Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

23:41He'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.

23:56Jeff:It's really hard. And see someone 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 you think? On this reading, yeah. I thought a lot about this Jedediah Jenkins memoir called To Shake the Sleeping Self. 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 thinking. You know, I don't believe this. We've talked about this, right? Emerson says your giant goes with you everywhere you go.

24:29I'm paraphrasing that, but I like to travel and I think there's rewards to it, but it is not a panacea. Oh, absolutely. 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 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.

25:07So there we are. Right.

25:08Jeff:And that's the central tension here. Like this great piece of art is only possible because of kind of the difficult parts of his life and the thorny aspects of his personality that make him so fun to read. And he writes in near the end of this book about how he had never, he never felt comfortable anywhere until he was in this kitchen, like in this merry band of misfits. And when he starts traveling more after the book, Like this is in the afterward. 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.

25:44Jeff: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, they have a lightness and a sharpness that somehow it cuts how dark some of it is. At least I found myself, and this is maybe the fourth or fifth time I've read this book, really having to pause on paragraphs about his experiences as a junkie and be like, right, that is a really difficult, dark, painful place for a person to be.

26:39Jeff:But the voice of the book papers over a lot of that or kind of glosses it over a bit. 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 Worley Mesa Burroughs and Hunter S.

27:17Thompson sort of the gonzo journalist, 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 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.

27:52I 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, you know, the Hindenburg is going to explode up.

28:30But it becomes so important, it becomes so, I don't know, rarified. And people didn't know, like kind of literally how the sausage was made, figuratively, how the sausage 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.

29:03Jeff: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 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. He's not setting out to end things. He says really clearly in the intro, I'm not advocating for changes to restaurant culture. I like restaurant culture exactly the way it is. He's just going, here's how it is, just so you know. We're all lunatics back there. And I think it's great. And there is something just so really warm about his voice.

29:45Jeff:There was something warm and really inviting about his voice, about the come into this world with me. Almost like Wonka-esque. 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 let yourself go this way, too? Like, he doesn't glamorize, you know, like the drug addiction or the like 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.

30:24Jeff: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. 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 import, creativity and craft happen.

31:00And I want you to see beyond the, you know, 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 restaurants 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.

31:39They realize that he himself was a star. He's photogenic. He's loosely tough and authentic. And he knew his shit, and he was 0 % afraid to dish it out, which works in any content in any particular moment. Yes.

31:51Jeff:Yeah. Anthony Bourdain is my forever hall pass. Like, it just works. Just works. He did – from there, it was mostly TV. He did write a couple of the 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. Apparently after a dispute with his girlfriend, he was out shooting.

32:28He was 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 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 portain that this is sad. And I think he had his other issues I'd be curious to know about around mental health and addiction.

33:04But at this particular moment, it wasn't that he was high on something else that he was putting himself. You know, so that's kind of who he was. Right. And I still, I know you and I, I don't know that I would use the forever hall pass, but I would use a word for looking for, not specifically, I should say, the Bourdainian 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.

33:46And 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 where you are. If you can do the thing, you can do the thing. And that matters to me.

33:57Jeff:And for as much as he, as you were saying, admits like where he stands in the hierarchy of kitchen culture, you know, 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 is a serious person who becomes interested in evolving and in growth. And he's progressive the whole way through. His attitudes are always progressive for the time. But he's on the right side of history. Like in 2017, as Me Too 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.

34:58Jeff: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 celebrated the pirate ship really, 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 going to be in this kitchen, you have to be one of the boys.

35:38Jeff:Like, you've got to be down with all the jokes being about dicks all the time and everybody dry humping everybody else as shows 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. And 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. Yeah, you'll read it. You'll see and feel in Kitchen Confidential, knowing what Rebecca just said, that later he would see these extremes with different eyes.

36:20And 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 would routinely put his hand up his butt until he stabbed him. 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.

36:49But 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, you know, 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. Yeah.

37:17Jeff: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 like 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 realizing they shouldn't have to deal with this in order to pursue these jobs. 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 other people that are always below me in the power structure?

37:51Right. Like it's not that's not quite there. But I think he does get there later, Rebecca. So we both read this several times over the ensuing decade, a couple of decades and a half. What was your first experience?

38:03Jeff:I don't remember exactly when. It was sometime in the early 2000s. I think the TV shows had started and I was like, who is this Anthony Bourdain guy? And the paperback of Kitchen Confidential was just all over the place. Like, 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. for. 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?

38:40You 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 felt 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? What are the big ideas here? What's this all about, Rebecca, in addition to the kitchen stuff and cooking and food?

39:02Jeff:I mean, this is what we talk about when we talk about voice. This is maybe the best example of authorial voice. It's the first one I would reach for, at least, when someone's like, what are you talking about? He just has this singular way of writing, of conveying his thoughts and the world that he's in. And 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. Yes. It is like it's swaggering and blustery, and there is this sort of swashbuckling pirate thing about it, but it's just joyful.

39:42Jeff: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 media, just consumer of media, but moviegoer. and 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 um like if you enjoy the bear you owe such a thank you to anthony bourdain 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 i know where this comes from.

40:35Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. And I thought I think the weaving of memoir and then also the sort of here's the deal in restaurants pieces. Great point. 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. Did you see any research about that, about the editing of it and like about how 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 debuted nonfiction.

41:13And 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.

41:33Jeff:It's just really smart. The editor's name was Karen Rinaldi. She was the publisher at Bloomsbury. Shout out to Karen Rinaldi, yes. She later moved and took the book with her to Echo at HarperCollins. And the 2006 edition that I read this time around has an interview between Bourdain and the publisher of Echo, Daniel Halpern, at the end. The original PW review said his fast lane personality and glee in recounting sophomore at 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.

42:09Jeff:And that does it. It's that plus you get to be part of this subculture. And it's a way into a world that most of us will not experience. And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the match they spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. What's this? Oh, he's going for a can of Pepsi, too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi Zero Sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion. Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready.

42:57Because Quaker's coming in hot with morning nutrition. 100 % whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. I, O, let's go! Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

43:44Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. 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 like is all up for grabs.

44:23So 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 Americanness here. You have in your notes that 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 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.

45:12Like there's this famous scene where one of 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.

45:40Jeff:One of the big chefs he works for, he nicknames Bigfoot. Bigfoot, yeah. But because his bread was so good, people couldn't help but keep hiring him. And 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 it's not who you know necessarily or where you came from or blah. Like he talks a lot about the Doogie Howser, 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.

46:18And they just get new. So 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 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. And that is kind of the rock he builds his worldview on to some degree.

46:56The style is overwrought. I think that is part of the charm. There is sloppiness in Bourdain's remarkable list and catalogs. I'm thinking of Uncle Walt and Carl Sandberg here. These lists of food and ingredients and debauched excesses and injury. 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. There's repetition and near redundancies all over the place. One thing that I got is he twice in the course of the book refers to someone who's at their wits end by saying they're getting ready to shave their head, climb a tower and start shooting.

47:33Jeff:I did not clock that at all. Once is maybe cliche, but it's in the spirit of it. 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 seams. Those are different restaurants and those are great, but there's something of value here as well. It's an artful mess or a well-crafted mess, I think is how Bourdain would approach it.

48:11Jeff: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 those 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 his career. You can't teach it, but I think you don't have to read too much of Hunter S.

48:46Thompson 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. So this is from a Day in the 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.

49:18By 830, 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 doneness. It's still cachundo. 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.

49:47I don't want ice cream melting over the, uh, I don't know how to say that the 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 wine of the, 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. And as soon as he arrives with an industrial, a beer side full with Margarita for me, The drink managed 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.

50:23So 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 is not arbitrary. The voice is this way. And simultaneity is a notoriously difficult mimetic problem for pros. 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.

50:52Jeff:Just the sensory overload is part of it. And it's like 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 all the tickets are just going nuts. I think it's when they let the, remember that one? Like they open up online ordering and the tickets go nuts and everybody's losing their minds like that. And we all had anxiety attacks watching that episode of The Bear. Like 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.

51:29Jeff: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. But it's so, so satisfying. And I get it. I could not hang with that life, but you can see, I understand how it could be compelling and addictive for somebody who is in there. It's a traveling without moving, with apologies to Jamiroquois, that he could chase. That experience is not unlike traveling, where you're having a lot of multi-factor, multi-sensor 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's so stimulated and so engaged with something he cares about, honestly.

52:13But notice there's no thinking, there's no feeling that is just to get through the next few hours. And there's an addiction language that it's not hard to map on at the same time. Yeah.

52:24Jeff: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 is just miserable. Interesting. 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.

52:58Jeff:And I think at least at this time in restaurant culture, you had to relish it to survive. Right. Anything else before we get to stray thoughts that you want to shout in the big ideas section here, Rebecca? Yeah, no, I think that hits all the big ones for us. Okay. Straight 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. 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.

53:36Jeff: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 all of that, that that combination is so compelling and made 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 straight thoughts, like, well, I have a couple.

54:17Jeff: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 he conceives of paying your dues. Part of that is enduring this harassment-fueled culture. But definitely in 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 of the mountain, what all of the jobs are, you know, that led to it so that you understand the work that goes into it.

54:55Jeff: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 shit. But 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. Yeah, I made a real mistake with that one. Not living that one. It's true, unfortunately, for me. I'm 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.

55:32Jeff: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. I've got a couple, then I'll go back to yours for a second here. I'm going to jump down to mine because I've assumed that's a wonderful book about craft, effort, consistency, and an interest in excellence, along with literal and figurative taste. You know, it verges on, it's maybe 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, a kitchen or otherwise, you got 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.

56:29I still am always looking for a Bourdain in every field. I would read a Bourdain. Again, 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 some place 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.

57:09He's like, there is such a embarrassment of choices that he doesn't ever have to say no because he was just list and list and list. And he's trying to give you a sense of the eminence 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 cuisines, so many coworkers. 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.

57:48But I think there is a greater purpose that's trying to represent something of this world.

57:52Jeff:Yeah, it would make for really fun word clouds, but I think it is about that variety of just the sensory input is just off the charts. What else do you have here, Rebecca, that you want to get to with straight thoughts? 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.

58:23Jeff:Like, is that still a thing? Are the weekend rubes still a thing? Or have we had so much restaurant culture now for 25 years that weekday and weekend diners are pretty similar? 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. 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 memes and stuff now.

58:57But 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 would not like the idea of people getting famous because of fame and the algorithm, the inauthenticity of that. Oh, he would have hated it. And then some particular shop, maybe they're pumping out Goodfoot or not, but the people are going there just because they were told to go to it because it then had the self-fulfilling prophecy, right, at the same time.

59:30So I can imagine that. You shout to our boy Gopnik here. Talk to me about Adam Gopnik.

59:33Jeff:Yeah, 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.

1:00:08Jeff:Like what is their life like? And that set me down the path of wondering, when will we get a food cooking memoir from someone who came up that way from an immigrant? I haven't seen it. Have you? I haven't. No, I haven't. If there is one, please let us know. Zero to well read at bookriot.com. 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. I think maybe his favorite figure is, as you say, the cook who has acquired enough skill.

1:00:46And I think there is some acknowledgement that there is a natural talent. 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 quite, their stations are clean. They get their stuff done on time. They're able to juggle the multiple inputs and they plate the things at the same time. It reminded me a lot in that moment of Hemingway's fascination with bullfighters. Oh, yeah. Who in 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 them an expertise that in those moments results in a kind of beauty.

1:01:25And 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 little of this?

1:01:48Jeff:Listen, I'm an advocate for therapy and meditation, and 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've missed Bourdain since 2018, but I've really missed him in the last year watching the ICE arrests happening. He would have been killer and 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 just am sad that we don't have him as a voice fighting alongside us here.

1:02:33He's loudly uninterested in the actual diners. Great point.

1:02:37Jeff:Great point. And 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... And 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 it is sort of beyond his reckoning or his ability to understand or partake. So he's just sort of not interested in it.

1:03:14I don't know what to say about that.

1:03:16Jeff: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, yeah, 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 ours and that particular lifestyle. And so it doesn't matter. Like what's happening in the kitchen is the thing for him. I also was noticing the things that aren't here when people talk about food and writing, you know, like it's a.

1:03:55It'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 you 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.

1:04:13Jeff:He says he got into it 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. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's go on to notable quotes. Goodreads, baby. 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. Yeah, I think if we were to close read that versus Ellen Lidd's experience, you know what you can't do in an amusement park? Jump off roller coasters and like huff glue in the back of the bathroom.

1:04:48Like, 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.

1:04:59Jeff:Yeah. I also loved this. He's writing about like after this first his pivotal moment, his version of Proust's Madeline 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 insatiable curiosity, appetite, wanting to experience something new, that desire for novelty and excitement. That is, I think, the defining double-edged sword of Bourdain.

1:05:40Jeff:It's what makes him great, and it's also what ultimately brought him down. 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. Look where he goes declarative. It's like a couple of short, simple sentences. You know, something's different. And then for, say, someone who is a short, simple sentence writer, where do they do the opposite?

1:06:19So where do they expand and revel and play? It can be a good foothold to stop your eye over the text. Where else do you want to go?

1:06:26Jeff: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 about he's exhorting people who want to work in restaurants to learn to speak Spanish. He says these are your coworkers, 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.

1:06:57Really 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 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 averages, 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.

1:07:35Jeff:I also just have to call out like our boy very nearly missed. Like it's a close miss, just a life of dorkdom. Yes. 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 hyper violent junkie Byron. My last semester at Vassar, I'd taken to wearing nunchucks in a strap on a holster and carrying around a samurai sword. That should tell you all you need to know. Tony. Yeah, he was looking from some way to be different. I think that's something you can see here. Also, I would have hated Anthony Bourdain in college. Absolutely. This would have been insufferable to see this.

1:08:16Yeah.

1:08:17Jeff: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 hurt, people let down, assets wasted, and advantages squandered. And I think that does turn out to be true for him. Yeah. Last one from me that I want to get in here. Good food and good eating are about risk.

1:08:49Every 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. We talk about this, I think, in a mailbag episode where people talk about, 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.

1:09:18When 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 pulls up. We got our skis on. We're ready to get on the bunny slope. And he pushes us down so that we get up. And then we're like, okay, I get it. We've got to learn how to get up. And then he does it again, pushes us down. And then he said, you know, 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.

1:09:50You'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 renumerable to you in manifold ways. And it's hard to predict in the moment. Any other quotes?

1:10:12Jeff:No, I mean, we could do this all day. So we should probably cut ourselves off. Yeah. Is it for you, Rebecca? 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. 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.

1:10:48Maybe I'm a book person. I know I'm a book person. Maybe I'm a book person biased in that particular way. But I 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, 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 that this is not the end point of his understanding, nor should it be ours at the same time. who cares about your poops Ollie does that's why Ollie's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity from daily probiotics to fiber gummies your kiddos will love find it all on Ollie.com that's O-L-L-Y.com these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat, cure, or prevent any disease

1:11:52experience a membership that backs your business journey with american express business platinum when you pay with membership rewards points for all or part of an eligible flight booked with a qualifying airline through amex travel you can get 35 of those points back up to 1 million points back per calendar year american express business platinum there's nothing like it terms apply Learn more at americanexpress.com slash business dash platinum.

1:12:45Only at KFC, it's finger-lickin' good. Prices and participation for you. Supplies last. Not available on third-party ordering platforms. Tax extra. The immortal questions that Art asks, which are these are primary here? Here are what we like to consider. What is a 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?

1:13:19Jeff: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. The kitchen, yeah. And who am I? Who are my people? 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. Yes. Right? Like that you have, you do have a social culinary workplace contract with those people. And if you hold up your end of the 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.

1:13:57I think what else might there be as part of this, that constant restlessness and 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. It's like, who is my neighbor is maybe the more interesting piece, the root of the root there.

1:14:18Jeff: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 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. Bourdain only punched up. And that's a really important part of his philosophy. I agree. Are we sure this isn't about art and writing? I think it is more about art and writing than it seems like it is on the surface.

1:14:56Jeff:Yeah. How so? But I mean, he's a guy who likes to write. There is craft here. He just perceives the world through the lens of things that are crafted. And as casual or tossed off as some of these sentences might seem of 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. 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 interpretive experience.

1:15:34There'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.

1:16:19Right. Right. Which I think is interesting to look at those moments.

1:16:23Jeff:Yeah. He didn't write a cookbook until near the end of his career. Like, yeah. 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 essays 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's 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.

1:16:58Yeah. Could you get most of the gist from watching the Signal adaptation?

1:17:02Jeff:Well, there's not one yet. 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 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 good. Yeah, they put that they gave that the old streaming cement shoes where Bradley Cooper probably bought the rights with his hangover money and said no one is ever seeing this ever again.

1:17:42Jeff: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 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.

1:18:16Is 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 explaining 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?

1:18:47Jeff: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. He could do, like, patter stuff, like the Music Man with all of his insults and all. Like a lot of patter kind of musical theater. The Muppets is gloriously chaotic. I love it. I love this so much. The Muppets as the kitchen as pirate ship is just like, that is what I want. Dr. Teeth and the Dreadnought, like the electric mayhem band is on there. I think this is wonderful. Actual Gonzo. He's the only human. He's trying to manage all the Muppets in the kitchen.

1:19:27This would kill, Rebecca. It would kill. This might be the best one we've done.

1:19:31Jeff:I think so. I think it would just be amazing. And thinking about Muppets set me down the like, did Anthony Bourdain ever go on Sesame Street? Right. 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's an unsettling three minutes of television that you can watch on YouTube. too. 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.

1:20:14Jeff:Such an interesting guy. I had to really pare this stuff down. He loved Ratatouille, the Disney movie, and thought that it was the most accurate depiction of restaurant cultures. Kind of some surprising whimsy from him there. There was a documentary about him called Road Runner that came out in 2021. It was by Morgan Neville, who did the Won't You Be My Neighbor, Mr. Rogers movie. He also did the new Lorne Michaels documentary that's out. I have not seen this. I think it 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 wrote about it as one of the proudest moments of his life that he got to do that.

1:21:02I 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 U.S. that he describes it all, but certainly that's food-related, where he goes to Tokyo to try to help the, basically the LaHalle 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. It is amazing. I had forgotten that this is the travel piece was not him.

1:21:41The 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 doesn't matter. because he goes to Tokyo.

1:21:55Jeff:Yeah. But then he's over there doing book tour at the same time. It's a little confused about why he's over there. I think probably the ownership group paid for his ticket. His first time on an overnight airplane. He's worried about sleeping. What's it going to be like to eat all this food and not be able to smoke? I don't know. It's like Shakespeare getting his quill out for the first time. It's like one of those moments. It's a real origin story that happens right here in this text. It's wonderful. That's a wonderful thing. Anything else? Anything else here? Oh, no. We already talked about how he was a history buff and he loved movies and all of that you can see coming through in the writing.

1:22:32Jeff:Just a really curious guy who had a ton of knowledge about a bunch of things. Would have been a great hang. Right. Hot takes, Rebecca. Do you have anything on the stove? 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 happened. It's like saying, you know, the mafia is bad, but boy, the Godfather's good. And the Sopranos. Yeah. Like, I, and I just have to, I'm just going to own that. Like, I am sorry that anyone was hurt by this restaurant culture for however long it happened.

1:23:10Jeff:But I am so glad that we got Anthony Bourdain's telling of what it was like to be in those rooms. Well, like Shigehiro Oishi says, 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. Right, right. I have done a lot of reading about business as I did not start as a professional business person. So 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?

1:23:44Are you a good boss? Like, what are the ethics of work and business that are expounded here? 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 interesting. I think there's sort of exaggerated dynamics of things that happen in a lot of different kinds of places.

1:24:02Jeff:That's a great point. I hadn't looked at it through that lens, but I think you're right. Yeah. Further reading. For read-alikes, books inspired, this one, et cetera. 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. It's maybe my favorite audiobook memoir of all time. 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.

1:24:38Jeff: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 dishwasher, I think, in some of the kitchens throughout Europe. 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 if 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.

1:25:14No. He thinks there's some things, but that's more of what Orwell's trying to do. It's a different time and place, but it's much more of an expose book, Orwell. Bourdain is more of a isn't this cool. Yeah, Bourdain's reveling. But it's a real one. Yeah, that's right. Reveling is exactly the right one.

1:25:28Jeff: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 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 poor Dane had.

1:26:03Jeff:So that's a good one too. Yeah, I was looking for things that not are food, but like the two that came to mind are exposés 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 Prince's Bride and Butch Cassidy and All the Prince's Men's and many, many other things. Kind of like Don't Eat Fish on Mondays. There was a mini-mean that comes out of that people still say, which is nobody knows anything, right? So I think Goldman, I think, has more of a jaundiced eye on the Hollywood industry than Bourdain has on the kitchen one.

1:26:35But part of the reason it was so exciting was he was telling the 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. I haven't read this. That these are real people.

1:27:10Yeah, 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'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 Polvo was talking about using amphetamines and the money and the other things that go on here. but it humanized and revealed this world.

1:27:46And 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 name by Lucy Sante, you and I both read this last year. Oh, that's a great one. Her experience of transitioning and what that world is like.

1:28:16She 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 the needle. And the signal one in America, at least, is Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, which 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.

1:28:49I just want to put that out in the world. A couple of my favorites that are slightly less stakesy, but Lab Girl by Hope Jaron. We had experienced to talk about this the other day. This is the memoir of someone who grows up to be a biological scientist, a botanist.

1:29:02Jeff:Wonderful. 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 of all time. That's a great Barbarian Days. I think Bourdain would have loved Barbarian Days. I assume so, too. I hope he got to read this. 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 830 doing 200 covers in a 90-minute period.

1:29:37Yeah. Okay. Which other Yodawara titles does it connect to? Interestingly, not a lot. You have a couple of question marks, and I couldn't do a lot better here, Rebecca.

1:29:45Jeff:I had to really reach. There's a lot of drugs and excess in The Secret History, so kind of that. But 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. But this is not an easy one to thematically connect to anything else we've talked about. And we did do one other memoir. I know why the Cageberg's singing and some autofiction, but they're interested in different things. So to compare them because of genres. Yeah, those are not fair read-alikes, I don't think. Cocktail Party Cripsheet, three to five takeaways. What do you say to someone who maybe knows something about Kitchen Confidential Bourdain?

1:30:20And they're like, and did you know Nudge Nudge this as well? Or have you considered this?

1:30:25Jeff: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 Tucci in Italy or any of David Chang's shows or podcasts or basically any food memoir that was written in the last 25 years, you have Anthony Bourdain to thank. 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. And then I had YOLO is a double-edged sword. And he talks about like both awareness that you're only going to go around once and really wanting to, you know, like your body is an amusement park, enjoy the ride.

1:31:01Jeff:But also feeling like by the time he wrote this book, feeling that he was on a bonus round because he was 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. Yeah, I didn't use the phrase double-edged sword, but I was sort of, because he actually wielded sword at Vassar's, I couldn't. Oh, yeah. 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.

1:31:39But that is a hard fire hose to turn off once it's going. So, here we go. So final beat, our zero to well-read score, each one gets a score from one to ten, with ten 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?

1:32:02Jeff:Right. You know, like within the thing, within the thing. 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 historical importance? Sure, I'll go with a seven. Okay. You know what? I have to go with six. Okay. Readability, nine? I think so. Yeah, it's incredibly readable. Yeah. Current relevance of central questions. The current relevance of the material, such as it is, we are no longer in the specific world of these kitchens in these moments. 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 nights is different.

1:32:51But if we drill down one, what is the central question? What are the central questions?

1:32:57Jeff:I mean, what is the role of food and eating in our lives? And also, how do we understand the work that people do who make food available to us and the craft that goes into that? Pretty central. I'll go six or seven again. I think, well, 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. No. I don't know. Are we still in six, seven land here? 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 like oh damn either figuratively literally or get hit in your soul with it eight and a half i would go yeah eight and a half nine it's high like at the high moments are really high and just excellent yeah okay i can live with that okay well that brings us to the And Rebecca, always an amazing time to come have a reason to re-encounter, no reservations.

1:34:15It 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 in center and remind yourself of what Bourdain himself was looking for. He both embodied it and was looking for it at the same time. And I find it to be generative and renewing to go back and encounter Anthony Bruyne this way.

1:34:45Jeff:I have been, you know, in the past, just nervous to revisit books that I've loved. Like, just in general, is this going to hold up? Will it feel as magical on a second or third or fourth? 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. And I was like, I'm going to hang out with Tony this weekend. And it's going to be great. You know it's going to be great. That voice is just such a pleasure to spend time with. And there still is nobody doing it this way.

1:35:22Jeff:It's really singular. Very impactful. He was very important to me. What a gift that we have this. What a gift. Thanks so much, you all, for listening. You can go to patreon.com slash zero to 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.

1:35:58The 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 at Book Riot.com for comments on this or any other show or really anything else you're interested in.

1:36:11Jeff:And we do have a mailbag episode coming up soon. So send in those thoughts and questions. Send them in. Thanks so much to Thrift Books for sponsoring this season of Zero to Well Read. And Zero to Well Read is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Rebecca, thank you so much.

1:36:31Thank you.