K I T C H E N CONFIDENTIAL ADVENTURES IN THE CULINARY UNDERBELLY ANTHONY BOURDAIN To Nancy CONTENTS APPETIZER A Note from the Chef FIRST COURSE Food Is Good Food Is Sex Food Is Pain Inside the CIA The Return of Mai Carne SECOND COURSE Who Cooks? From Our Kitchen to Your Table How to Cook Like the Pros Owner's Syndrome and Other Medical Anomalies Bigfoot THIRD COURSE I Make My Bones The Happy Timea Chef of the Future! Apocalypse Now The Wilderness Years What I Know About Meat Pino Noir: Tuscan Interlude DESSERT A Day in the Life Sous-Chef The Level of Discourse Other Bodies Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown Department of Human Resources COFFEE AND A CIGARETTE The Life of Bryan Mission to Tokyo So You Want to Be a Chef? A Commencement Address Kitchen's Closed APPETIZER A NOTE FROM THE CHEF DON'T GET ME WRONG: I love the restaurant business Hell, I'm still in the restaurant business - a lifetime, classically trained chef who, an hour from now, will probably be roasting bones for demi-glace and butchering beef tenderloins in a cellar prep kitchen on lower Park Avenue I'm not spilling my guts about everything I've seen, learned and done in my long and checkered career as dishwasher, prep drone, fry cook, grillardin, saucier, sous-chef and chef because I'm angry at the business, or because I want to horrify the dining public I'd still like to be a chef, too, when this thing comes out, as this life is the only life I really know If I need a favor at four o'clock in the morning, whether it's a quick loan, a shoulder to cry on, a sleeping pill, bail money, or just someone to pick me up in a car in a bad neighborhood in the driving rain, I'm definitely not calling up a fellow writer I'm calling my sous-chef, or a former sous-chef, or my saucier, someone I work with or have worked with over the last twenty-plus years No, I want to tell you about the dark recesses of the restaurant underbelly - a subculture whose centuries-old militaristic hierarchy and ethos of 'rum, buggery and the lash' make for a mix of unwavering order and nerve-shattering chaos - because I find it all quite comfortable, like a nice warm bath I can move around easily in this life I speak the language In the small, incestuous community of chefs and cooks in New York City, I know the people, and in my kitchen, I know how to behave (as opposed to in real life, where I'm on shakier ground) I want the professionals who read this to enjoy it for what it is: a straight look at a life many of us have lived and breathed for most of our days and nights to the exclusion of 'normal' social interaction Never having had a Friday or Saturday night off, always working holidays, being busiest when the rest of the world is just getting out of work, makes for a sometimes peculiar world-view, which I hope my fellow chefs and cooks will recognize The restaurant lifers who read this may or may not like what I'm doing But they'll know I'm not lying I want the readers to get a glimpse of the true joys of making really good food at a professional level I'd like them to understand what it feels like to attain the child's dream of running one's own pirate crew - what it feels like, looks like and smells like in the clatter and hiss of a big city restaurant kitchen And I'd like to convey, as best I can, the strange delights of the language, patois and death's-head sense of humor found on the front lines I'd like civilians who read this to get a sense, at least, that this life, in spite of everything, can be fun As for me, I have always liked to think of the way it should be I love that look, as I loved the look on Pino's face when he gazed upon a perfect bowl of spaghetti alia chitarra, the same look I get when I approach a Scott Bryan daube of beef, a plate of perfect oysters It's a gaze of wonder: the same look you see on small children's faces when their fathers take them into deep water at the beach, and it's always a beautiful thing For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we've all had to become disappears, when we're confronted with a something as simple as a plate of food When we remember what it was that moved us down this road in the first place Lying in bed and smoking my sixth or seventh cigarette of the morning, I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to today Oh yeah, I gotta write this thing But that's not work, really, is it? It feels somehow shifty and dishonest, making a buck writing Writing anything is a treason of sorts Even the cold recitation of facts - which is hardly what I've been up to - is never the thing itself And the events described are somehow diminished in the telling A perfect bowl of bouillabaisse, that first, all-important oyster, plucked from the Bassin d'Arcachon, both are made cheaper, less distinct in my memory, once I've written about them Whether I missed a few other things, or described them inadaquately, like the adventures of the Amazing Steven Tempel, or my Day in the Life, are less important Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbones and Pernod Though I've spent half my life watching people, guiding them, trying to anticipate their moods, motivations and actions, running from them, manipulating and being manipulated by them, they remain a mystery to me People confuse me Food doesn't I know what I'm looking at when I see a perfect loin of number one tuna I can understand why millions of Japanese are driven to near blood lust by the firm, almost iridescent flesh I get why my boss grows teary-eyed when he sees a flawlessly executed choucroute garnie Color, flavor, texture, composition and personal history Who knows what circumstances, what events in his long ago past so inspire this rare display of emotion? And who needs to know? I just know what I see And I understand it It makes perfect sense 'La voila!' my old Tante Jeanne used to shout, as she limped out to the garden picnic table bearing a rustic salade de tomates, a fresh baguette, and that cheesy butter I had long since come to love And every once in a while, I'll remember, in my very spine, what those days felt like, smelled like, even sounded like: the faraway neee-nawww, neeenawww sounds of a distant Black Maria, the rooster's call from the neighbor's yard, the feel of sand between my toes, the draft up the leg of my too-short shorts All it takes, sometimes, is the sight of a sliced red tomato and some rough-cut parsley I might find myself humming 'These Boots Were Made for Walking' or 'Whiter Shade of Pale', and thinking about those canned chives on the Queen Mary, how they crunched between my teeth, the blissful shock as I realized the soup was actually cold I've left a lot of destruction in my wake, and closed a hell of a lot of restaurants I don't know what happened to many of my early owners, whether they're back pulling teeth for a living, or whether they still cling to the dream, trying to get some other operation off the ground, trying to stay ahead of their latest creditors, the latest unforgiving developments of market forces and broken equipment, unreliable cooks and menacing moneylenders I don't know I know I didn't the best job for some of them, though I did the best I could have done - at the time The cooks who've passed through my kitchens? I know where most of them have gone; I'm more likely to keep in touch, as I might need some of them again The brilliant Dimitri has been out of the life for years and doesn't return my phone calls I don't recall doing anything too bad to Dimitri, other than dragging him to New York But I suspect he doesn't want to get tempted should I call with an unusual offer 'Hey, Dimitri! This gig would be perfect for you! It'll be just like old times.' They make movies about that, the old bank robbers getting together for one final score Dimitri knows better than that He must My old friend from high school, Sam, is still in the business He's still bouncing around He does very nicely catering and doing part-time mercenary work at various bistros around town, married now to a lovely and hugely talented pastry chef I see him often Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown has held a steady job at a prestigious caterer for almost two years now, and seems to be doing very well Patti Jackson (from my Pino interlude) works down the street, with a hunky-looking assistant I can well picture her referring to by saying, 'Have him washed and oiled and delivered to my chambers!' Beth the Grill Bitch works for private clients now, feeding Atkins Diet to wealthy jumbos She eats at Les Halles often and is considered to be a visiting celebrity in my kitchen - especially when she demonstrates some new karate moves and sleeper holds for my awed crew Manuel, the pasta cook I stole from Pino, and who worked with me at Sullivan's, enduring the late night sounds of Steven penetrating his girlfriend, is back in Ecuador, finishing work for his degree in engineering At Les Halles, life goes on as always The same crew showing up, on time, every day: Franck and Eddy, Carlos and Omar, Isidoro and Angel, Gerardo, Miguel, Arturo, the two Jaimes, Ramón and Janine They're still with me, and I hope they stay with me My bosses, however, when they read this, will really prove themselves patrons of the arts if they don't can me right away My wife, blessedly, has stayed with me through all of it, the late nights, the coming home drunk, my less than charming tendency not to pay any attention at all to her when mulling over prep lists and labor deployment and daily specials and food costs A few months back, in a moment of admittedly misguided solidarity with my heavily decorated kitchen crew, I got a tattoo, a reasonably tasteful headhunter's band around my upper arm Nancy, however, was on record as finding skin art about as attractive as ringworm; she took it, not unreasonably, as a personal affront She was mightily pissed off, and still is, for that matter but she still wakes up next to me every morning, laughs at my jokes on occasion, and helpfully points out when I'm being an asshole The few days a year we spend in Saint Martin have been the only times I've ever not been a chef since she's been with me Squatting under a palm tree, gnawing on barbequed chicken legs and drinking Red Stripes, there's nothing more important on my mind than what we're having for dinner - the stuffed crab backs or the spiny lobster - and I imagine that for once I behave in some approximate way like a normal person Tragically, inexplicably, my old sous-chef and director of covert operations, Steven, has chosen to leave New York for Florida with his girlfriend, pulling up stakes, giving up his apartment, even bringing along his goldfish So it doesn't look like he'll be coming back anytime soon I can't imagine life without him My doppelganger, my evil twin, my action arm and best friend - I just can't imagine not being able, at any time, to pick up the phone and call him on his cell, enlist his help in whatever dark plans I'm hatching at the moment Plus, I'll need somebody strong to work my grill on Saturday nights He'll be calling of course 'Guess where I am right now?' He'll let me listen for a few seconds to the sounds of waves lapping against beach, or of the car with its top down, cruising down the main drag in South Beach The bastard I'll be right here Until they drag me off the line I'm not going anywhere I hope It's been an adventure We took some casualtiesover over the years Things got broken Things got lost But I wouldn't have missed it for the world BY THE SAME AUTHOR Bone in the Throat Gone Bamboo ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Portions of this book have appeared previously elsewhere: much of the From Our Kitchen To Your Table' and a few other stray bits of business appeared in The New Yorker, under the title, 'Don't Eat Before Reading This' The 'Mission to Tokyo' section appeared first in Food Arts, and readers of my short story for Canongate Press's Rover's Return collection will see that the fictional protagonist in my contribution, 'Chef's Night Out', had a humiliating experience on a busy broiler station much like my own I'd also like to thank Joel Rose, to whom I owe everything Karen Rinaldi and Panio Gianopoulous at Bloomsbury USA Jamie Byng, David Remnick, the evil Stone Brothers (Rob and Web), Tracy Westmoreland, Jose de Meireilles and Philippe Lajaunie, Steven Tempel, Michael Batterberry, Kim Witherspoon, Sylvie Rabineau, David Fiore, Scott Bryan, and my ass-kicking crew at Les Halles: Franck, Eddy, Isidoro, Carlos, Omar, Angel, Bautista and Janine Cooks Rule A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR Anthony Bourdain is the author of nine books, including the bestselling Kitchen Confidential, The Nasty Bits, and A Cook's Tour, and he is the host of the television show No Reservations A thirty-one-year veteran of professional kitchens, he is the executive chef at Les Halles in Manhattan The text of this book is set in Linotype Sabon, named after the type founder, Jacques Sabon It was designed by Jan Tschichold and jointly developed by Linotype, Monotype and Stempei, in response to a need for a typeface to be available in identical form for mechanical hot metal composition and hand composition using foundry type Tschichold based his design for Sabon roman on a fount engraved by Garamond, and Sabon italic on a fount by Granjon It was first used in 1966 and has proved an enduring modern classic Copyright © 2000 by Anthony Bourdain All rights reserved No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have changed the names of some of the individuals and some of the restaurants that are a part of my story Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR ISBN-13: 978-1-58234-082-1 (hardcover) First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2000 This e-book edition published in 2009 E-book ISBN: 978-1-59691-724-8 www.bloomsburyusa.com ... K I T C H E N CONFIDENTIAL ADVENTURES IN THE CULINARY UNDERBELLY ANTHONY BOURDAIN To Nancy CONTENTS APPETIZER A Note from the Chef FIRST... still raised rabbits and grew tomatoes in their backyards Houses had two kitchens, an inside one and an outdoor 'fish kitchen' There was a hand pump for drinking water from a well, and an outhouse... A CIGARETTE The Life of Bryan Mission to Tokyo So You Want to Be a Chef? A Commencement Address Kitchen' s Closed APPETIZER A NOTE FROM THE CHEF DON'T GET ME WRONG: I love the restaurant business