Medium Raw:A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
By: Anthony Bourdain
Ecco; Reprint edition (May 3, 2011)
320 pages
Medium Raw is Bourdain’s follow up to Kitchen Confidential. While it is not a memoir, in the way the latter book made him so famous for, I enjoyed the read. In fact, this is less of a traditional book and more a collection of essays where Bourdain does what he does best – tells us what he really thinks in a way we have not yet considered. He goes off on everything from rival celebrity chefs – to the idle rich – to drug addiction. Hauntingly, he mentions the pointlessness of life, and suicide a number of times.
Two of my favorite quotes:
When you do get out of culinary school, try to work for as long as you can possibly afford in the very best kitchens that will have you—as far from home as you can travel. This is the most important and potentially invaluable period of your career.
Who drinks here? Office workers, jackets off, tie still on—or the reverse: jacket on, tie off. Restaurant help, nipping out for a drink, coming off a shift, fortifying themselves for the shift to come. Beaten down by life. Not broken, mind you, not beaten down like a coal miner or an out-of-work
