Too much gory detail, but hey, at least he got to hear Dante quoted in between times. An outstanding read, which I truly enjoyed, perhaps excepting only the last section of the book, where for further hands on experience, he apprentices with a butcher in Tuscany. Though, I'm glad he did, so we could read about it.

His book could have alternatively been titled, Life on the Line. To go through learning all the steps, from hours, months of mundane prep work, to apprenticing at the stations for pasta, grill work and plating, not to mention, of course, enduring the intense heat (physically and emotionally) back there in the kitchen, including real abuse from some of the chefs. I truly admire Buford's incredible verisimilitude in reporting. Heat incorporates all that and much more, with frequently humorous reflections on food, cultural influences and history. This book is his account of the experience, which brought him to not only hook up with Batali, but to work for him, learning the food business firsthand, which he continued to do, even after his profile, The Secret of Excess, was completed. Buford, a reporter and editor at the New Yorker, took on the commission of a profile on Mario Batali, larger than life, restaurant owner, Chef, TV personality, and author, with an extreme dedication. It is a book to delight in, and to savour.Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, by Bill Buford, our current Cook the Books Club selection, was a fascinating glimpse into life behind the scenes, at the three-star New York restaurant, Babbo. Heat is a marvellous hybrid: a memoir of Buford's kitchen adventures, the story of Batali's amazing rise to culinary fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters. He worked his way up to 'line cook' and then left New York to learn from the very teachers who had taught his teacher: preparing game with Marco Pierre White, making pasta in a hillside trattoria, finally becoming apprentice to a Dante-spouting butcher in Chianti. Buford accepted the commission, on the condition Batali allow him to work in his kitchen, as his slave. Bill Buford, an enthusiastic, if rather chaotic, home cook, was asked by the New Yorker to write a profile of Mario Batali, a Falstaffian figure of voracious appetites who runs one of New York's most successful three-star restaurants.

Heat bill buford review