Heat / Bill Buford

RATINGS

Overall: 5/ 5 stars

Text Level: Easy

Entertainment: Medium

Self-Help: Medium

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Food, Italy, Travel, Biography

Page Count: 335

Is this book right for my inmate and me?

This helps inmates by showing inmates how hard it is to work in a professional kitchen but also how rewarding it can be if they decide to work in one after they get released & not to turn down good opportunities because you won’t know if you’ll get another chance.

Buy on: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Review By: Recyclops (Inmate)

A great adventure of culinary self-discovery.

The author Bill Bufford, a writer for the New York Times, decides to write about the underbelly of professional kitchens by working in one himself. He gets a position in one after hosting a dinner that he invited a friend of a friend to come over, which happens to be Mario Batali. He has Bill start at Babbo, his restaurant, as a prep cook. Over the time that he works at the restaurant, Bill writes about his time there as he befriends his coworkers and a biography on Batali from his beginnings to the present time. He writes about his hours that he has to work, the treatment he receives by his coworkers being a new person, and the treatment of the “Latins” who come from both Central and South America. After working at Babbo for 8 months, Bill decides to quit his day job at the newspaper to continue working in the kitchen full-time. Through his budding friendship with Mario Batali, Bill decides to take Batali’s advice that he should go to Italy to learn about the basics of Italian food with no return date.

While in Italy, Bill learns how to make pasta from the same woman that Batali learned from in a town in Emilia-Romania region. Bill later goes to another town in the hills of the Chianti region to learn about being a butcher from one that always quotes Dante, who insists that all food originated from Tuscany.

What I didn’t like was the complaining done about the food by Marco Pierre White about his own food at his own restaurant, not tasting up to his standards while he’s having a meal with the author; doesn’t make for a great dinner partner.

Book Quotes:

“There’s too much rosemary on this grous, it’s like eating a herb garden.”

“I’m not a cook. Shhh. I’m a spy.”