Book Shelf - Food & Beverage

Review From The Publisher: With more than 100 illustrations by Karin Kretschman. From Alice Joyce - BookList: A compilation of her "Classic Italian Cookbook" (Knopf, 1973) and "More Classic Italian Cooking," Hazan's latest could readily assume the mantle of "the" definitive resource for Italian cuisine. There are many new recipes and revisions of older ones throughout, and Hazan also now incorporates forcaccie, pizzas, food processors and reduced-fat dishes, emphasizing Italian produce because of its current greater availability. Moreover, while Hazan explains the fundamentals clearly, she also describes regional specialties at length. Ambitious cooks and culinary zealots need look no further for a comprehensive course in Italian cookery.

Review From The Reader's Catalog:
A compilation of Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classic Italian Cooking, widely considered the finest of Italian cookbooks, in a single volume. Now Hazan has rewritten each recipe, greatly reducing reliance on cooking fats and emphasizing the simple, natural tastes of ingredients. "Marcella Hazan is
synonymous with Italian cuisine."--James Beard

Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

The swashbuckling executive chef of Les Halles in New York City serves up the dish on the culinary world. Anthony Bourdain's KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL reveals what makes a steak well done, what is in that seafood frittata, and the reason behind the now infamous rule: Never order fish on Monday. He also lets us in on why Tuesday is the best night of the week to dine out. This deliciously shocking memoir is a no-holds-barred, wickedly funny look at what goes on behind the kitchen doors. Kitchen Confidential: Tales from the Culinary Underbelly Anthony Bourdain

Reviews
From Restaurant Business With equal parts wit and wickedness, Bourdain [does] the unthinkable by revealing trade secrest that chefs and restauranteers cringe to read.

From Author Information
Anthony Michael Bourdain was born in New York City in 1956, studied at Vassar College, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. He has plied his profession on both sides of the Atlantic for some twenty-five years. Now married and a resident of New York, he presides, as executive chef, over the kitchens of thriving Les Halles restaurants in New York, Washington, D.C., Miami and Tokyo, Japan. In addition to Kitchen Confidential, Mr. Bourdain is the author of two highly regarded mystery novels, Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, which were published by Villard in the 1990s.

From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly Chef at New York's Les Halles and author of Bone in the Throat, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. His fast-lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things: Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others, and he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food. The latter was born on a family trip to France when young Bourdain tasted his first oyster, and his love has only grown since. He has attended culinary school, fallen prey to a drug habit and even established a restaurant in Tokyo, discovering along the way that the crazy, dirty, sometimes frightening world of the restaurant kitchen sustains him. Bourdain is no presentable TV version of a chef; he talks tough and dirty. His advice to aspiring chefs: "Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: `Shut the fuck up.' " He disdains vegetarians, warns against ordering food well done and cautions that restaurant brunches are a crapshoot. Gossipy chapters discuss the many restaurants where Bourdain has worked, while a single chapter on how to cook like a professional at home exhorts readers to buy a few simple gadgets, such as a metal ring for tall food. Most of the book, however, deals with Bourdain's own maturation as a chef, and the culmination, a litany describing the many scars and oddities that he has developed on his hands, is surprisingly beautiful. He'd probably hate to hear it, but Bourdain has a tender side, and when it peeks through his rough exterior and the wall of four-letter words he constructs, it elevates this book to something more than blustery memoir.