Heat

Author: Bill Buford
Published: May 2006 (Knopf)
Category: Cooking/Biography/Travel
Quote of Choice: "I said fine dice! This is not a fine dice! I don't know what they are, but they're wrong." I had been cutting carrots for two hours, and then, like that, they were tossed; they were that bad.

I stumbled across this title on Amazon's top seller list (I think it was #18 at the time). I proceeded to put myself on the waitlist for Heat at the NY Public Library. Unfortunately, I was the 279th person on line for about 11 copies of the book. Thankfully, Jennie put Heat on her waitlist with the Brooklyn Library, and it came in last week!

Bill Buford, a journalist, met Mario Batali at a birthday dinner for a mutual friend and decided to satisfy a lifelong culinary curiousity by becoming a kitchen slave in Batali's restaurant, Babbo. Buford spent a little over a year in Babbo's kitchen, beginning as a prep chef. Basically, the restaurant runs in two main shifts: the prep shift in the morning and the service shift during dining hours. Bill had no professional cooking experience, and being plunged into the hectic prep kitchen of a three-star restaurant amongst a lot of pros who regarded him as an interloper wasn't easy. Gradually, he became accepted as a member of the staff, even becoming a line chef, working the grill, and manning the pasta station. His presence was of great help in times of need when the kitchen was short-staffed.

Buford later went on to travel in Italy as many chefs do to learn real Italian cooking. He spent a few weeks learning from the woman who first taught Batali how to prepare fresh pasta. Apparently, she was a bit bitter about how she's struggling to make a living while Batali learned from her and is a rich and famous chef now. She taught Buford her secret ravioli recipe, but only on the condition that he not reveal it to Batali. He then spent even more time as an apprentice to the world famous butcher, Dario Cecchini, and actually became a spectacle for tourists wanting to catch a glimpse of the Dante-quoting butcher. Buford tried to answer only in monosyllabic Italian words so he wouldn't give away the fact that the tourists had travelled to this little Italian town to see traditional Italian butchering methods only to find that an American was making the sausages.

Buford's book is tells a few stories all at once. Batali's education and rowdy antics are interlaced with Buford's experiences at Babbo. From all of the Food Network programming I've seen, Batali seems to be a really cool guy, but arrogant. Well, at least he doesn't seem as arrogant as Bobby Flay (he's on my celebrity chef blacklist, which includes Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee). I'm amused by Batali's marijuana infractions while at Rutgers, which is also my alma mater, and the story of how he once served foie gras with a sauce made of a reduction of orange soda and Starburst candies.

I've learned that I will never order the special at a restaurant. At Babbo, the special is the food that's left over and must be sold before it's gone bad and must be tossed. Bill also tells of the time when he was chopping celery and threw the florets in the garbage. Batali comes in and sees that the florets are being tossed, only to take them out of the trash because they're the most flavorful part of celery. For Batali, it's a business: take the raw materials and make the most out of them to sell them at the highest price possible.

After reading this book, my respect for the people who take part in the daily operation of a restaurant has grown immensely from the already high esteem I held them in. Everyone works so hard and there's so much pressure to maintain the high standards the customers expect. Buford wrote about his kitchen fellows with the utmost respect, from the hard work and dedication of the Latins to the maddening perfection of the big guy, Batali.

However, I'm not sure that I want to eat at Babbo after reading this book....