Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany

Bill Buford's Heat is perfectly interpreted by Michael Kramer, who voices just the right touches of admiration, incredulity, dismay, and at times disgust--all of them fitting responses to the world of outsize egos and amazing cookery depicted in this book. Superbly written and superbly read.

Having worked in many professional kitchens, this book really hits home. He describes situations in the kitchens that seem normal for us working there but from an outsiders view they seem hilarious. People may not want to hear this but this is a very good account of the life of professional "slaves." As noted by a previous poster, the language is a bit foul in parts but that also is just like most kitchens. These professionals "live" to cook. They do almost nothing else, they are very dedicated to ensuring the food is great and your experience is great, so you can forgive them a few indiscretions. Buford does an excellent job describing the motivations behind the wonderful people who prepare our food and allow us to enjoy a night out with wonderful cuisine.

I don't go to restaurants. I don't watch FOOD Channel. I don't even order take-out. I'm just a pizza and burger guy with an occasional side trip to Taco Bell for my veggies. So why was I reading this book? My lunch partner was reading this weirdly yellow hardback and slowly choking on his burrito as he chuckled through Page 230 where the author had become a walking grease fire. Now, I can understand the humor behind being lit up like a Christmas tree in my kitchen (I'd done that after turning on the burners without removing my Hungryman TV dinner carton on top of it.) But a whole book of such mishaps? Ah, my friend urged this book on me and predicted I'd be converted! He would be able to persuade me to go to an eatery that didn't have paper boats of onion rings or plastic packets of mayo. I would want to eat ramps (huh?) and autumn squash! I would want to eat fennel pollen!! And he was right! I was plastered to this book for the next week and a half. Buford started his quest to understand what goes on behind the professional kitchen, in Mario Batali's restaurant, Babbo. He offers himself as an unpaid servant. He promptly cuts himself while deboning ducks and hunting for their "oysters." And his whole world is never the same again. After months of culinary bondage, he flies to Italy to roll pasta with Betta (why you make pasta like an old woman, eh?) and butcher tall cows with warbling Dario and carve thighs with the Maestro (of the Monster Hands) in Tuscany. I suffered with him as Molto Mario roots in trash cans, retrieving celery leaves and lamb kidneys that shouldn't have been tossed in the garbage. I puzzled over the importance of broccoli floret heads to customers. I winced as he burned himself --- dropping ribs in popping olive oil--- by hand. (There's some tremendously good, bloody vivid descriptions of Buford's kitchen's injuries.) Its almost like reading a Clive Barker book with lard and chickpeas! I laughed as he hauls a whole pig (not a mere piglet) to his home in Manhattan so he can butcher it. I cackled as he drops munchkin pasta on the floor-- trying to roll it to impossible thinness. I marveled at how Buford "touched" meat for "doneness" and the resemblance of tortellini pasta to "innie" belly buttons. I snickered at the almost pornographic way . . . sausages were made. I groaned at creepy Riccardo and the ever-swelling polenta. This book is pullulating with such jewels. And I haven't even spoken of the bizarre personalities behind that reduction of liver in butter sauce. There's Mario Batali, bigger than life and much engaged with pig fat. Marco Pierre White and his restaurant empire and his tasty thoughts on the aging of game birds. Yuck! Then there's the sous chefs, the prep chefs, the grill guys and the pasta guys. All fascinating and as unforgetttable, in their way, as Batali and White's tantrums! Andy and Frankie, Memo, Tony Liu and Alex with their dreams of owning their own restaurants. The clan of Latin cooks and se

"Heat," like a good, succulent novel, kept me up most of the night last night. And like a good novel, it replays over and over again in my head. I think about the "characters" that Buford stirs in so well. What an amazingly well-written book, too. I love the way he layers his own "stuff" with the "stuff" of all the people he works with or talks with. To top it all off, the gravy (or the frosting, if you prefer) is the technical aspects and detailed descriptions of cooking and the history of cooking. For example, Buford's polenta "obsession" caused me to finally get up and grab my little yellow spiral notebook so that I could jot down some of the historical details, things I want to obsess about, and so. Last, but not least, the cherry on top is to learn more about Mario Batali's modus operandi, what makes the guy's public and private persona. Now I'm off to Google Bartolomeo Scappi, Pope Pius V's cook, whom Buford mentions on page 146. And then I'm going to check out I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), by Manzoni, which spices up pages 147-148. Buford's book will sit prominently displayed among my other Italian cookbooks, all 250+ of them. (Even though it's not really a cookbook, Heat contains enough information about some dishes so that you CAN easily cook some things.) Molto bene!