• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 736 0

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