's writing to other cooks. I think that's important to know. That's at least what he tells us, is that he's writing this to other cooks. He wants them to feel seen and understood. He wasn't setting out to do like an expose of the culinary world for the normie reader. I think a lot of the subsequent things that happened after Kitchen Confidential are things Bourdain would not have liked to know were coming for him. Like that normie food. People just became pretty obnoxious about stuff. But he encourages this really curiosity about other cultures, this real respect for them, for the people that come from other places. And that food is a doorway into that. Food is what he's built his life on. But as he builds this career in travel and sort of culture writing and tv, it becomes more about using food as an entree into meeting other people, understanding other cultures.

[C]

Today's episode is brought to you by Penguin Young Readers, publisher of Doe by Rebecca Barrow. Now, this is a book that I have been anticipating for this year. It's kind of unique. It's horror, but it's novel in verse. Okay. It's giving yellow jackets vibes. It's giving sinners vibes. Also a 24 horror movie vibes. Okay, so let's get into it. So Maris Larson is captain of the West Eaton High cheer team and coaches of favorite on the mat. She can escape her troubled home life. That is, until newcomer Genevieve Ray threatens everything she's worked for. As their rivalry intensifies, Maris begins sleepwalking and dreaming of Doe. Now, Doe is a monstrous, decaying deer bound by an ancient curse. A lot going on with Doe. Okay, Doe's got a lot going on. Doe believes Maris is the last girl with a bloodline needed to set her free. Promising Maris the power to defeat Genevieve Doe draws her deeper into a dangerous bargain where victory comes at a deadly cost and only Doe truly stands to win. Like I said, this is a horror novel in verse with that premise. Go ahead and pick that up. Go ahead and get Doe by Rebecca Barrow. Come back, tell us how you loved it. Thanks again to Penguin young readers for sponsoring this episode.

[B]

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[A]

Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it.

[B]

It just tastes better.

[A]

Match Days deserve Pepsi. You yourself are part of the ongoing canonization of this, of this book.

[B]

Rebecca I am. Last year we did an event at Powell's Bookstore where we were each recommending our 10 most recommendable books of the 21st century so far. And this was, I think maybe my number one with a bullet like it is just so, it's just so enjoyable and it's so singular. As we were saying at the top of the show, no one has managed to write about food or to write about really anything in this way that opens the door for so many other people. It's just compelling and addictive. And he even, he calls it blustery in the intro to the book, but in a really appealing way, which is such a magic trick to pull off. You kind of, you just can't go wrong with this. Anthony Bourdain so that was in my, this, in my personal canon, 10 most recommendable books of the century, but it Made a big cultural splash. It was on the New York Times bestseller list when it came out in 2000. Critics, notably, weren't really paying that much attention to it. Like at the time, the New York Times coverage was just. It mentioned it in a roundup of other food books. They kind of didn't know what to do with it. But that was fine with Bourdain. He wasn't going for literary acclaim. He was writing this, as I said to other Cooks. He got 50 grand in an advance for the book, which is about 95,000 today. So a pretty healthy advance for this. It's sold more than a million copies to date. It's been translated into more than 20 languages. And in the afterword to the edition that I read, which he wrote in 2006, he even talks about how deeply surprised he was to find out that his experiences and the cultures that he described translated outside of American kitchens into restaurants all over the world.

[A]

It's also one of the great audiobooks I am always searching for memoirs by people who do things. I'll get to this in our read alikes or other recommendations, but this is the one that got me going on this. We'll talk about our first encounters a little bit later, but I think it is so I think one reason the New York Times or other people didn't mention it is because no one knew a book could do something like that that wasn't a cookbook in food. I don't think there was really. Fisher had some earlier books about France and other things in the Beards of the World and those were serious great books about food. But to combine the sort of gonzo journalism with the deep appreciation and understanding and experience in the food world and. And a fuck them if they can't take a joke attitude. I don't think anyone had seen those ingredients put together in a dish. So they didn't know what to expect. They didn't know this particular alchemy would, you know, do that molecular thing that good cooking and good writing at a particular moment could do, which birth into world, something no one had ever really seen before in this particular arrangement. So I'm not surprised. At the same time, we're going to get a little bit into the. It's sort of hard to switch it out of the bio here because he himself is part of the story and part of the star of the show as much as any writer we've talked about here. But this is sort of the dream scenario for. I'm going to sign you to a book deal based on an article you wrote.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because it does come from this don't read After Eating, which appeared to the New Yorker that if you know this book and you don't know that piece, or vice versa, it's essentially the don't eat on Monday, don't eat fish on Monday situation. Right. Which is very memeable. We call that a meme today. That was everywhere. People were repeating to themselves in their Volvos, in their driveways, wherever they were. The kinds of places go to restaurants like this. And it made you feel like you were in the know. So in speaking to other chefs, we got to overhear, and we get to overhear the real dope from Bourdain talking to other people. And his greatest fear, and he said this around the book and since. And I think you can feel it in the book, is someone who worked in a real kitchen of any kind is gonna look at that and say, that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. That is his great. Whatever he's doing this book is to avoid them saying that. And I think that, like much truth telling, much honesty, the specificity and the commitment to tell the truth then becomes universal in its own way.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. And it's like he's open and willing to be unflattering about himself in the process of telling the truth about all of these things, like here, how this kitchen culture works, and here's the role that I play in it, and, like, sometimes I'm a rat bastard, you know? And just, like, he just goes in because that's the role that somebody's gotta play. There's a real. I don't give a shit about it. Like, about. Well, let me rephrase. He totally gives a shit about the work that he does, and he totally gives a shit about being, like, an authentic representation of that work, something that will ring true to other cooks. He doesn't care how anybody else is gonna perceive it. He's not trying to impress just the foodie people who come to his restaurants. That's not the audience. And that focus on. Let me just try to say something true, that other people who live the life I live will nod their heads and say, yeah, that's how it is. I think that was the liberating factor for him, maybe just not even intentionally. That's just what he set out to do, but it allowed him to write in this way that was free from wanting to be perceived in any particular way, wanting to be perceived as, like, politically correct or as a good boss or even as a good person. And just like, let me the straight dope is the right way to say it. He just kind of, he lays it all out there. And you know, by his own admission of some of the things that he did and some of the things that he said and some of the ways that he treated people, this should be pretty insufferable. Like, this is one of my straight thoughts.

[A]

That's a great point.

[B]

But it's not like it's impossible to hate him coming out of this book because of, I think the honesty in the voice. You can just tell that it is so true. And he's willing, the fact that he's willing to own up to these things. He doesn't defend the bad behavior, but he's like, listen, this is how we do things here. Take it or leave it.

[A]

You know, there's that saying that self deprecation is the appetizer of charm. And I think he can be self deprecation. But more important than that is that he's honest about his own craft, skill and attainment at this particular moment. Like he is at this moment executive chef at Lahal, which is a upscale, was an upscale French kind of steakhouse place. But it wasn't Michelin star. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't one of these kinds of places like Blue or Per Se or Le Bernardin, places he has great respect for. And then at the end of the book, it's interesting that he goes to one of these higher level places and sees how else it can be done and shows it in contrast. And he doesn't say those guys are phonies. He doesn't say that's the wrong way to do. If anything he says, were I a better person, were I a different, different person, I could be like that. So he situates himself within the ecosystem. It's also not a book that he's writing to try to get a food TV show. This is not the book you try to get to become Flay or Emeril, one of these people. And he has a lot of fun with them. He's not doing brand maintenance with this because there's no brand. Which is one of the hat tricks Bourdain pulled off is his brand, was trying not to have a brand and people bought it and I ate it

[B]

with a spoon, 100%. I do think that if you had told him in 1999, if you publish this essay, you're going to become a famous food TV guy, he might never have done it. There's a lot of scorn on the page for like Emeril and Bobby Flay and some of those guys. And he later retracts it after he gets to know many of them and finds out like that they actually can cook. It's not I met him and he's a nice guy. It's he can actually cook. So I won't be such a jerk to him. I have respect for the way that this person does his craft. But. But that, like he goes on, he writes a couple of more books. But after Kitchen Confidential, the explosion is into A Cook's Tour, which is the first TV series he does for the Food Network. And then no Reservations for the Travel Channel is really the Bourdain breakout moment. That's where he dials in seven or

[A]

eight years on that. I meant to look into that a long time.

[B]

Yeah, that's where he kind of dials in the formula of food as the door into other cultures. And he eventually gets like some pretty famous people to come along. Then he does parts unknown for Sea cnn, which unlocked access for him to really difficult locations. He goes to like war torn countries and he really starts participating more in political discourse through the work that he's doing. It ends up with Bourdain kind of positioned as an elder statesman of American culture, of how to be an American in world culture, and a very particular and instructive voice about our position. There's.

[A]

Yeah. Bourdain himself. He grew up in a comfortable upper middle class suburban household. He talks about this in Kitchen Conventional. I wouldn't say he wasn't pissed off. Like it wasn't an unhappy household as far as we can tell. It seems maybe to me cold. That's. I'm reading between the lines here a little bit. It was art centered, but not precisely artistic. His father was a classical music executive and his mom was a copy editor for the New York Times. That's important to know because he does have literary aspirations and connections that gets him to place to get into the place he delivers the goods. But he does have a foothold in some of this world too. He's like, he's a restless soul. He's a restless kid, he's a restless student, he's a restless person. I think in hindsight, especially knowing his later life and what happens, you can go back and see even in this book, it's hard not to read it with the patina of how his life ends. It's really hard and see someone always who's never comfortable. You don't travel 250 days a year for two decades, if you're kind of happy with yourself. Yeah, I think that's here too, don't

[B]

you think, on this reading? Yeah, I thought a lot about this Jedidiah Jenkins memoir called To Shake the Sleeping Self, where one of the lines that I've held onto from that is, if discontent is your disease, travel is a cure. And I don't know that that's true, but it's certainly what Bourdain was saying.

[A]

You know, I don't believe this. We've talked about this. Right. Emerson says your giant goes with you everywhere you go. Or. Or I'm paraphrasing that, but, like, I like to travel, and I think there's rewards to it, but it is not a panacea.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

Your giants go with you. And if anything, it can be like drugs or sex or cooking or art or movies or whatever. It can be a distraction. And you look at some of the things he did. For example, I have here, and I'm going to spoil a little bit of the trivia. He gets super into Brazilian jiu jitsu. Like, he has this obsessive, interested personality, which can serve you well at some points, but for a contented, happy life, I don't know. But a contented, happy life does not result in Kitchen Confidential. So there we are.

[B]

Eventually, there we are. That's the central tension here. This great piece of art is only possible because of the difficult parts of his life and the thorny aspects of his personality that make him so fun to read. He writes near the end of this book about how he never felt comfortable anywhere until he was in this kitchen, in this merry band of misfits. And when he starts traveling more after the book, like this is in the afterword, and then he would write and speak about it a lot over the next 15 years that he starts traveling more. And he doesn't feel like he has a place. He's kind of a man without a country. He doesn't feel at home anywhere. And once he's traveled enough, he doesn't feel at home in New York City anymore. So really gets to the place where he's like, the only time I can settle down is when I'm in an airport and someone has given me an itinerary. Like, someone else has told me exactly where I need to go and when I need to go there and what I need to do. And I'm in this sort of in between space, which is really sad. But the ways that he writes about these things that are objectively really sad have A. Like, they have a lightness and a sharpness to that somehow it cuts how dark some of it is. Like, you really. At least I found myself. This is like, maybe the fourth or fifth time I've read this book, really having to pause on paragraphs about, like. Like, his experiences as a junkie and be like, right, that is a really difficult, dark, painful place for a person to be. But the voice of the book papers over a lot of that, or makes it kind of glosses it over a bit.

[A]

Yeah, he has no time for wallowing, and I think maybe he should have allowed himself more time. It's interesting to think about the things he mentions but glosses over. Like, being addicted to heroin is mentioned, but we don't get scenes from a heroin addict's life. Right. That's a different book, a different memoir at some time, too. Another thing he doesn't mention is his own literary writing and aspirations that were happening before. And in parallel to this book, he's writing some short stories. You know, it'll surprise no one that his literary influences, especially in 1975 and later, like Willie Mess Burroughs and Hunter S. Tonsens, who are the gonzo journalists, exploratory, exuberant and transgressive in many ways. He gets into a writing workshop with the great Gordon Lish. He gets a book deal. Like, he publishes a novel before this, it doesn't sell very well. So he's trying to break into the world of writing. And so his connections between, you know, his connections there in the publishing history, his mother's connections, gets him to a place where he writes this piece where he has really something different to say. These early crime novels, they're not derivative necessarily, but you can see they're of an inheritance where Kitchen Confidential really isn't. At the same time, I said his big break was this New Yorker piece, Don't eat this before reading. The style, of course, is terrific, but the content is ready to be received at this moment in the late 90s, for those of you who were there as an adult, you know, so the food TV was, like, a few years into its thing, but also food culture in America was radically different. Like we hear, was it in When Harry Met Sally, which is 1989, they say restaurants have become too important in 1989. And then it just goes off from there into food culture, and the balloon was ready to have some air let out of it. I don't know that we knew that Bourdain was going to come on with, like, a harpoon gun and, like, pop the, you know, the Hindenburg is going to explode, like, up. But it becomes so important. It becomes so, I don't know, rarefied. And people didn't know, like, kind of literally how the sausage was made, figured in literally how the sauce was being made, that we were ready for a truth teller to come along and say, ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break it to you, or I love to break it to you, but let me tell you about what's happening on the other side of this pass through. Because all is not what it seems. And I think that's important to remember that we were ready for this at this particular moment.

[B]

People love to feel like they're in on something. And I think that spirit of he's writing to other cooks and it lets the normie reader in on, like, what's happening in that kitchen. Don't eat the seafood frittata. But it's not mean spirited. And I think that's really important. Like, he's not setting out to end things. He says really clearly in the intro, I'm not advocating for changes to restaurant. I like restaurant culture exactly the way it is. He's just going, here's how it is. Just so, you know, like, we're all lunatics back there. And I think it's great, you know, and it's like there is something just so, like, really warm about his voice. There was something warm and really inviting about his voice, about the, like, come into this world with me. Almost like Wonka esque, you know, of like, it's wild back here and everyone back here is wild and we've all got these stories. And don't you wish that you could kind of listen, let yourself go this way too? Like, he doesn't glamorize the drug addiction or the casual harassment that happens just as a matter of course. But he talks about it as like, these are facts of this life, which I believe now many of those things have changed, but for a long time they were facts of kitchen culture. And he reveled in those things and participated. Like there was a language and a way of being to learn to be in the kitchen. And once he mastered it, it was the happiest he had ever been. And he's like, everybody, let me tell you what it's like back here. Here.

[A]

Yeah, I think he never says this, but I think you're right that he may not even have been able to articulate himself. I certainly, I've read a lot of Anthony Bourdain interviews over the time. I've watched a lot of the shows. But it's hard not to feel behind this book and the Bourdain project at this moment, wanting to make the world of the kitchen a legible world to regular people. This is a place of value. This is a place where things of importance, creativity and craft happen. And I want you to see beyond the rigatoni or whatever that comes out in your plate at any place you go to that there is a living, breathing, buzzing hive of activity and humanity there. And it's worth taking seriously and knowing about. And he did that. And he did that ably, entertainingly and remarkably too. He got the book deal after that don't eat the fish thing. I'm sorry, don't eat the fish on Mondays became this mini high income meme that I still hear about. I don't know if chefs and restauran have had to like do something about that. And then I think as part of the tour, being on camera, as part of the tour, you get food related segments. Later they realize that he himself was a star. You know, he's photogenic, he's loosely tough and authentic. And he is. He knew his shit and he was zero percent afraid to dish it out. Which works in any content, any particular moment.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. Anthony Bourdain is my forever hall pass. Like it just, it just works.

[A]

Just works. He did. From there it was mostly tv. He did write a couple other books, a couple of them really based on the shows himself. Medium Raw is a collection of some of his later writing that is my favorite of those. If you like no reservations. Clearly you start with no reservations. But if you like this, go to Medium Raw next. We've talked about his end of life was remarkably sad and I think the kind of end that does cause you to go back and look and see what's going on. Fair or not, Sort of. Apparently after a dispute with his girlfriend, he was out shooting. He's out on doing his show apparently through later text reveals. I don't really know how this came to light. She broke up with him and he hung himself in his hotel. His hotel room. And his friend and sort of co host finds him the next day. I wanted to mention here that there was a notably a clean talks report in the immediate aftermath. There was some things. Knowing his personal history, early rumors were maybe otherwise. I just want to get that into record for someone who maybe is putting together their own sense of Bourdain that this is sad and I think he had his other issues I'd be curious to know about around mental health. And addiction. But at this particular moment, it wasn't that he was high on something else, that he was putting them to himself. So that's kind of who he was. Right? And I still am. I know you and I. I don't know that I would use you forever. Hall pass, but I would use a word for looking for. Not specifically, I should say the Bourdanian voice, but a worldview that is as capacious, as welcoming, and as committed to recognizing craft and art and value wherever it is, no matter who is making it, what they look like, where they come from, and looking at the product, right? And looking at what that thing that is made, and then by transference, looking at the people that make it and saying, look, you know, it really doesn't matter where you come from or who you are. If you can do the thing, you can do the thing. And that matters to me.

[B]

And for as much as he, as you were saying, admits, like, where he stands in the hierarchy of kitchen culture, you know, that, like, he never worked as hard as he would need to have worked to become a Michelin starred chef or to attain, like, those levels he does, he is a serious person who becomes interested in evolving and in growth. And he's on. Like, there's. He's progressive the whole way through. Like, his attitudes are always progressive for the time, but he's on the right side of history. Like, in 2017, as MeToo was breaking and guys like Mario Batali were being taken down in the food world for the ways that they had treated women in the past, Bourdain, like, who had vocally supported women in the industry throughout his career, comes forward and says, like, he writes a piece for Medium in 2017, where he said, to the extent which my work in Kitchen Confidential celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we're hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily with real remorse. And I think the combination of knowing that women he had worked with had experienced sexual harassment and assault, but had never felt comfortable telling him that causes him to do a lot of reflection that he wrote and spoke about later. Why didn't they feel like they could tell me what kind of man was I? But also in what ways did this writing and this work that's celebrated like the pirate ship, really, like this really masculine prose, It's a really masculine world that he writes about. He does celebrate women who can hang in the kitchen, but the expectation at the time was very much, if you're gonna be in this kitchen, you have to Be one of the boys. Like, you've gotta be down with all the jokes being about dicks all the time and everybody dry humping everybody else as of dominance or fake dominance. And those things that might be jokes in some kitchens are taken into abusive extreme in other places. And that he was willing to reckon with his participation inadvertently in his furthering of that culture. I really admired and appreciated, I believe, that there were stories from women he was close to that were really troubling him. And all of that is in the stew also in the run up to his death.

[A]

Yeah. You'll read and you'll see and feel in Kitchen Confidential, knowing what Rebecca just said, that later he would see these extremes with different eyes. And I think probably the most generous way of reading his own participation and representation of a kitchen conventional is sort of a naive egalitarianism where he thought, you know, we're all giving it and dishing it out. It's kind of the same. Like this is in the book. Like, these are the names we call each other and this is how this happens. And one of his bosses was like, would routinely put his hand up its butt until he stabbed him. Like, he. He thought that it was a no holds barred environment, but everyone was sort of on the same playing field. And if you could hang, you could hang. If you couldn't, you couldn't. But within the arena, you had a fair shot. I think he didn't understand and didn't come to later that the power dynamics meant that he's a tall, good looking, educated, cishet dude, white guy. It's not the same for him. It's just not the same. And he doesn't see that until later. But he does see it eventually. And I think it's of its time to see. But it's that naiveness about that dynamic. Like he wishes it were the case. He wants it to be the case. And so he sees it as the case.

[B]

Even though he gets so close to actually realizing what's going on several times in the book where he writes about his admiration for women that can be in those tough kitchens and the kinds of badass women that he has seen become great chefs. And it just really pained me on this reading to be like, oh, you are almost there. You're almost to realization they shouldn't have to deal with this in order to pursue these jobs.

[A]

Yeah. And he talks about he will go to bat for people below him in the power structure, like the Ecuador, but then he doesn't quite make. It's like, why are those all the people that are always below me in the power structure. Right. Like, it's not quite there. But I think he does get there later. Rebecca. So we've both read this several times over the ensuing decade, a couple decades and a half. What was your first experience?

[B]

I don't remember exactly when. It was sometime in the early 2000s, I think. The TV shows had started, and that was like, who is this Anthony Bourdain guy? And the paperback of Kitchen Confidential was just all over the place. I know that I knew who he was and felt drawn to know more about him, but it had to be early 2000s. I would guess probably 2003, 2004.

[A]

Yeah, I read it pretty quick after I moved to New York in the fall of 2000 for grad school. And unsurprisingly, it was everywhere. And it was also. This is also a cheat code about these memoirs of real professions and real lines of work and parts of life is like, you get to feel like you know it, right? You get to feel like he's speaking to you, even though he's not, which is the magic of writing and art and all that kind of stuff. But it made me feel like. And I have in capitals here, I knew a thing or two at this particular time. We've talked a lot about what it's like to read this and what's it about? Like, what are the big ideas here? What's this all about? Rebecca in addition to the kitchen stuff and cooking and food, I mean, this

[B]

is what we talk about when we talk about voice. This is maybe the best example of authorial voice that, like, it's the first one I would reach for, at least when someone's like, what are you talking about? Like, he just has this singular way of writing, of conveying his thoughts and the world that he's in. And, like, no one has been able to do it. Many people have tried to sound like Anthony Bourdain, and you just sound like a person who's trying to sound like Anthony Bourdain when you do it, like, just. It is like, it's swaggering and blustery, and there is this, like, sort of swashbuckling pirate thing about it, but it's just joyful. There is a real, like, he loves how messy this world is. It's so much fun. And it's, like, really gritty. It's really vivid. There are, like, all five of your senses. Understand what it would be like to be in those kitchens. He's so good at describing it, and it's cinematic. Bourdain was a great reader and a voracious medium, just consumer of media, but moviegoer, he loved noir especially. So you can see that in some of his early fiction, he experimented with, like, noir types of, like, shooting styles for some of his later TV shows. But you can, you can really get that through this. Like, it is quite cinematic. Like, if you enjoy the Bear, you owe such a thank you to Anthony Bourdain.

[A]

It's hard not to see the Bear as a sort of Bourdain cosplay. I mean, I like the Bear, I really do like the Bear, but it's like, yeah, I know where this comes from. At the same time.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And I thought, I think the weaving of memoir and then also the sort of here's the deal in restaurants pieces is really smart. It's a smart structure. Like, it's not just Anthony Bourdain talking about himself all the time and his experiences, but here's what goes on in the kitchen. Here's what it's like to work in a place like this all through his lens. But it's not me, me, me, me, me all the time.

[A]

Is there anything research about that, about the editing of it and, like, the like, about how, you know what? I didn't see anything. I don't know the editor's name. I should find this because this is not a debut book for him, but it's debut nonfiction and it has, like you said, an unconventional structure. How much did they obsess over the quote unquote plating of this book? Because there's various ways of doing that maybe would have resulted in a different effect, but I think you're really onto something where it's punctuated by changes, but it feels of a piece. And I don't know the magic of that, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

[B]

It's just really smart. The editor's name was Karen Rinaldi. She was the publisher, Bloomsbury. She later moved and took the book with her to echo@HarperCollins. And the 2006 edition that I read this time around has a interview between Bourdain and the publisher of Echo, Daniel Halpern, at the end.

[C]

Interesting.

[B]

The original PW review said his fast lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things. Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others. And he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food and like that does it.

[A]

It's that plus Good job pw.

[B]

You get to be part of this subculture and like it's a. It's a way into a world that most of us will not experience.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[A]

Let's see a couple things out for me, I think at the core of what Bourdain likes about food and cooking is that it is a meritocracy of a kind. Or at least I'm calling an effortocracy. Yes, you know, Bertrand Russell once said the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And for Bourdain, a similar dictum reigned. If you can cook consistently at a high level, what you look like, what you sound like, what you eat, snort, screw, where you came from, what language you speak, where you live, what music you you like is all up for grab. So like that winnowing process, like there is at the end of the day a test of your ability, skill and value, at least within the kitchen, which is a kind of American ness. Here you have in your notes that there is, there is a version of an American dream, multiple versions of the American dream of possibility, where the vestiges of rank, class, ethnicity, where you came from can be maybe ultimately are desired to be put away in the service of in this particular production. Like literally working on the line and working in these brigade style kitchens. But there is a meritocracy beside that. That if you show up and if you do the work and you pay attention, I kind of don't care what you do at home. Like, there's this famous. Where one of this. The bread maker, who has the goods. Right. To such an extent that he can get away with things up to and possibly including murder. I mean, I know there's some myth making on Bourdain's part with all these anonymized features, I should say there too. I think part of the appeal at the time was he wasn't naming names of the people he's really telling the stories on to protect them within the industry, which it made it all the more exciting and revealing.

[B]

One of the big chefs he works for, he nicknames Bigfoot.

[A]

Bigfoot? Yeah. Um. But, like, because his bread was so good, people couldn't help but keep hiring him. And he was just. He was over the line of what people could accept, but just barely, because he had the goods, he can show up and do it every time. So, like, that part, I think, is appealing to a certain kind of person that can think that. That likes the idea of craft, of effort of you. It's not who you know necessarily, or where you came from or blah, blah. Like, he talks a lot about. About the Doogie Howsers, the Shoemakers, the people that just sort of show up because they think it might be fun and sort of cool to be in a kitchen and they just get nuked. They just sort of walk away or get blown out at the same time. Because, like Holden Caulfield, Bourdain's arch enemy is phoniness. It's pretension. It is saying that thinking you are the thing or pretending you have the thing, but when it comes down to it, if the plate is put in front of you, you. And it's no good. It don't matter your name or how much money you had or the address of your kitchen or whatever. It doesn't matter. And that's not always enough to have a restaurant that survives, but at least in that bite, you can say this person has it or they don't.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And that is kind of the rock he builds his worldview on. To some degree, the style is overwrought. I think that is part of the charm. There is sloppiness in Bourdain's remarkable lists and catalogs. I'm thinking of Uncle Walt and Carl Sandberg here. These lists of food and ingredients and. And debauched excesses and injury. Like, I think he's having the most Fun where he's just listing a bunch of things that are fun and finding interesting and transgressive ways to put them on the page. You know, there's repetition and near redundancies all over the place. Like, one thing that I got is he twice in the course of the book, refers to someone who's at their wit's end by saying they're getting ready to shave their head, climb a tower and start shooting. Once, I did not clock that at all. Once. It is maybe cliche, but, you know, it's in the spirit of his twice is there's a shagginess to it, right. This is not like really super buttoned up prose. And I think as he thinks about himself in the world of cooking, we who do this more of a living than cooking can see where he falls in. Sort of voiced like, this is a mess, but the mess is the fun. It's not meant to be bundled. This is not the Old man in the Sea, where it's like sort of 50 pages and you don't see the sea. Those are different restaurants and those are great. But there's something of value here as well.

[B]

It's an artful mess, or a well crafted mess, I think, is how Bourdain would approach it. And he wrote and sounded this way for the rest of his career. Like, the narration of all of his TV shows sounds a lot like the narration of the books because, like, that just is the way that he spoke and wrote. And like, the narration of those TV shows is certainly written like, it's not just off the cuff, but he loved language and had a very particular way of, like, going into writing. And you can see, like, I just think you can't teach style in this way. Bourdain just had this and he carries it through the rest of the story.

[A]

I don't know if you can't teach it, but I think you don't own it. Too much of Hunter S. Thompson or William S. Burroughs or some of these people to see, you know, those are coming out of the beat tradition, which is fast. It's loaded. You know, it can be overwhelming at times. And I think at its best, he actually does find something new. I guess I'm going to call out this particular section in the Day in the Life where he's looking to describe the experience of being in a kitchen at full throttle, like at 8. So this is from a Day in Life chapter. I'm going to read it a little bit at length, so you have to indulge me. He's in the kitchen it's I think, a weekend night and the quote begins thusly. By 8:30 the board is full. Entree tickets flutter in the pull from the exhaust fans. To my right below the window, plated appetizers are lined up waiting to get delivered to the tables. The window is full of saute dishes, the work table in front of the fry station, a panorama of steaks of different Dunn this it's still kachundo. He's working a double two and he ferries the plates out by hand, four or five at a time. Still I have to press gang the occasional busboy or empty handed waiter, separating them out from the herd at the coffee and bread stations and returning dirty plates and glasses into delivering desserts. I don't want ice cream melting over the kafu. I don't know how to say that. Whipped cream and the chocolate mousses to start falling. Food's getting cold and my voice is already blown out from calling out orders over the noise from the dishwasher and the hum of the exhaust, the whine, the wine of the Paco jet machine and the growing roar from the dining room. I make a hand gesture to a friendly waiter who knows what I want as soon as he arrives with an industrial a beer style filled with margarita for me. The drink manages to take the edge off my raging adrenaline buzz and goes down nicely after three double espressos, two beers, three cranberry juices, eight aspirins, two ephedrine drinks and a hastily gobbled hunk of Marguez. So that rapidity, the building and the capaciousness is I think, what he's trying to do. That's why the voice sounds like there's a reason the voice, it's not arbitrary. The voice is this way. And simultaneity is a notoriously difficult mimetic problem for prose. And what he's trying to get is the multi sensory, simultaneous multi factor inputs that's happening. And what's that experience like? And you can see it's like a high, Rebecca. Like it's like a high in those moments. That's what it is.

[B]

Just the sensory overload is part of it and it's just double edged. He loves it and he hates it. It's the best part and it's the worst part. That episode in season one of the Bear where they shot the whole thing as a oner. The whole episode is one shot and it's the all the tickets are just going nuts. I think it's when they let the remember that one, they open up online ordering and the tickets go nuts and everybody's losing their minds. And we all had anxiety attacks watching that episode of the Bear that is this chapter, A Day in the Life. And every time I read this book, I get to this chapter and I'm like, yes, like, you want it to be over. You want the chapter to be over? Because it's just so, like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. But it's so, so satisfying. And I get it. Like, I could not hang with that life. But you can see, like, I understand how it could be compelling and addictive for somebody who is in there.

[A]

It's a traveling without moment moment. Traveling without moving. With apologies to Jamirical way that he could chase. You know, rather, that experience is not unlike traveling where you're having a lot of multifactor, multi sensory experiences. And it can be so overwhelming that the self kind of goes away. And it's hard not to see that as part of what's happening in those moments is he so stimulated and so engaged with something he cares about, honestly. But notice there's no thinking, there's no feeling that is just to get through the next few hours. Hours. And there's an addiction language that it's not hard to map on at the same time.

[B]

Yeah. And even like, I was a barista for a couple of years and surviving on the espresso bar through a morning rush on like a Friday morning or maybe a Monday morning when everybody's just miserable.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

It has an edge to it like you do. You are just a body, like, doing the things and making it happen. You can't think about anything. It's just like, do this, do this next, do that next. Hear all the sounds around you. You're attending to a whole bunch of things. And there is a really pleasant, in its own way, kind of exhaustion to that and to having done it. But he seems to relish it in the moment. And I think, at least at this time in restaurant culture, you had to relish it to survive.

[A]

Right. Anything else before we get to stray thoughts that you want to shout in the big idea section here, Rebecca?

[B]

Yeah, no, I think that hits all the big ones for us.

[A]

Okay. Stray thoughts. You want to expound on your hall pass comment? I don't know if we need to or if we feel comfortable with this, but you can do whatever you want here.

[B]

I mean, I am not alone in this. Just nothing is sexier or more appealing than this combination of curiosity and confidence. And so, like, while that is the thing that makes Bourdain my forever hall pass. I think it's the thing that just drew us to him as viewers and as readers. There's this like, he's sure of himself and sure of his expertise, but really continually curious about the world and about other people and about the food in it. And just all of that, that that combination is so compelling and him really fun to watch and fun to read. Also, this is a God tier book title. Kitchen Confidential is a great book title. Like if you name it something else, it probably still works because he's coming off of that New Yorker piece. But I don't know who came up with Kitchen Confidential. Good job to you. I hope you got a bunch of bonuses. And also in Stray thoughts. Well, I have a couple. I think there's really something to be said for paying your dues. Maybe not exactly in the way that Bourdain talks about it, where, like he conceives of paying your dues. Part of that is like enduring this harassment fueled culture, but definitely in like starting at the bottom and working your way up that you've got to chop a million shallots before anybody lets you put a sauce on a plate. And there is, I think there just is really something to be said for that method of learning, a craft of understanding by the time you've reached the top, the mountain, what all of the jobs are, you know, that led to it. So that you understand the work that goes into it and you can appreciate that. I also think there's a great chapter about his long term sous chef that he took with him from like, from restaurant to restaurant and recruited him. I think I would kill it at sous chef.

[C]

Shit.

[B]

Like a sous chef is basically a chief of staff. Or like the wolf in Pulp Fiction, which the best compliment you ever paid me was telling me that I was like Harvey Keitel's character, the wolf in Pulp Fiction.

[A]

Yeah, I made a real mistake with that one. Not living that one day. It's true, unfortunately for me.

[B]

But holding on to it for the rest of my days, Like, I can't imagine doing this to my body for 25 years, the work that these guys do. But reading about like the operator that is the sous chef, I was like, I'd fucking be great at that. Like, put me in coach. There's my toxic trait.

[A]

I've got a couple. Then I'll go back to yours for a second. Here it is a one. I'm going to jump down to mine because I have a similar. That's a wonderful book about crazy craft, effort, consistency and an interest in excellence along with literal and figurative taste. You know, it verges on. It's maybe an a data point, a narrative data point in sort of like the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours or Cal Newport's so good you can't ignore you that like to get good at something good enough where you'd stand out enough to be employable or excellent or otherwise remarkable and valuable in a certain situation. Kitchener. Otherwise you have to go through a lot of time and a lot of bad versions of it to see what good feels like to get the particular skills that you can put together and assemble them in unique and interesting ways that other people can't or don't on a consistent basis. I still am always looking for a Bourdain in every field. Yeah, I would read a Bourdain. Again, I'm not the voice is Bourdain. That's the specificity, as is the world. But as you say, the curiosity, confidence and then an ability to write an interesting sentence, put together a paragraph to show me and take me to someplace I haven't been before with an insider's intimacy and knowledge that I just am never going to have. Right. I'm looking for those all the times I would also read a text breakdown. Like all the ways he describes injuries, all the way he describes mental illness or bones or people and bodies or excuses or parties. He's like there is such a embarrassment of choices that he doesn't ever have to say no because he would just list and list and list. And he's trying to give you a sense of the imminence and overwhelm of a kitchen. And then all the manifest experience, like how many different jobs he has is almost uncounted in the book because there's so many different kinds of jobs, so many meals, so many quick cuisines, so many co workers that you can't really get a grip on it. The only way you can do it is sort of give your reader a taste of the overwhelm in the form of all of these examples, these catalogs and lists that are fun of and in themselves. But I think there is a greater purpose that's trying to represent something of this world.

[B]

Yeah, it would make for really fun word clouds, but I think it is about the that variety of just the sensory input is just off the charts.

[A]

What else do you have here, Rebecca, that you want to get to with straight thoughts?

[B]

He writes a lot about the weekend rubes that like the chefs and like restaurant staff just Hated people who would come in on Friday and Saturday nights and on Sundays who, like, this was their big sort of field trip to go out to a restaurant and that those are different kinds of diners than weeknight diners who are potential regulars for you, that chefs are just more invested in caring for those weeknight diners. Like, is that still a thing? Are the weekend rubes still a thing? Or have we had so much restaurant culture, culture now for 25 years that weekday and weekend diners are pretty similar?

[A]

Like, I don't know, I saw this in the doc and I was thinking about this a little bit. I wonder. It could still be the case, or maybe this, but I wonder what Bourdain would say. I have a pretty good sense of what Bourdain would say. So it's a rhetorical question about the food influencer dynamic of people all showing up to one place to have this meal or this item or Dubai chocolate or whatever the case may be. I'm sure these things are like seven year old old memes and stuff now. But there is a. And that's the core of his phoniness, right? There is a moth to the flame element. The moth to the flame. The moth doesn't know why it's going to the flame. It's just going to the flame, right? Like that's just what's happening. And you know, he, he would not like the idea of people getting famous because of fame and the algorithm, the inauthenticity of that.

[B]

Oh, he would have hated it.

[A]

And then some particular shop, maybe they're pumping out good food or not, but the people are going there just because they were told to go to it, because it then had this self fulfilling prophecy right at the same time. So I can imagine that you shout to our boy Gopnik here, talk to me about Gopnik.

[B]

Well, you were talking about wanting a Bourdain in every field. And this is similar for me. Adam Gopnik wrote this book a few years back that we both loved called the Real Work. And he profiles people who have, I think the term comes out of magicians, the real work in their fields where like they just are operating at the highest level. They have put in their bajillions of hours to do it. And for all that Bourdain nods to the immigrants who run these kitchens, I want a Gopnik book about those people. Like Bourdain writes about, like the guys who have moves, who just are graceful inside the chaos, like, what is their life like? And that sent me down the path of wondering, when will we get a food cooking memoir from someone who came up that way, from an immigrant?

[A]

I haven't seen it. Have you?

[B]

I haven't. No, I haven't. If there is one, please let us know. 02 well [e-mail] but somebody who was an immigrant who worked their way up through food and kitchen culture and has made a name for themselves. I know that these cooks have to be out there, but this is a story that needs to be told and I wonder when we'll get one. I thought about that a lot on this reading.

[A]

I think maybe his favorite figure is, as you say, the cook who has acquired enough skill. And I think there is some acknowledgement that there is a natural talent like you maybe have whatever it takes, like dancers to some degree that in the midst of the chaos, they hold themselves beautifully. Like it's, it's quite. Their stations are clean. They get their stuff done on time. They're able to juggle the multiple inputs and like, plate the things at the same time. It reminded me a lot in that moment of Hemingway's fascination with bullfighters. Oh yeah, the chaos of the ring. Can I believe the phrase is hold the elegance of the line, which is a phrase I think about a lot. Right. That within that chaos, they have to think them an expertise that in those moments results in a kind of beauty. And I think Bourdain sees it in a way no one else had seen it there before. Another straight thought I had is no one in the history of the world would have benefited more from transcendental meditation. I wonder if he ever messed around with it. He could have used it. Rebecca, this is not something I dabble in, but I know enough to know kind of what could be available. But doesn't this seem like the kind of guy that could use a of lot little of this?

[B]

Listen, I'm an advocate for therapy and meditation, and I, I hope that he, or I wish that he had had access or willingness to experiment with those things that might have benefited him in some way. I have found myself really missing. I mean, I have missed Bourdain since 2018, but I've really missed him in the last year watching the ICE arrests happening. He would have been killer. He and outspoken. Outspoken about what was happening with immigrants, especially immigrants who do the kinds of work in our country that other people are not willing to do. And I, you know, just. I'm sad that we are. That we don't have him as a voice fighting alongside us here.

[A]

He's loudly uninterested in the actual diners.

[B]

Great point, great point.

[A]

And I don't know, I don't know if you have any thoughts of why that might be. I think there is a degree to which the success or failure of a given restaurant, sometimes he says he can see it coming, but sometimes it just happens and you don't really know. So the fickleness, the randomness, the contingency of whether or not something works, his interest in the food sort of ends. Not the food, it ends in the food. And if it's good, he knows it's good. But then whether or not the public at large are going to sustain is sort of beyond his reckoning or his ability to understand or predict. So he's just sort of not interested in it. I don't know what to say about that.

[B]

He just likes that life in the kitchen, you know. And it's similar, I think, to writers who are like, my job is to write a great book and what happens to it after that is reader's business like that he just wanted to put out the best food that he could. And that's where his work and his responsibility end. But I think also the framing of this, that he says that he's writing it to other cooks just means let's talk about our experience. Let's talk about this thing of hours and that particular lifestyle. So it doesn't matter, like what's happening in the kitchen is the thing for him.

[A]

I also was noticing the things that aren't here when people talk about food and writing, you know, like it's a cliche. And I think people feel it is a cliche for a reason. But like, you know, what makes this food special or what's it and say it's love, right? That does not enter into this at all. And I guess that's where I'm sort of bridging off the diner's point. This is not a, you know, I've always just wanted to feed people and make people happy. That's not what this is about, Rebecca. That's always about his own to it

[B]

for the money and that he chases the money. And that's why part of why he doesn't hone the craft to the level of like being a Michelin starred chef.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. All right, let's go on to notable quotes. Goodreads, baby.

[B]

Goodreads gets one right. Jeff. I know the number one Goodreads quote here from the book is, your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the Ride. Very Bourdainian.

[A]

Yeah. I think if we were to close read that versus own lid's experience, you know, what you can't do in amusement park, jump off roller coasters and like huff glue in the back of the, of the bathroom. Like I think he. It's a clever metaphor. I think it may not be indicative of the way that Bourdain uses his body for good and for ill. Let's just leave it at that for now.

[B]

Yeah. I also loved this. He's writing about like after this first his pivotal moment. His version of Proust's Madeleine is eating an oyster when he's 10 years old and he says I had had an adventure, tasted forbidden fruit and everything that followed in my life, the food, the long and often stupid and self destructive chase for the next thing, whether it was drugs or sex or some other new sensation would all stem from this moment. And it's that like insatiable curiosity, appetite, wanting to experience something new. That desire for like novelty and excitement like that is I think the defining double edged sword of Bourdain. It's what makes him great and it' also what ultimately brought him down.

[A]

Yeah, skills can be taught. Character either you have or you don't. I think anytime you have a stylist of any repute, I think you're well noted to see when they break their style. So if Bourdain has this avalanche building, sort of exhaustive descriptive tendency, look where he goes the other way. Look where he goes simple, looks where he goes declarative. Like a couple of short simple sets sentences, you know something's different. And then so for say someone who is a short, simple sentence writer, where do they do the opposite? Where do they expand and revel and play can be a good foothold to stop your eye over the text. Where else you want to go?

[B]

Yeah, a couple for me that go together. No one understands and appreciates the American dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non American. And then he writes also later like about. He's exhorting people who want to work in restaurants to learn to speak Spanish. He says these are your co workers, your friends, the people you will be counting on leaning on for much of your career. And they in turn will be looking to you to hold up your end, show them respect by bothering to know them, learn their language, eat their food. It will be personally rewarding and professionally invaluable.

[A]

Really great stuff. For a moment or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical world weary, throat cutting, miserable bastards we've all had to become disappears when we're confronted with something that as simple as a plate of food. Like even within that sentence you can see the build, comma, comma, comma, compound adjective, compound adjective, compound adjectives, simple plate food. Very, very interesting. And I wonder if he knew what he was doing. I wonder if he felt that. A lot of writers feel it more than they know it. But I wouldn't be surprised if he also was looking at those constructions as well.

[B]

I also just have to call out like our boy very nearly missed. Like it's a close miss. Just a life of joke dorkdom. He writes about how in college, he says, I had had for some time a romantic, if inaccurate view of myself as some kind of hyperviolent junkie. Byron. My last semester at Vassar, I'd taken to wearing nunchucks in a strap on holster and carrying around a samurai sword. That should tell you all you need to know, Tony.

[A]

Yeah, he was looking from some way to be different. I think that's something you can see. Also, I would have hated Anthea Bourdain in college. Absolutely. This would have been insufferable to see this.

[B]

Yeah. And I think it's also important that he's middle aged by the time he writes Kitchen Confidential and he's got some regrets. He's looking back and has some awareness about how he was as a younger man. And he says when they're yanking a fender out of my chest cavity, I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people. People hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered. And I think that does turn out to be true for him.

[A]

Yeah. Last one from me that I want to get in here. Good food and good eating are about risk every once in a while. An oyster, for instance, will make you sick to your stomach. Does this mean you should stop eating oysters? No way. The more exotic the food, the more adventurous the serious eater, the higher the likelihood of later discomfort. I think you can apply that to many walks of life. You know, we talk about this, I think in a mailbag episode where people talk about, you know, I don't get this book. I don't like it. It's tough. Think of it as like you're trying something new. And every time you try something new, sometimes you're not going to like it, it's going to go badly. But you're pushing the envelope. When my dad was teaching my brothers and I how to ski. I think I've told you this story before. I don't think I've told it on this show. The first thing he did, we got our ski poles up and we got our skis on. We're ready to get on the bunny slope and he pushes us down, that we get up. And then we're like, okay, I get it, we got to learn how to get up. And then he does it again, pushes us down. And then he said, you know, you're not. If you're not falling down every now and again up there, you're not learning anything. And I've thought about that a lot. Right. So like to be at the edge of the known for you, the edge of your experience, the edge of your skill means you're going to be cutting your fingers, you're getting bad oysters, you're going to read books that you hate or don't understand, you're going to be falling down, you're going to be making mistakes. But on the other side of that meridian of your experience, knowledge or understanding, there's something new that you're going to enjoy and it's going to be renewed to you in manifold ways. And it's hard to predict in the moment.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Any other quotes?

[B]

No. I mean, we could do this all day. So we could do this all day, Cut ourselves off.

[A]

Yeah. Is it for you, Rebecca?

[B]

It's for you. If you want to feel like an insider in a now bygone or at least radically transformed subculture that the public perceives as glamorous, Kitchen Confidential really does take you in there. Also for you, if you like voice driven writing, also if you know the works of Anthony Bourdain from tv, but you've never read this book, just get in here, come on down.

[A]

I think it's one of those situations where you're not just going to sort of see the origin story. But I do think the fullest expression of what he does is the book rather than the tv. Maybe I'm a book person. I know I'm a book person, maybe I'm a book person. Bias in that particular way. But do think you get him in his raw, uncut form in a way, even the tv, it feels more personal because it's his body and face and everything. But there's more here. Yeah. As you say here, it's. There's a lot of bad language, there's macho posturing, there's description of casual harassment and an attitude that is ex post facto cavalier to us and to him. Later, it can be easier to know in those moments. Moments that this is not the end point of his understanding, nor should it be ours at the same time. The immortal questions that Art asks, which are these are primary. Here. Here are what we like to consider. What is the good life? What do I owe my neighbor? How do I know? What I know is this all their ears is how to deal with the certainty of death. What else might there be? What's to deal with good and evil, free will, real or no? Who am I and who are my people? Rebecca, if you had to tick off two or three here that are the most primary, where would you go?

[B]

What is the good life? What do I owe my neighbor? Slash, who is my neighbor? And here your neighbor is the people in the kitchen with you.

[A]

The kitchen, yeah.

[B]

And who am I? Who are my people?

[A]

And the who is my neighbor is not just the people in the kitchen, but the people who are holding up the end of your sort of contract in the kitchen. Right, like that. You have. You do have a social cube culinary workplace contract with those people. And if you hold up your end of their bargain, they should hold up theirs and vice versa. And if they don't, sort of all bets are off to fire or terrorize. But if they're on, you have a moral obligation to keep holding up your end of the bargain until it's open. I think. What else might there be as part of this. That constant, that restlessness, exploratory nature? Yeah, I think that's absolutely the case. I think most people will say, obviously, what is the good life? And it's true. But I think both you and I are on the same page as like, who is my neighbor is maybe the more interesting piece, the root of the root there.

[B]

Yeah. And he's really concerned with it. He's really concerned with who is his neighbor. What does he owe the people who work with him and who work for him and then becomes quite proud of. Like, some of the people who worked for him started as dishwashers and have worked their ways up to be sous chefs in fancy places. And they make good livings and they own their own homes and they become citizens. And to have been part of facilitating that, like, Bourdain only punched up. And that's a really a really important part of philosophy.

[A]

I agree. Are we sure this isn't about art and writing?

[B]

I think it is more about art and writing than it seems like it is.

[A]

They all are.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

How so?

[B]

But, I mean, he's a guy who likes to write. There is Craft here, like, he just perceives the world through the lens of things that are crafted and. And as casual or tossed off as some of these sentences might seem of a. Like, you know, here's just the list of insults. You know, he thought about them like, it works too well to have been accidental. There's great care here. And he is conscious of the fact that he's telling. He's crafting his own story, and he's telling it for a certain reason, so he knows that he's writing. He's not just delivering like a straight, you know, record of the facts as they happened, but this real interpreter experience.

[A]

There's also, I think, an art versus craft discussion or delineation here. He does not hold art superior to craft. I think he is one of the great appreciators of craft and the validators of craft. But when he goes into certain places where they are operating at a different level, I'm not saying higher or lower or better, where that craft is the bedrock upon which you build the ability to find the new. And when I think about the difference between regular writing and art writing, that's what I'm thinking of, is this is writing that's interested in exploring the new. And he touches those places, but does not position himself as being a sort of a food artist.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Which I think is interesting to look at those moments.

[B]

Yeah. He didn't write a cookbook until near the end of his career. And that's how most people who do food writing start. If you're coming out of a restaurant, you just do. Here's the cookbook. Maybe with a couple ess or like, short written introductions to the recipes. But he had to be hounded into writing a cookbook. He was not really pleased about having done it. It is a good cookbook. There's a, like, black bean chorizo stew in it that I make all the time. Yeah, it's great. But he was trying to do something new. It was a different way of talking about food and the role that food plays in our culture than just, here's another cookbook.

[A]

Yeah. Could you get most of the gist from watching the Signal adaptation?

[B]

Well, there's not one yet. There was. I mean, you should just go binge watch, no reservations. Honestly, if you want the Bourdain experience. There was an ill fated TV series starring one of my other perpetual hall passes, Bradley Cooper, in the early 2000s. They only aired four episodes of it. That is how bad it is. I have seen a couple of them and, like, tried to Memory hole. It, it is terrible. We should not speak of it. It's not on streaming anywhere. I checked last night and that's probably for the grand good.

[A]

Yeah, they put that, they gave that the old streaming cement shoes where someone, Bradley Cooper probably bought the rights with this hangover money and said no one is ever seeing this ever again.

[B]

That's good for all of us. And then as I mentioned at the top of the show, there is a movie called Tony starring Dominic Sessa coming this August. It's an adaptation of the early sections of Kitchen Confidential. Really just about that summer of 1975, working at the restaurant Tony calls the Dreadnought. So I guess we'll find out. It doesn't look to me like it's attempting to be an adaptation, more like a coming of age story inspired by

[A]

that section of the book I got to thinking about. Because some of the Michael Lewis books that I never thought would be great adaptations have been like Big Short and Moneyball. Is there a version of this that lightly historical, fictionalized, still puts you into some of these spaces? Like maybe what it would be look like the bear or something like that. I find that quite interesting. I will say. In the middle of the Big Short, Bourdain has a little cameo, except explaining, you know, some part of the mortgage backed security mess. It's a tantalizing sense of what a documentary version of Kitchen Confidential could have been. So that's kind of a fun moment as well. Movie, musical, TV series or Muppets.

[B]

Okay. Bourdain would have hated a musical, which makes me kind of tempted to think like what would that be like? It just would have driven him nuts.

[A]

But I think the one you could do like patter stuff like the Music man with all of his insults and all, like there'd be like a lot of patter kind of musical theater.

[B]

The Muppets is gloriously chaotic.

[A]

I love it. I love them so much.

[B]

The Muppets as the Kitchen as pirate ship is just like that is what I want.

[A]

Dr. Teeth and the Dreadnought, like the Electric Mayhem band is on there, I think is wonderful. If we were alive. He's the only human. He's trying to manage all the Muppets in the Kitchen. This would kill Rebecca.

[C]

It would kill.

[A]

This might be the best one we've done.

[B]

I think so. I think it would just be amazing thinking about Muppets. Set Me down the lake. Did Anthony Bourdain ever go on Sesame Street? And I went looking for that. He didn't, but apparently his daughter who he had later in his life, loved Yo Gabba Gabba, and he came to love Yo Gabba Gabba. So Anthony Bourdain appeared playing a doctor on yo gabba gabba in 2010. And it is. It's an unsettling three minutes of television that you can watch on YouTube.

[A]

That's funny. Okay. Miscellaneous this is where we get to do trivia adaptation, rumors, misattributed quotes, other things that don't really fall into anything else, but we want to put them on the back of the Snapple lid for you 90s kids out there.

[B]

Such an interesting guy. I had to really pair this stuff down. He loved Ratatouille, the Disney movie, and thought that it was the most accurate depiction of restaurant culture. Like kind of some surprising whimsy from him there. There was a documentary about him called Roadrunner that came out in 2021. It was by Morgan Neville, who did the Won't yout be my neighbor Mr. Rogers movie. He also did the new Lorne Michaels documentary that's out. I have not seen this. I think I must have just gotten lost in the COVID shuffle of 2021. I intend to watch it this weekend. Maybe the moment that I most wish had been on film was that Bourdain once took Alton Brown to a legendary Atlanta strip club called the Claremont Lounge and wr about it as one of the proudest moments of his life that he got to do that.

[A]

I do not need to read about that. I mentioned he got into Brazilian jiu jitsu in a major way. I also want to mention here and I didn't know where to put this is in the text. The Bourdain of Kitchen Confidential has traveled almost nowhere and we get his first trip out of the US that he describes at all. But certainly that's food related where he goes to Tokyo to try to help the basically the Lahal franchise over there get up and running in order to do business. And so you get to see him figure out that he likes travel. It's amazing.

[B]

It is amazing.

[A]

I had forgotten that this is the travel piece was not him. The book let him go to the well actually this was before the book. So it's like part of this. There's like something about the book tour. Tour. I think there may be a little of. There might be some hidden stitches about how this trip happened. I wonder about that. But it's. It doesn't matter because he goes to Tokyo.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. But then he's over there doing book tour at the same time. Like it's a little confused about why he's over there. Like, I think probably Lahal, the owner ownership group paid for his ticket. His first time on an overnight airplane. He's worried about sleeping. What's it gonna be like to smoke?

[B]

Not being able to get all this

[A]

food and not be able to smoke. I don't know. It's like Shakespeare getting his quill out for the first time. Like, you know, it's like one of those moments. Like, it's a real origin story that happens right here in this text.

[B]

It's wonderful. That's a wonderful.

[A]

Anything else? Anything else here?

[B]

Oh, no. We already talked about how he was. He was a history buff and he loved movies and all of that. You can see coming through in the writing. Just a really curious guy who, like, had a ton of knowledge about a bunch of things would have been a great hang.

[A]

Right? Hot takes. Rebecca, do you have anything on the stove?

[B]

Okay. It is inarguably a good thing that restaurant culture has improved. And Bourdain even was writing about this by 2006 that it had improved. But I'm really glad we got this book before the Reformation.

[A]

It's like saying, you know, the mafia is bad, but boy, the Godfather's good.

[B]

And the Sopranos. Yeah, like, I. And I just have to. I'm just gonna own that. Like, I am sorry that anyone was hurt by this restaurant culture for however long it happened, but I am so glad that we got Anthony Bourdain's telling of what it was like to be in those rooms.

[A]

Well, like Shigehiro Oishi says, like, sometimes a bad experience can make for a good story, so you might as well get the story out of it at the same time.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Right. I have done a lot of reading about business as I am not had. Did not start as a professional business person. So, like, how do I do things? And so I'm always on the lookout for a business book that actually gives me something. I think you could do worse as an employee, manager and owner than to read this through your own workplace lens and see, are you a good employer? Are you a good boss? Like, what are the ethics of work and business that are expounded? Which ones are toxic, which ones are generative, which ones can you take and sample? But I think there's a lot here because the dynamics are so. I think they're sort of exaggerated dynamics of things that happen in a lot of different kinds of places.

[B]

That's a great point. I hadn't looked at it through that lens, but I think you're right.

[A]

Yeah. For the reading, for read alikes, books inspired this one, et cetera.

[B]

Okay. As you said, we're going to talk about our personal pantheons of food and chef memoirs in our office hours. For Patreon, folks, I do just want to say this audiobook is an all timer.

[A]

It's maybe my favorite audiobook.

[B]

It's amazing. It's available on Spotify Premium. So if you're a Spotify person, get on over there and just listen to it for free. If you are not, find it on audio wherever you get your audiobooks. This is just next level killer audiobook experience. Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell Bourdain cites as an important influence. It comes up in a couple of the reviews of the book as well. I've not read it, but boy am I gonna. It's about Orwell's experiences working in like as a dishwash. I think in some of the kitchens throughout Europe.

[A]

It's very much a downtrodden look how bad these people have it. Which I don't know that we've. I don't know we've hammered the home enough on this, but I think maybe you said it. Bourdain is not looking for the, I don't know, the Food and Drug Administration or OSHA or someone to come in and sweep through and fix kitchens. Like he thinks there's some things but like this is not. That's more of what Orwell is trying to do against a different time and place. But this is. It's much more of an expose but book Orwell Bourdain is more of a. Isn't this cool? And it's a meaningful difference, but it's a real one. Yeah, that's right. Reveling is exactly the right word.

[B]

Eat a Peach by David Chang. He's kind of the heir to the Bourdain throne, but one generation evolved. Bourdain was a mentor and a close friend of his. And Eat a Peach is one of the rare post Bourdain food books that really does all the things that we're hoping for it to do. And then I also recommend I Hear She's a Real Bitch by Jen Ag for a woman's experience trying to run a kitchen like this and the ways that the kitchen. She came up at the same time in restaurants. So what that kitchen culture was like trying to make it as a woman and then she does become chef of her own places. And it was not the same experience. Bourdain had so that's a good one too.

[A]

Yeah. I was looking for things that not our food, but like the two that came to mind are exposes of an industry that showed it to be other than it is. Notably Adventures in the Screen Trade by the great William Goldman, who wrote the screenplay for the Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and All the Princes Mess and many, many other things. Kind of like don't eat fish on Mondays. There was a mini meme that comes out of that people still say, which is nobody knows anything.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I think it. Goldman, I think, has more of a jaundiced eye on the Hollywood industry than Bourdain has on the Kitchen one. But part of the reason it was so exciting was he was telling the truth. Truth to people, which is this is much more contingent. People know a lot less than they think they know about what's going to go on. And petty grievances and economic concerns get in the way and contribute to the thing that shows up after the lion roars on the 20th Century Fox logo on the screen at a theater near you. Balfour by Jim Balfour is probably the greatest sports memoir of all time, if only because it was the one that Pleasantville style turned sports from black and white into color, that these are real people. Yeah, it's a weird book. I've read it a couple times. It's been a while since I read it, but he was a pitcher in the major leagues and like Bourdain, he was a pro, but he also wasn't Sandy Koufax. Right. He wasn't one of the greats. And so he was a bit of a journeyman and he told stories that I'm not sure I don't. I'm assuming the people that worked in Kitchen reveled in Bourdain saying this is what it's like. I'm not sure that baseball and other sports figures were thrilled that Jim Pulver was talking about the using amphetamines and the money and the other things that go on here. But it humanized and revealed this world. And a lot of the sports memoirs that come after, I think, are held up to this standard because there's a lot of memoirs in every field that it's essentially a self glorification, like you want a document that's putting you in the best light. That is not what this book is doing. That is not what William Goldman is doing. So I was looking for books like that, other things where I got a sense of another worldview or experience that I don't have, plus art. So I heard her Call My Nine by Lucy Sante. You and I both read this last year. Her experience of transitioning and what that world is like. She also had this happen later in life. I think the later in life thing is very interesting to all of these fun Home by Alison Bechdel, the great graphic novelist growing up what her house was like. And then I was looking for like memoirs that move move the needle and the signal one in America at least is up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington which is again it seems silly to compare it but I was looking for other examples like these things can change the world now in some maybe it's TV and how we think about food. Maybe it's contributing to the abolitionist movement. But individual experience told artfully and honestly matter. I just want to put that out in the world. A couple of my favorites that are slightly less Stacy but Lab Girl by Hope Jaron. We'd experience to talk about this the other day. This is the memoir of someone who grows up to be a biological scientist, a botanist.

[B]

Wonderful.

[A]

And what it's like to grow up there. And then William Finnegan, who is a wonderful writer writing about his days as a surf bum in the 60s as surfing culture is really getting off the ground. Another one of my favorite memoirs of all time. It would be my top 10 favorite memoirs.

[B]

That's a great Barbarian Daisies. I think Bourdain would have loved Barbarian.

[A]

I assume so too. A different stylist, more of a New Yorker like stylist, but a similar exploratory roving mind who is looking to catch waves rather than to catch sort of the rush of an 8:30 doing 200 covers in a 90 minute period.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Which other Gio de Era titles does it connect to? Interestingly, not a lot. You have a couple question marks and I couldn't do a lot better here, Rebecca.

[B]

I had to really reach like there's a lot of drugs and excess in the secret history. So kind of that maybe some Gatsby things are messy and we revel in the mess but also the mess is bad for us and will ultimately kill you. Yeah, but this is not an easy one to thematically connect to anything else we've talked about.

[A]

And we did do one other memoir. I know why the Cageburg sing in some auto fiction but they're interested in different things so it's to compare them because of genre is not.

[B]

Yeah, those are not fair read alikes I don't think.

[A]

Cocktail party Crib sheet three to five takeaways. What do you say? To someone who maybe knows something about Kitchen Confidential Bourdain, they're like, and did you know, nudge, nudge this as well? Or have you.

[B]

I mean, if you are a foodie, if you've read anything that you've enjoyed about food, if you have enjoyed the Bear or Stanley Tutor in Italy or any of David Chang's shows or podcast, or basically any food memoir that was written in the last 25 years, you have Anthony Bourdain to thank.

[A]

It's funny, I wrote mine before you had yours, so I just kind of duped up similar versions. My version of that same thing is open up the world of restaurants to the world of serious writing, art and storytelling. That's what this book did.

[B]

And then I had. YOLO is a double edged sword. And he talks about like both awareness that you're only gonna go around once and really wanting to, you know, like your body is an amusement park, enjoy the ride. But. But also feeling like by the time he wrote this book, feeling that he was on a bonus round because he had survived addiction to heroin and gotten clean. And that really did fuel like a YOLO kind of spirit. You had noted here too that obsession is a double edged sword. And I think that's a great point.

[A]

Yeah, I had this. I didn't use the phrase double edged sword, but I was sort of. Because he actually wielded sword as vaster as I could in the session. Obsession is a double edged sword. Right. I mean, I think that's a line that a lot of artists and makers of all kinds or many people that are excited and excellent in any field. It's the obsession that leads you to put in the time to be really good. But that, damn, that is a hard fire hose to turn off once it's going. So there we go. Final beat our zero to well read score. Each one gets a score from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Historical importance is fascinating because it means you've got to determine the importance of. It's probably the most important food book of the last hundred years. But how important are food books? You know, like within the thing. Within the thing.

[B]

I mean, I think he changes not just like TV stuff also, but the books and the TV changed Americans attitudes toward travel and towards how we eat when we travel. Seven. Six or seven.

[A]

Historically. Sure. I'll go with the seven.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know what I mean? To go with six, I have to go with six.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Readability. Nine.

[B]

I think so. Yeah. It's incredibly readable.

[A]

Yeah. Current relevance of central questions. The Current relevance of the material, such as it is, is. It's. We are no longer in the specific world of these kitchens in these moments. Like, I assume the dynamics of serving this many people at these times and places are not dissimilar, but the strategies and acceptable responses to them to get through those moments. Nights is different, but we. If we drill down one. What is the central question? What are the central questions?

[B]

I mean, it's what. What is the role of food and eating in our lives? And also what. How do we understand the work that people do who make food available to us and the craft that goes into that Pretty central.

[A]

I'll go six or seven again with the.

[B]

Let's give this one. We went down on historical importance, so let's give this one a seven book nerd read cred. I think a lot of people are familiar with the work and aura of Anthony Bourdain, but if you have actually read Kitchen Confidential, it's high. But not like a 10.

[A]

No.

[B]

I don't know. Are we still in six, seven land here?

[A]

Yeah, six or seven. And then the oh, damn factor. So, um, this we're trying to clarify. This is, like, at its best at. Does it have moments where you're like, oh, damn, either figuratively, literally, or get hit in your soul with it? Eight and a half.

[B]

I would go, yeah, eight and a half. Nine. It's high. Like, the high moments are really high and just excellent.

[A]

Yeah, okay, I can live with that. Okay, well, that brings us to the end, Rebecca. Always an amazing time to come. Have a reason to re. Encounter. No reservations. It is for us, I will say, I think I'll speak for you and you can tell me how wrong I am. Like going back to a meaningful movie or idea, like, it's good to go encounter it and center and remind yourself of what Bourdain himself was looking for. He both embodied it and was looking for it at this point, same time. And I find it to be generative and renewing to go back and encounter Anthony Braun this way.

[B]

I have been, you know, in the past, just nervous to revisit books that I've loved. Like, just in general, is this gonna hold up? Will it feel as magical on a second or third or fourth or. This might be my sixth reading of this if you count all the audio readings of it too. But I'm never worried. When I pick up Kitchen Confidential. Like, I picked this up over the weekend and I was looking at my husband, I was like, I, I'm gonna hang out with Tony this weekend. And it's gonna be great. You know, it's gonna be great. That voice is just such a pleasure to spend time with and there still is nobody doing it this way. It's really singular. Very impactful. He was very important to me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What a gift that we have this.

[A]

What a gift. Thanks so much, y', all for listening. You can go to patreon.com 021 well read for our guided read alongs for the Odyssey and things that will happen in the future that won't be the only one and other membership options which includes early ad freed episode and other bonus content, including us talking about some of our favorite food books. We're going to record this right after those office hours. Bonus episodes go up on the same day. The regular show goes into the main feed. The early access one goes up a few days before ad free through Patreon. You can follow us on the socials at Zero to well Read Podcast. Email us zero to well read dot com for comments on this or any other show or really anything else you're interested in.

[B]

And we do have a mailbag episode coming up soon, so send in those thoughts and questions.

[A]

Send them in. Thanks so much to Thriftbooks for sponsoring this season of Zero to well Read. And Zero to well Read is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Rebecca.

[B]

Thank you so much, Sam.