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a Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Oct 26, 2018
It starts out with a wonderful story about the most illegal meal he’s ever had. A very angry cook wrote the iconoclastic Kitchen Confidential about the underbelly of the New York restaurant scene in the 1980s and 1990s, published in 2000. It made Anthony Bourdain a star. I loved that book. This is the follow-up. He’s older and wiser and less angry, or at least he’s more self-aware and philosophical about it. He writes the way he talks – which will be familiar if you’ve watched his TV show, No Reservations. This book is about how Kitchen Confidential utterly changed his life, opening up the world to him. He tells great stories, in a wry and humourous tone, and I was only sorry that the book ended – I would’ve been happy to keep reading.