Heat

Starred review from April 3, 2006
Buford's book starts smartly—he first met dynamic celebrity chef Mario Batali at a dinner party at his own home, where Batali sparkled until 3 a.m.—and continues at a fast clip as he conceives the notion of becoming Batali's "kitchen slave." Buford wanted to profile Batali for the New Yorker
but also wanted to learn about cooking; he would be a "journalist-tourist" in the boot camp of a "kitchen genius." His subject became an obsession, and over the next three years, he investigated a rich menu of subjects: what makes a three-star restaurant work; what it takes to be a TV food star; the techniques and history of Italian cooking, not just from library research but also from repeated trips to Italy to visit Batali's relatives. Terrific culinary writing tracks Buford's successive passions for short ribs, polenta, tortellini and then the butcher's art, Italian-style, of pig and cow. Along the way, to his own surprise, Buford found that he had become a kitchen insider. This is a wonderfully detailed and highly amusing book from the writer who once took an insider's look at English soccer hooligans in Among the Thugs
. 100,000 first printing
.

July 10, 2006
Buford's voice echoes the rhythms of his own writing style. Writing about his break from working as a New Yorker
editor and learning firsthand about the world of food, Buford guns his reading into hyperspeed when he is jazzed about a particularly tangy anecdote, and plays with his vocal tone and pitch when mimicking others' voices. At its base, Buford's voice is tinged with a jovial lilt, as if he is amused by his life as a "kitchen slave" and by the outsize personalities of the people he meets along the way. Less authoritative than blissfully confused, Buford speaks the way he writes, as a well-informed but never entirely knowledgeable outsider to the world of food love. Listening to his imitation of star chef Mario Batali's kinetic squeal, Buford ably conveys his abiding love for the teachers and companions of his brief, eventful life as a cook. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover. (Reviews, Apr. 3).

July 1, 2004
Editor of Granta, fiction editor of The New Yorker, and now its European correspondent-what will Buford do next? Become a professional cook-in-training, of course.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2006
Adult/High School -Could loving to cook translate into being a professional under the tutelage of the famous chef of a three-star New York restaurant? Buford jumped at the chance to find out. This energetic account of his intense culinary education brings readers into the scalding kitchens where fine food is prepared by obsessive chefs for whom timing is critical and cooking is art. The author entwines the history of pasta with his preparation of it, and he visits the theory that it was the Italians who brought fine cooking to France rather than the other way around. Buford follows the example of his mentors as he travels to Italian villages to serve as kitchen slave to a master of pasta-making and as an apprentice to a butcher to learn to perfect that culinary craft. A journalist for the "New Yorker", the author writes with the same gusto with which he cooks. Readers learn how physically demanding professional cooking is, how hard it is on the ego, and how satisfying it can be. This is the ultimate career book for would-be chefs, and a book that noncooks will savor until the last word." -Ellen Bell, Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CA"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2006
Buford idolizes Mario Batali, whose wildly successful New York restaurants and ubiquitous cable television shows have transformed the way Americans conceive of Italian food. As Buford presents him, Batali, whose language swings between the vulgar and the obscene, is a walking encyclopedia of Italian food lore and a chef of estimable prowess in many kitchens. He is also a man given to excessive consumption of the contents of his own and others' larders and wine cellars. Determined to make himself competent as a chef, under his mentor's direction, Buford works the various stations in one of Batali's restaurant's kitchens, and he discovers how New York restaurants, no matter what their putative ethnic background, are in fact run by Latin American line cooks with astounding dedication to very demanding work. Buford's long Italian sojourn teaches him first the ins and outs of pasta making and then the technical proficiencies of a Tuscan butcher. Buford's mastery of the stove is exceeded only by his deft handling of English prose.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)