Ever since figuring out how to decode the written word in first grade, I have been a reader. Obsessively so. Although I read quickly and widely, the reality is that I live in a smallish urban apartment and do not have the luxury of having space for a library. Over the past few years, my compromise position has been that I try to limit my book purchases to cookbooks and culinary topics and rely on Chicago's excellent library system to meet my fiction and non-fiction needs. On a semi-regular basis I'm going to periodically review recent reads.
First up: Anthony Bourdain's Nasty Bits. This was actually checked out rather than purchased since I have mixed feelings about Bourdain. I spent my college years and a chunk of grad school moonlighting as a waitress which meant Kitchen Confidential didn't seem all that revealing and abrasive machismo is most entertaining in limited doses. I read A Cook's Tour in the airport in Singapore after just having spent four and a half months covering a lot of the same territory that he writes about in SE Asia. I loved his enthusiasm for the food of Vietnam, which totally won be over but I read the chapter on Cambodia shaking my head and thinking "what a dumbass." Despite knowing that he can usually make me laugh and it would qualify as a purchasable food book, I pulled out the library card rather than shelling out for the hardback.
I actually liked most of it quite a bit. He shows more self reflection than in the early books that tempers the abrasiveness and several of the pieces raise some interesting questions about class and the changing roles for chefs. When he pulls out the bite, it is used to rally in defense of the immigrant workers that form the backbone of kitchen labor. Or in an essay attacking the silliness of the raw food movement, which earns my whole-hearted support.
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