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

This is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. The fact that it is about kitchens and food and chefs, etc. hardly matters: it is, first and last, a swashbuckling adventure in which our hero, the author, driven by curiosity and some unreasonable lust for kitchen skills, faces the heat in the kitchens of a couple of the most outsized, megalomaniacal chefs in the world and in a butcher shop in Italy. There is gossip of rare incision, gory details that beggar fiction, scenarios beyond the imagination of theater, all falling over each other pell-mell because Bill Buford's lust for skills and experience is like a locomotive and his writing is brilliant. His humility is the subject, really. It makes the story possible, makes the humor irresistable, puts him in situations that most of us are too proud to ever experience, and gives his prose the most winning lightness and warmth. By the end of the book, which I lamented like I was losing a pal, it became clear that Buford is a sort of modern-day Don Quixote, venturing forth into the unkown driven by a vague but powerful sense of childlike curiosity... actually, maybe he is the Elephant Child, repeatedly spanked by the grownups for his "Satiable Curtiosity"... or maybe he's a new breed of Late-Empire reporter, dutifully recording the vicissitudes of our wealth-enabled excesses from the foxholes of gluttony. Fact remains that he has shown us something keenly observed, something that is right under our noses but almost invisible, and he has done it so well because he is so omnivorous in his hunger for experience and so teachable. Here's another stab at describing Mr. Buford: he is the anti-Bond, in no way jaded, un-blinkered by savoir-faire, open to the world, and fantastically observant as a result. This is great reportage, great story-telling, great humor... I strongly recommend it, especially if you loved Kitchen Confidential and The Reach of a Chef. Outstanding.

The book is Buford's memoir of what started out as his attempt to learn what it was like to work in and run a restaurant and to become a better cook. In the end, it turned into an obsession to truly understand Italian cooking and to gain the kind of insight into food and its preparation that was handed down for millenia by people who lived close to the land and to the source of their food. Many people will pick up the book because of its association with Mario Batali, the famed Italian chef of the "Food Network," and while he plays a prominent role, it is not a book about him. Batali is one of a handful of figures--all larger than life--who lead Buford on his journey of discovery. Here's a warning for you: If you want to keep alive the myth of the jovial but tame TV chef, don't pick up this book because in it Batali is revealed as a slightly manic, foul-mouthed Puckish Dionysius, who swears with gusto, cracks sex jokes, and has a youthful history full of immoral pursuits. In other words, not unlike many of the food service professionals I worked with in the years I worked in restaurant kitchens. For another thing, if you think you might want to become a chef because it sounds romantic, definitely read this book and become disabused of the notion quickly. It's tough and demanding work that takes a toll, especially at the higher levels of prestige and service, but which can be very rewarding too. While profiling Batali's rise to stardom, Buford recounts his experiences starting out as an unpaid kitchen worker at Batali's famed New York restaurant, Babbo, where he works his way up the chain from prep worker to pasta maker to line cook. But his journey doesn't stop there. Buford is constantly traveling to Italy: to learn pasta-making from Batali's teacher in Emilia-Romagna; to learn about meat from the world's most famous butcher in Tuscany; and more. At its heart this is a book about food from a fan's perspective and Buford is the right guide. In the beginning, he's a barely competent cook, more enthusiastic than capable and we can picture ourselves in his shoes, moving from serving a marginal meal to friends into one of New York's most famous kitchens. Soon enough he's butchering a pig in his own apartment and smuggling secret ingredients unavailable in the US in his suitcase from Italy and taking Italian lessons at a scula in the Village and finally, at the end, being given the opportunity to do what every foodie dilettante dreams of and refusing it. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read it over three days. It's not a small book and not simple either, but it went quickly because of the quality of the prose. Every time I picked up the book I got a craving, sometimes pasta, sometimes a nice steak, always wine. In fact, I've had a nice glass of red with me almost the entire time reading the book. I am curious how the people that Buford profiles feel about how they were portrayed in the book. Many of them come across as petty and arrogant, albeit passionate about what they do. The reality is that there few perfect saints or perfect rogues, and that we all fall somewhere in between on a continuum between the two extremes. What comes through is that this passion which strays into arrogance is what separates the amateur from the artist and is often a hallmark of experts in any number of subjects, from sculpture to music to food.

Whoa. Too much information! But what fascinating information. From here on I will always feel a bit guilty about using a colander to drain pasta. And a bit skeptical about a meal prepared in a busy restaurant: head for the exits, find somewhere less crowded, if you are at all worried about how exactly that meal got onto your plate or what might have happened to it en route. I started to feel the symptoms of salmonella about a quarter of the way into the book. Although the book is about cooking, this is not chick-lit (not by any stretch of the imagination). It is very much more a travelogue through Italy and through the reality-show world of New York eateries. The sub-title is a pretty concise precis of the book. The narrative has a few more bad words in it than are really needed to carry the story along but I suppose that is to portray the mercurial temperament that derives from working with finely-honed knives and scalding pans in close quarters at 130 degrees. This is a read that is easy to take in short chunks or in longer stretches. It is interesting throughout. You probably won't develop too much empathy for the major characters since they are essentially real-life caricatures of themselves, and scarily I believe that these are probably close to true to life. One supposes that the only thing standing in the way of a major defamation case is that apparently Mario Batali has a self-image that the Five Boroughs can barely contain. The author himself is a journalist who pitched the writing business to follow his dream of working with one of the industry's great chefs. But in truth he does not have the aptitude and is (at least at first) only kept on because he is somewhat a friend of said famous chef and because he works for free. Aside from not really having the feel for cooking that some people just have in them, this hobby is hazardous to Buford's health: he is one of those people who should not be allowed to handle any sharp objects, which of course are inherent to cooking. However, he balances this deficiency with an apparent immunity to pain. So when you get that rare-looking chop next time, make sure it is actually the chop that is doing the bleeding. If not, there may be a somewhat uncoordinated prep-chef in training. This review might make it sounds like I didn't like the book. On the contrary, I did. It was hard to let it go. But you need to be prepared for the idea that, despite a common love for the delectables of northern Italy, it is definitely not in the same genre as Under the Tuscan Sun.

I really enjoyed this book. Although it was published in 2006, I just discovered it. I was moved by an excellent article by the author, “Baking Bread in Lyon” published in The New Yorker in the lead up to the release of his newest book Dirt. When ordering Dirt I saw he had written Heat and decided to read it first. Heat is very well written. Buford was the editor of a literary magazine and the fiction editor at the New Yorker. The pages seemed to fly by and I found it engaging throughout. You will probably enjoy this read if you are interested in Italy and the Italian approach to food and/or liked Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.” There are some crazy characters in kitchens and Buford does a great job describing them. Mario Batali’s larger-than-life personality and his rise in the food world feature prominently throughout. This book originated as a New Yorker profile on Mario Batali. Buford took the opportunity of writing the article and befriending Mario to work for over a year (without pay) in the kitchen of Babbo. He then spent months in Italy learning how to make pasta and how to butcher. This was written several years before Batali’s disgrace associated with the #metoo movement, and it’s easy to see how his heavy drinking, his general approach, his sometimes arrogant attitude and the culture in many male-dominated professional kitchens would lead to an abusive workplace. Buford gives great insights into the hierarchy of Babbo’s kitchen, the posturing, the literal bumping, and the infighting. One of the staff mentioned in the book, Frank Langello, who became the executive chef is described by Buford as temperamental and abusive. I googled him to see what he was up to now and found out he was fired in early 2018 after misconduct allegations. The mentions of Joe Bastianich, Mario’s former business partner, were also interesting because I’m familiar with Joe from having watched him on the television show MasterChef. One thing I’m genuinely curious about is how one affords to live in New York City and spend months in Italy while working without pay. Did he get a big advance? Had he done a great job saving and lived off that? Was his wife’s salary more than adequate? Are they simply independently wealthy? Now I am off to read Dirt, and I bet I’ll end up reading his first book, Among the Thugs, because he is such a good writer.

The author (a middle-aged former editor, and amateur cook/foodie), on a lark, solicits Mario Batali to let him work at his NYC restaurant, Babbo ... and from there, he goes on a pilgrimage to Italy, retracing some of the steps that Mario himself followed early on in his career. Throughout the book, the author gives the reader peeks into Babbo's kitchen, peeks into the lives and personalities of the kitchen staff, and also an account of his adventure in Italy ... all while intermittantly pontificating about food history, and culinary philosophy. I enjoyed the book, and if life permitted, I'd probably be sorely tempted to undertake a similar adventure. My only real nit was that the author meanders at times. He recurring prolonged sidesteps into the lives of the kitchen staff were a bit too many, and too long, for my preference ... it detracted at times from the focus/interest of the book. The author could have focused more closely on the cooking experience (both at home, at babbo, and abroad), and the book would have been tighter, and more interesting, for it. For instance - he described buying a whole pig upon his return, and spent more time discussing getting it to his apartment then he did on the butchering of it, and the various dishes he subsequently prepared. What could have been an entire chapter (or several) to cap his return from Italy was covered a bit too briefly. Buford's no Ruhlman, or Bordain, but he's a decent writer, and his heart's in the right place. He'll get better. As of this writing, I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to grab his followup book, documenting his trip to Spain.

Like a master chef's kitchen, Bill Buford's journal of his food journey is rich and sensual with flavor and aromas. An established magazine editor and successful author Bill Buford has always been an amateur cook, but in his late forties he decides that living in an ephemeral and materialistic world of slight success, fashion, and fame is not enough for him. He wants to understand the soul of things, and ultimately that means understanding where the food he eats comes from and how it is best prepared, and while at first that means writing a magazine article on Mario Batali, the search ultimately takes him to Italy where he learns to make fresh pasta, butcher pigs and cows, and while falling in love with tradition and heritage also come to see poignantly how they can change and disappear as well. The book swings back and forth between two places. First there's Buford's hometown of New York City, where Mario Batali runs the finest Italian restaurant in America and where Bill Buford has situated himself as a kitchen slave. Then there are the hills of northern Italy where Batali learned the power and allure of true and traditional Italian cooking, and where Buford traveled many times in the search for the essence of food, and the origin of things. Batali's Michelin three-star kitchen is a source of endless conflict, and Buford describes it brilliantly as though the kitchen staff were a ragtag motley platoon of misfits and maniacs caught at war. The hills of Italy, on the other hand, are an endless source of fascination and wonder for Buford, and it is in these sections -- powered by Buford's love -- that are slow and at times ponderous to read. Like a brilliantly prepared Italian dish, "Heat" is full of subtle and sublime flavor, created by the author's wonderful and precise use of detail and food nouns, and while this like good food can activate all our senses and stimulate intoxicating memories it can also be at times too rich and thus at times a bit revolting. (Was an entire chapter on polenta really necessary?) And this book can only be truly appreciated by the true gourmand, as it is so densely packed with culinary terminology and thinking. While Buford's preparation and execution can be a bit much, I did come away learning a lot from this book, lessons that will stay with me for the rest of my life, as I deepen my culinary practice: How simplicity can take a lifetime to master, how a food tastes of its ingredients (case in point is how pasta is defined by the quality of its egg) and of the devotion of its practitioners (it seems that only petite Italian women with very small hands with nothing to do all day but make tortellini can make true tortellini), how meat is defined not by the breed of the animal but by the breeding of the animal (feed a cow real grass, and let it grow strong and big by letting it till the fields and roam the pastures, and you'll have excellent beef), and how food can unite families and define cultures like nothing else (Italians believe they invented food). And so unfortunately with the advent of modernization, technology, and globalization, food culture is slowly being lost to us. Here is an Italian master's poetic and poignant description of what we have lost: "In the seventies, the chianine were good. They tasted of the hillsides and clean air. They ate grass and had acres to roam in, and, because they were work animals, they were exercised constantly. The meat was firm and pure. It might take two weeks before it softened up. Today, the chianine do not have hillsides to roam in, because you use a tractor to work vines, not an animal. And instead of grass, they eat cereals, grains, and protein pellets: mush. They eat mush. They taste of mush. And after the animal is slaughtered, the meat behaves like mush: it disintegrates in days. A chianina is a thing to flee from!"

This is a great book to read if you have ever inspired to become a chef or to open a restaurant. The author gives you an insider's look at life in the kitchen, in the process volunteering some great recipes and the history behind some of the common dishes we eat. Do you know when and why, for example, egg was added to pasta to bind it with flour? What is polenta and how is it made? The story is of the author, an inexperienced cook, volunteering to work for Mario Batali (Food Network) at the restaurant Babbo as an intern, transforming himself in the process into a knowledgeable cook. Not an easy feat to achieve for a man who thought cooking was for `fags'. This is really a memoir of the author's time at Babbo, where he referred to himself as `Kitchen Slave'. He also relates his journey to Tuscany, Italy, to learn the art of Pasta and to Panzano, Italy, to apprentice himself to the famous butcher in Italy, Dario Cecchini. This is a hilarious book! By the end of it you will end up appreciating the art of cooking and the pleasures of making food. You might also end up signing up for a cooking class. However, I did find some weaknesses in the book. The story tends to jump from one place to the next, making the story a little bit confusing to follow. The story does lose steam in some areas. Word of caution: the book does contain filthy language. Some readers might get offended. With that said, if you love to cook this book is for you. You might end up devouring this book instead of eating the dish in front of you!

To start with, I'm blue collar to the core, and would rather be working in a production facility, Making tangible things with my hands, things that are real, that last, and I can see what I've done at the end of the day and know why my own muscles ache and why my t-shirt has sweat stains on it. I am, however, caught now working in a pizza delivery store, where with my ownership of a degree meant I was put in the management crew, and find myself on the makeline pushing out pizzas as quick as possible. Why I find this so satisfying, why I have quit looking for something else, raises questions in myself as to why. Food, you see, isn't something that lasts, isn't something you can look at and touch for very long. And that is why I find this book so telling. The relationship between food and sex, pleasure as it were, even with the knowledge that pleasure itself is not something that can be sated for very long, and it always does seem one is chasing the dragon trying to reach new highs. And with that guilty feeling I got when I suddenly understood that I have put things into my customers body, as it is. At their choice, yes, but still. Myself, I know I'm not normal in how I look at the world, in how I am always asking why things are the way they are, and the time I devote to figuring things out on levels others seem to just know. That's the other part that draws me to the accounts in this book. His asking why and when the egg appeared in pasta. That intellectual curiosity appeals to me. The desire to learn, that always appeals. I can't say much more about the book. I do ask that you read it with an open mind, and the next time you cook a meal for yourself, when you sit down, and understand the time and work that went into it the making of fuel for your body, understand what that really means to your survival, that you have a better understanding of it.