Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential Updated

Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed:
Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
According to a Review by Sumi Hahn at Amazon.com;

Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it."

Quote from the book

What most people don't get about professional-level cooking is that it is not at all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavors and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking — the real business of preparing the food you eat — is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way. The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator .... Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.

Book Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Updated edition (January 9, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060899220
ISBN-13: 978-0060899226
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches

Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)

Catfish Po-Boy Sandwich

Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet by Padma Lakshmi

Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet:
A World of Recipes for Every Day


From Publishers Weekly;

The host of TV's Top Chef, Lakshmi (Easy Exotic) puts her own culinary skills to the test in this glossy, cosmopolitan cookbook. Here, in vibrant colors, are her own palate-shaping memories in the form of recipes and short but highly personal essays. Like Nigella Lawson, Lakshmi's sex appeal is part of her draw as a food personality, and this collection obliges with adorable family photos as well as glamour shots of the model/actress nibbling on her creations. The global cuisine runs the gamut from a Southeast Asian–style Warm Peanut Salad with Tomato and Cilantro to Persian Chicken Soup with Omani Lemon and Dill to fried chicken battered with Rice Krispies. Keralan Crab Cakes and Pineapple and Pomegranate Crumble are among the fusion dishes that blend cuisines with intriguing results. Interspersed throughout are plenty of South Indian classics, reflecting Lakshmi's own heritage. Lakshmi has an inventive knack for flavor combination, but some of her recipes, like a Barbecued Shrimp with Chili Honey Butter, don't quite live up to the hype. Nevertheless, this book will certainly be well received by Lakshmi's growing fan base as well as home cooks looking to mix it up in the kitchen.

Chen Kenichi the Iron Chef

You can watch the rest of this episode at YouTube.

According to Wikipedia;

Chen Kenichi was born January 5, in 1956 in Tokyo, Japan. His name is often romanized Chin Kenichi in Japanese sources. He is a Han Chinese chef best known for his role as the Iron Chef Chinese on the television series Iron Chef. He wears a yellow outfit and holds a cleaver in his introduction. He is the only Iron Chef to have held his position throughout the life of the show. He was born in Japan to ethnic Han Chinese parents of Japanese nationality and his formal name is Ken'ichi Azuma.

Iron Chef Chen's Knockout Chinese

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Top Chef The Cookbook

Top Chef The Cookbook
From Publishers Weekly

Part fanzine, part cookbook, this volume will appeal to the anyone who tunes into Top Chef each week to see contestants out-cook each other, using vending-machine ingredients to make appetizers or preparing lunch for the cast of a telenovela. Replete with dozens of glamour shots of contestant/contributors and sweetly old-fashioned profiles of the judges (host Padma Lakshmi is "a no-nonsense kind of gal"), this volume feels like a guide to a strange, food-obsessed cult. The author sighs over pretty, eccentric Betty Fraser, "it was always hard to know what to make of Betty," and notes that season two winner Ilan Hall was "good at falling into the kind of cliquish drama you might find in a high school cafeteria." The recipes themselves, taken directly from the show's "quickfire" and elimination challenges, are dauntingly involved, much more suited to cooking competitions than the average home kitchen: they never use one ingredient when three will do, nor do they shy away from expensive options like foie gras, truffles and abalone. Even simple-sounding dishes like Chiles Rellenos are accented with complicated sauces and garnishes. It's hard to imagine anyone consulting this book to whip up dinner, but it's easy to see how a Top Chef obsessive would get much satisfaction out of it, if not necessarily a full stomach.

Book Details

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Chronicle Books (March 20, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0811864308
ISBN-13: 978-0811865784
Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.6 x 1.1 inches

Top Chef The Cookbook

Chinese Cooking Tips From Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

According to Wikipedia;

Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, educator, chef and author of eleven cookbooks on Chinese cuisine, was born in Sun Tak, a suburb of Canton, China. She began to cook at the age of five, encouraged by her parents, she had a mother who believed that “children should know how to do everything,” and a father who had traveled widely and was familiar with foreign cuisines. These early influences included a grandmother who instilled in her the techniques and culture of cooking while she was still a child.

The Chinese Chicken Cookbook:
100 Easy-to-Prepare, Authentic Recipes
for the American Table


Eileen Yin-Fei Lo @Amazon.com

Traditional Italian Cooking - A super easy pasta recipe

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

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