Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Lots to dislike but I like it. The prose is just a voiceover: short sentences, newline punchlines, chatty laddish bluster. You wouldn't want to spend time with young Bourdain; too edgy, too miserable, too addled. At no point does he disown his wild years, but this is written as a different, charming, distant man. I suppose this made him a star because honesty and filth are rare in high cuisine, or in the received notion of high cuisine. He refers to himself as a "cook" throughout (or even "cookie"), endearingly.
Anyone else playing at being a junkie cuisinier, sexual tyrannosaurus, smash-hit author, primetime travel host, and, most recently, jiujitsu japer would surely be risible. But his enthusiasm is convincing.
It may well be that Bourdain was a 6/10 chef; I can tell you he's a 6/10 writer, at least as prose goes. But domains multiply when they intersect.
Anyone else playing at being a junkie cuisinier, sexual tyrannosaurus, smash-hit author, primetime travel host, and, most recently, jiujitsu japer would surely be risible. But his enthusiasm is convincing.
It may well be that Bourdain was a 6/10 chef; I can tell you he's a 6/10 writer, at least as prose goes. But domains multiply when they intersect.