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

by Bill Buford (Author)

4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Doubleday Canada (May 30 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385662564
ISBN-13: 978-0385662567
Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16.8 x 3.8 cm
Shipping Weight: 658 g

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #76,789 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Buford's book starts smartly—he first met dynamic celebrity chef Mario Batali at a dinner party at his own home, where Batali sparkled until 3 a.m.—and continues at a fast clip as he conceives the notion of becoming Batali's "kitchen slave." Buford wanted to profile Batali for the New Yorker but also wanted to learn about cooking; he would be a "journalist-tourist" in the boot camp of a "kitchen genius." His subject became an obsession, and over the next three years, he investigated a rich menu of subjects: what makes a three-star restaurant work; what it takes to be a TV food star; the techniques and history of Italian cooking, not just from library research but also from repeated trips to Italy to visit Batali's relatives. Terrific culinary writing tracks Buford's successive passions for short ribs, polenta, tortellini and then the butcher's art, Italian-style, of pig and cow. Along the way, to his own surprise, Buford found that he had become a kitchen insider. This is a wonderfully detailed and highly amusing book from the writer who once took an insider's look at English soccer hooligans in Among the Thugs. 100,000 first printing. (June 13)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Could loving to cook translate into being a professional under the tutelage of the famous chef of a three-star New York restaurant? Buford jumped at the chance to find out. This energetic account of his intense culinary education brings readers into the scalding kitchens where fine food is prepared by obsessive chefs for whom timing is critical and cooking is art. The author entwines the history of pasta with his preparation of it, and he visits the theory that it was the Italians who brought fine cooking to France rather than the other way around. Buford follows the example of his mentors as he travels to Italian villages to serve as kitchen slave to a master of pasta-making and as an apprentice to a butcher to learn to perfect that culinary craft. A journalist for the New Yorker, the author writes with the same gusto with which he cooks. Readers learn how physically demanding professional cooking is, how hard it is on the ego, and how satisfying it can be. This is the ultimate career book for would-be chefs, and a book that noncooks will savor until the last word.–Ellen Bell, Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt

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	71% buy the item featured on this page: Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany 4.8 out of 5 stars (4)
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Lively and sentimental, Mar 28 2008

By	Alexander H. Tsang (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Paperback)

In Heat, Bill Buford, a writer for The New Yorker, leaves his job to become a cook at Babbo, a top Italian restaurant in Manhanttan. Buford has written a clear and interesting account of his struggles to learn his way in a fast-paced and demanding kitchen as a professional cook, and really brings to life the environment and the personalities of the people that he works with. Eventually, as he becomes more confident in his abilities and his passion for cooking grows, he is drawn to Italy by the desire to learn authentic Italian cooking techniques, including the butchering of meat. As he studies under some of Italy's masters, we are also treated to a sentimental overview of the history and traditions of Italian cuisine. Bill Bufords memoir is a well-written, fascinating book and I really enjoyed it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Intern, Oct 31 2006

By	MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Somewhere around the middle of his life, Bill Buford decided that he wanted to escape the confines of a writing job at the "New Yorker" and offer himself up to Mario Batali at the super-chic restaurant Babbo as an intern: as in hard work, long hours and no pay. This is dedication on the one hand and a fulfillment of his lifelong interest/fascination with Food: its history, its preparation, its art as well as its business and technical side on the other.
In "Heat" Buford offers up a Memoir/Diary of his time at Babbo (he aptly calls this his "Kitchen Slave" days) as well as his trek to Tuscany to learn the art of Pasta and to Panzano to apprentice himself to the most famous butcher in Italy, Dario Cecchini.
As someone who has spent most of my life in and around the food business, I recognize so much of what Buford relates: "When I made the decision to become a Chef, I accepted I would never claim a sick day for the rest of my life. It's one of the sacrifices of my calling."
And while working the Grill station at Babbo, Buford waxes poetically: "The Grill Station is Hell. You stand at it for five minutes and you think this is what Dante had in mind. It is in a dark hot corner--hotter than any spot in the kitchen, hotter than anywhere else in your life" Or when Frankie at Babbo explains to Buford the simple pleasure of preparing food: "You make the food, (Frankie) said." "The simple good feeling he was describing might be akin to what you'd experience making a toy or a piece of furniture, or maybe even a work of art...this is an elementary thing that is seldom articulated."
Along with the Memoir musings, Buford also goes into the history of food. For one: When did the Italians begin to use Eggs to bind the flour for Pasta? Or when Caterina de Medici left Italy for France did she indeed take all of the Italian Court recipes and Cooks and began the French Cooking tradition? Good questions, easy to answer? Not really and Buford's investigation is fascinating.
Bill Buford has written a terrific book covering all manner of real-life experiences as well as relating his investigations of and on the philosophy and history of all manner of food, social and moral topics. But at the center of "Heat" stands the man Buford himself: committed, dedicated, funny, resourceful and witty as hell.

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5.0 out of 5 stars An inside look like no other, Oct 20 2006

By	L. Watson (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is not like an autobiography of a chef or restaurant reviewer or an insider in the gourmet food industry. The author, Bill Buford, was an editor for the New Yorker magazine. He met Mario Batali when he invited him to a mutual friend's birthday dinner and then conceived the idea that he should learn what it was like to work in Batali's highly rated New York restaurant, Babbo.

Buford describes what is involved to be a kitchen slave, and later, as he works his way up the kitchen chain, a line cook. His observations and theorizing about the life of those working in a restaurant kitchen are as revealing as those of Anthony Bourdain. Interspersed in these chapters is a bit about Batali's background -- his mother, a French Canadian, is the source of the red hair -- and how Batali started cooking in California before taking himself off to England and Italy to learn from the best. Buford then gets the idea that he should follow Batali's learning path and tries to learn about cooking from Batali's former mentors. This eventually leads Buford to Italy where he apprentices himself to a Tuscan butcher, who quotes Dante and chases away customers he thinks are too stupid to appreciate the quality of the products in his shop. As you read, you also begin to realize that Buford is very obsessive about matters which interest him. He also has a wife who is incredibly tolerant of his long absences and experiments like bringing home an entire pig to butcher and then cooking pork for seven meals in a row.

The book is very well written and divulges interesting tid bits about restaurants including the fact that restaurant reviewers, when recognized, will get a better meal than the average diner and ordering dinner shortly before the restaurant closes may mean that the meal is not cooked by the chef who may be finished for the night. But more than anything, this book is highly entertaining as Buford describes scenes such as his multiple maiming of his fingers and the conservation between two Tuscan men replete with insults about each other's genitalia. The book ends with Buford speculating about the origins of French cooking. I can only hope this means another book about his adventures in France.

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5.0 out of 5 stars HYSTERICAL, DRAMATIC, AND FULL OF INFORMATION

We've all heard the expression `If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," well, Bill Buford not only stood the heat, he stayed in several kitchens, and... Read more

Published on Jun 19 2006 by Gail Cooke