Best culinary biographies & memoirs according to redditors
We found 203 Reddit comments discussing the best culinary biographies & memoirs. We ranked the 53 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
18. Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China (First edition)
2 mentions
You know, I actually think I CAN do better than that. My god. They tried to blow the doors off with quality that no one would ever appreciate, but tried to match their competitors for price!
"Oh we hired an authentic frenchman to make our pastries, but then we priced them so low each one we sold cost us money!"
Shit. That's not how you're a success at anything, and though I fully admit I don't know a lot about coffee shops, I do know that unless you serve real food, you have to make a good margin on coffee, and a great margin on pastries (this is why everyone does them in house).
The belief that running any kind of a food place (which I do know a few things about) is easy, is a belief that drives hundreds of people to bankruptcy every year. Most restaurants fail. The vast majority fail.
Unless you have something amazing to bring to the table, (and NOT a vision of how you can bring people their coffee on a silver platter, because that's 100% cost, and little else) think hard before you cave to that siren song. And read Kitchen Confidential...Between his ego and his exaggerations, there is a hell of a lot of practical experience.
Believe it or not there is a book on this.
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
i just finished reading about the highly successful Privateer, Admiral / Captain Morgan, what a GREAT read
There is a book about this very topic.
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch.
There's a book I read that weighed the pros and cons of buying/making common foods - Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
Not a website, but this book is pretty much exactly what you describe: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. Any chance you're thinking of a book instead?
This is amusing, as there is a book called Make the Bread, Buy the Butter which goes on about why you should spend time on one but not the other.
I have personally found that making my own butter is only worth it if I am using really high quality dairy that comes from grass-fed cows. Otherwise, it just isn't worth the time.
There's a book comparing what items are worth making yourself and the name itself backs you up: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
My mom uses recipes from the Korean cooking blog Maangchi.com — looks like she has a cookbook too
I know this is isn’t exactly what you asked for, but since you enjoyed Night + Market’s cookbook and you’re from LA, I’d suggest you check out Roy Choi’s cookbook LA Son
It isn’t exactly authentic, but an LA specific take and his personal stories are also interesting
For those of you that aren't familiar, Eleven Madison Park (EMP) was the flagship restaurant of Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and author of Setting the Table. His approach to restaurants focuses on catering to the guest whenever possible. He sold EMP to the the long-time head chef and the general manager a few years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is something that isn't done only at EMP.
This book was recommended on this sub previously: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. It is.. ahem... available in other forms if you can't pay for it. Details what things can be made from scratch, and if it's worth it to bother or not.
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is written for this question. The author spent a whole year going more DIY and talks about what's worth it and what's not, and NOT with some holier-than-thou attitude (when she has it in her real life experiences she quickly pokes fun at herself for it).
There was an American Test Kitchen DIY book that came out at the same time, which was great if you're into the whole kitchen experimentation, but it didn't have the same insights as Make The Bread.
There's a book that I found to be an interesting read called "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter".
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt/dp/1451605889
Basically the same types of insights as in this thread.
If anybody wants the recipe let me know, adapted it from Henry Hill's excellent Wiseguy Cookbook.
I also recommend Kitchen Confidential as well.
It's not by Ramsay but by Bourdain but it's an amazing book.
There's a great cookbook called "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" where the author makes a lot of things from scratch that most people buy. Then she compares the time, cost and end result to determine if you really should make something from scratch or just buy it.
In case you want descriptions or reviews, I've added Amazon links.
> The Happy Cook: 125 Recipes for Eating Every Day Like It's the Weekend by Daphne Oz
>Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
>Live by Night: A Novel by Dennis Lehane
>Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win -the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
>Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever
>War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel by James Rollins, Grant Blackwood
>Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik
>Downfall: A Brady Novel of Suspense by J. A. Jance
>Chaos: A Scarpetta Novel by Patricia Cornwell
>The Witch of Portobello: A Novel by Paulo Coelho
I read both /r/smoking and r/bbq, and /r/bbq in general has better traffic and is more suited to "can someone tell me about this model smoker"?
Anyhoo, it's a little hard to tell the quality from the picture. Brinkmann is a good name. I liken them to Toyota. Not the best on the market, also not the worst. I have a Brinkmann SnP and while it has drawbacks, it's not something that I'm unhappy with. It's a good name to start with. That said, some things are unclear. I have two major issues. The first is heat movement. If the meat is sitting directly over the coals, you need some sort of a deflector to prevent the meat from grilling (smoking is more like cooking with an oven). I also can't see vents. A fire needs a good supply of oxygen to burn; this requires good vents. If you have shitty vents, you'll get shitty food. With barbecue, there really is a link between how much a smoker costs and how good it is. A smoker that's $100 or less will either make shitty food or fall apart within a year. If not both. This is a mistake everyone of us has learned the hard way.
I wouldn't focus so strongly on a brisket at first. We all have our favorite things to smoke, but I strongly advocate doing your first smoke with a pack of bratwursts as well as a turkey or pork shoulder. Turkey and pork shoulder are delicious smoked, they're cheap, and they're hard to eff up. Brisket is tricky to get right. If you have tons of money and wouldn't be upset to destroy a $30+ cut of beef in maiden smoke, that's one thing. But your maiden smoke is hard. Believe me- my first time, I literally took three hours to get my rig up to temperature. I actually wondered if there was a risk that my pork shoulder spoiled on the way to being cooked (it didn't, but I'm sure I'd get a ticky mark from a health inspector). The bratwursts are there to keep you fed during the 10 hours your pork shoulder (or whatever) takes to cook.
As for chips/charcoal ratio, I would suggest you read up a bit about BBQ before starting. You really want to use hardwood lump charcoal, and you should avoid chips if at all possible. The reason is that when you buy a nice bag of hickory or cherry chips, it's probably 50-80% cut with oak. Think: how often do you drive past a stand of hickory trees? How often do you drive past a stand of oak trees? This tip and lots, lots more will be covered in any good BBQ book. I recommend two:
If you hate books : ( then there's a fantastic online resource called Amazing Ribs (which discusses all types of BBQ, including I'm sure your coveted Texas-style brisket).
As I said before, don't buy wood chips. Buy chunks or logs. You'll find a few types at your local Home Depot or Lowes, and any type of wood you can't find there is available at Barbecue Wood. They're a bit pricey, but they ship anywhere in the lower 48 free. And when I say any kind of wood, I mean any. I've been itching to try some of their pecan wood; just haven't gotten around to it because I'm sitting on a big pile of hickory I don't want to get moldy.
Hope that helps! Feel free to send me a PM if you want (though I'm a bit slow these days as I'm moving), and remember that at /r/BBQ you'll probably get more responses to your equipment inquiries.
There's a cookbook
See if your local library has a copy of Make The Bread, Buy The Butter. It's a really good walkthrough of making all your food from scratch, taking into account the time, tediousness, quality, and price in comparing which is more feasible: making or buying each dish/ingredient. It also includes a bunch of great recipes.
This, this - much like restaurants, good bar owners have a formula for success, which they duplicate over and over again. From staffing to bar layout to menu options, they have figured out what works, and will continue to replicate it.
I know a pair of brothers who are moderately successful bar owners here in NYC, which is about as competitive as you can get, and the reason they can do that is by basically cloning the same bar with neighborhood-appropriate changes, and having a strict set of rules.
This is more about restaurants, but it's an enjoyable read anyway - Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential - has a whole section on opening restaurants and a portrait of a guy he calls Bigfoot, who has cracked the code of being successful at it.
EDIT: Also, this - http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/search?q=bar+owner+ama&sort=relevance
Jennifer Reese's "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" is a fun read about this kind of thing, and includes some great recipes. The creme fraiche was a revelation, so incredibly good!
This isn't specifically about increasing efficiency but it's a really good read from probably the most famous restauranteur in the US: Setting The Table - Danny Meyer.
With good service it's seldom necessary to question a guest's honesty. But standing up to an irate customer isn't something you should be expected to know by instinct.
I spent a lot of time in my first years as a manager going over and over in my head how to react to angry or frustrated customers. My bosses told me what I had to do, but they didn't tell me much about how to do it well.
I think ultimately you have to develop a sort of customer service persona that is unfailingly polite, and you put that on when you interact with the public. You might think you already possess and use such a persona, but the unfailingly polite persona is made of a metal stronger than vibranium and it never breaks.
It also helped reading Danny Meyer's Setting the Table.
Books on Pirates:
The Invisible Hook.
Villains of All Nations
The Buccaneers of America
Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates
The Sea Rovers Practice
The Buccaneers Realm
Empire of Blue Water
Learning how to become a good manager in less than a month isn't impossible if you have what it takes and by reading your description it seems like you do. I have no managerial experience but I do have 2 hospitality degrees and experience as a waiter/bartender/shift supervisor/team leader so more or less I know how things work in a restaurant.
There is a lot aspects you have to cover while being a manager like you said and there is no way I am going to explain this to you. However I can give you some small tips:
If anything else comes to my mind, I'll edit it. Good luck to you :)
I recommend reading this book
If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or pm, always happy to help :)
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, travels the back roads of America.
Read. Read a lot. Reading can help prevent you from making dumb decisions in the future by learning about what problems lie ahead. Owning your own restaurant is not easy. It's really really hard. Celebs, millionaires, etc. fail on the reg trying to open up restaurants. The most you'll ever make working for a restaurant in management is $50k a year unless you have a trick up your sleeve that lands you a sweet gig (sommelier training, chef experience, connections, etc.). You also have to have a serious passion for pleasing people and hospitality. You put in hard hours for someone to be like "ew, this isnt what I want. You're inferior. You're bad at your job. Gross." Seriously, you get more respect in the military. But if you are a sick fuck who wants to try it. Be my guest. I was/am. There are some really cool aspects to it: you meet some crazy people, get to eat delicious food and drink great wine. But a lot of people cant take the stress for the more than a few years and resort to alcoholism or worse. It's difficult to explain restaurant management stress. It's like you're walking in the park and everything is perfect. Birds are singing and shit and then you see your dream girl coming towards you then BAM someone sucker punches you in the dick, she starts laughing at you, you're suddenly naked and everyone joins in the mockery.
Anyways. Read this: Setting The Table and this: Kithchen Confidential, BEFORE you even touch this dick stroking sensation: The Art of The Restaurateur. Read this shit before you lock yourself in to any deals. I'm serious. You'll thank me. Fuck these bus boys need to finish mopping the bar so I can go home and dream about P&Ls.
There are lots of great books about Port Royal in its heyday. The first ones I'd recommend are The Sack of Panama by Peter Earle and Empire of Blue Water by Stephen Talty which both give really solid broad introductions to the politics and environment of the Caribbean and Port Royal's relationship with buccaneers during its heyday in the 1660s until 1671 when England started to crack down on them.
If you want more specialized reading exclusively on Port Royal then I'd recommend Pirate Port: The story of the sunken city of Port Royal by Robert F. Marx for some light reading, and if you want a really excessively meticulous study of everything you ever wanted to know about Port Royal from written records and archaeological findings with lots of maps and reconstructions included then read Port Royal Jamaica by Michael Pawson and David Buisseret.
Lastly, a great primary source on Port Royal in its heyday is the contemporary book The Buccaneers of America which was published by Alexandre Exquemelin in 1678. Exquemelin himself was an actual former French/Dutch buccaneer and the book contains many of his first-person recollections, such as this describing the activities of buccaneers in Port Royal in the 1660s which has clearly influenced some modern pirate tropes:
> Captain Rock sailed for Jamaica with his prize, and lorded it there with his mates until all was gone. For that is the way with these buccaneers -- whenever they have got hold of something, they don't keep it for long. They are busy dicing, whoring and drinking so long as they have anything to spend. Some of them will get through a good two or three thousand pieces of eight in a day -- and next day not have a shirt to their back. I have seen a man in Jamaica give 500 pieces of eight to a whore, just to see her naked. Yes, and many other impieties.
> My own master used to buy a butt of wine and set in the middle of the street with the barrel-head knocked in, and stand barring the way. Every passer-by had to drink with him, or he'd have shot them dead with a gun he kept handy. Once he bought a cask of butter and threw the stuff at everyone who came by, bedaubing their clothes or their head, wherever he best could reach.
> The buccaneers are generous to their comrades: if a man has nothing, the others will come to his help. The tavern-keepers let them have a good deal of credit, but in Jamaica one ought not to put much trust in these people, for often they will sell you for debt, a thing I have seen happen many a time. Even the man I have just been speaking about, the one who gave the whore so much money to see her naked, and at that time had a good 3,000 pieces of eight -- three months later he was sold for his debts, by a man in whose house he had spent most of his money.
Setting the Table by Danny Meyer.
Math by the CIA.
The Book of Yields by Francis Lynch.
This type of calculation is the premise for the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. Basically the author agrees with you, you probably won't come out ahead making your own butter, unless you have a cheap source for cream. You do get buttermilk out of it though.
Some one else suggested reading the book buy the butter make the bread, on amazon it has a preview and in it a bread recipe
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004T4KXMS?pc_redir=1410351118&robot_redir=1
the element you're missing is that cooking a steak to well done cooks away the qualities of quality meat that make an exceptional steak exceptional. cooking applies heat to affect chemical change in a substance.
it would be like taking a 30 year old single malt scotch and mixing it with coke and ice.... yes you can technically do that if you want, but you are ruining the finer points of a fine bottle scotch when you do that.
there are finer things in life, regardless of your personal preference, and you can only appreciate them when experiencing them enough times to gain that appreciation.
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Ate-Everything/dp/0375702024 this is an interesting book. check out the description.
Clotted cream is a British thing- specifically a Devon and Cornwall thing, as I understand it (and as stated on the Wikipedia page). I live in Chicago and I haven't run across any places that make it fresh or stores that sell it. I wanted to try it, so I made my own.
The recipe for both the clotted cream and the scones came from Jennifer Reese's "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch" http://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
I've read The Last Season plus the last 3 that you listed as well as a host of other outdoors/trail books. I think that Into Thin Air is the only comparable book to The Last Season...in terms of the actual story and the storytelling/writing style. I've been searching for something comparable to those 2 books but have not found it.
That said, I liked Fire Season but it doesn't have that prose non-fiction style that makes the other listed books great.
You might also consider Desert Solitaire. It's kinda slow-paced though.
It depends on your blender and it's not ideal, but /u/greybeards is right. What happens with a lot of blenders is as soon as the cream gets whipped, it gets too viscous and stops flowing, so you're stuck.
If you have a good blender you can make it work. Unlike making whipped cream, you'll want your cream to be a little warmer, and you'll probably need a spat to push the whipped cream down toward the blades.
Once it's grainy, you'll want to chill it, strain it, and rinse it, and knead it a little to get as much water out as you can.
Much better to use a mixer, food processor, stick blender, or just do it by hand.
Better still: Make the bread, buy the butter.
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon is a now a travel writing classic, originally published in the early '80s. After separating from his wife, the author (a 30-something professor) converts his van into a sleeper and goes on a big circular road trip around the US. He sticks almost exclusively to the "blue highways"--smaller roads that used to be main routes before interstates--and writes about the people and landscapes he encounters.
It's a fascinating portrait of America, very rich and descriptive. Yet it moves along at a steady pace because he never stays in any one place too long. The whole thing is disarmingly exquisite, and I think that's why it has endured.
Got a slew of books, but as has already been mentioned, Amazing Ribs is my primary source for pertinent BBQ data. There is simply no better resource out there, print, binary or otherwise. It's my go-to for technique.
For recipes, I have a decent library. Here's just a few of my books: [Smoke and Spice by Cheryl and Bill Jamison](http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Spice-Cooking-Real-Barbecue/dp/1558322620/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343976826&sr=1-1&keywords=smoke+and+spice0, Peace, Love and BBQ by Mike Mills, Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book by Chris Lilly, Low and Slow by Gary Wiviott, Championship Barbecue by Paul Kirk, Real Grilling by Jamie Purviance, and few specialty books like Asian Grilling by Su-Mei. All excellent resources for recipes.
Check out The Scavengers Guide to Haute Cuisine by Steve Rinella. He is primarily a hunter but recreates Escoffier recipes with wild game he gathered.
My favs
Peace, Love, & Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies
and amazon knows me so well the others come up on the same page (for me at least)
Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto
Smoke & Spice, Updated and Expanded 3rd Edition: Cooking With Smoke, the Real Way to Barbecue
Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling
I spent a few nights in Moab in August while I explored Arches. Out of all the places I went on that trip, it's where my mind keeps going back to.
Read this if you haven't already: https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Solitaire-Wilderness-Edward-Abbey/dp/0345326490
The Kitchn does a better series of Make or Buy actually looking into the time and financial cost to make your own instead of buying from the store: http://www.thekitchn.com/categories/make_or_buy
And I still haven't bought it but I've heard great reviews of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
Well, the good news is that reducing your grocery bill is completely doable, even for a family with a new baby. It's an area where a lot of folks, including people whose spending habits are otherwise good, often find that they're spending far more than they need to.
> How in the heck do you guys knock down your eating money? Amazing willpower?
It's a combination of several things:
If you want to stick to a particular food budget rather than just trying to have better food spending habits, try Dave Ramsey's envelope system where you withdraw your grocery budget in cash, and what goes in the envelope for the week or the month is what you get to spend - so spend wisely. I would budget a small amount each month for going out as your entertainment budget.
My other non-related food comment is that you're absolutely right - with three of you, $1000 definitely isn't enough of an emergency fund. That wouldn't even cover a major car repair, frankly, and that Subaru is probably going to need a new head gasket at some point down the road (I'd guess around 130-150k miles). Talk to your husband about directing your savings from the reduced grocery budget towards the emergency account.
One last question - your budget does include your husband paying into a 401k and/or other retirement accounts, right? Planning for retirement as early as possible is really important because time is your best ally.
You might find Jennifer Reese's Make the Bread, Buy the Butter an interesting read. It seems more applicable to your question than a lot of the responses that you've gotten thus far.
I just made a trip from Buffalo, NY to California and back so I'll help what i can.
We drove and camped, it was super cheap near nation parks since they have BLM property to camp on outside most Parks. We bought a NPS for $80 (gets up to 4 in i think), and camped for $4 a night. This is especially useful in Utah.
Don't miss Utah, I'll be honest I kind of underestimated it but it had so much great stuff to see and places to hike. Moab is a great little town in between Canyonland and Arches NPs, that should definitely be on any list. Required reading Desert Solitaire
half a day away is Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon, so you could get your moneys worth if you're so inclined.
California has a lot to see, beaches, mountains, deserts, etc. With the parks Pass you can check out Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings, Joshua Tree, Channel Islands, Death valley, etc A drive down Hwy 1 is pretty awesome.
You also should plan time to enjoy the Rockys in Colorado, especially if you ski or snowboard.
added-
Just to give you an idea, you don't want to drive more than 500 miles a day, so plan on at least a solid week of travel during your time. There are millions of great things to do, decide what are the most important because you'll have to miss stuff. Things that seem close on a map might be a day out of the way because of weather (Yosemite passes for example) or natural disaster like the mudslides near Big Sur.
I can give more info but would be better if I knew what you were into, History, Architecture, Food, Shopping, etc.
Kitchen Confidential will give you some insights on food, food culture and ideas about food.
Empire of Blue Water seems to fit your request. It is largely based on historical accounts of Henry Morgan and attempts to be historically accurate. At the same time written in an engaging way by someone who is primarily a writer. Not being a historian I found it very interesting.
If you read slightly further back into this subreddit's history there are actual real historians who post here. They made a list of historically good books someone interested in the history of piracy could read. If you search on Amazon at other books the authors listed there have written you will most likely find many more interesting books on the subject. I am planning to get this book on pirate hunting next, written by one of the listed authors.
Last summer, I got really into cheesemaking after reading the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. After an initial investment at http://www.cheesemaking.com/, I made goat cheese and camembert from recipes on the internet. So fun, if you are so inclined. They were both fantastic....I did have a failed cheddar experiment. Let me know if you want further info.
In order to abide by the sub rules of including information, which I agree with I'll go in depth a bit more.
I recently went to 17th Street in Murphysboro, IL. Grand Champions, owner Mike Mills published a book titled Peace, Love and BBQ. I'm not going to post his recipes here because they're his, and I feel like for $15 I basically purchased rights to use it, not publish it. Anyway
These are spare ribs from Kroger, smoked at about 215F for 5.5 hours. The sauce is Cairo BBQ sauce from Cairo, IL. I was born in Southeast Missouri, so this is right around home for me and I grew up with this sauce. It's over 100 years old. I put the sauce on about 10 minutes before taking them off, recommended by Mike Mills. Previously, I had done that 30 minutes prior but the sugar in the sauce causes a burn on the meat from the melting sugar. Big tip for you noobs, like myself.
Any other questions, I'd be glad to answer.
Get a copy of Blue Highways and a Ford Transit Connect. The book will explain how to live out of a vehicle, and will help lift your spirits. It sounds like the sort of adventure you need. The van only has a four cylinder engine, so it should be somewhat economical. I'd think that by adding a power inverter and free WiFi, this could be fun.
Not chefs, but cookbooks...
I think the ultimate cookbook is The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook: America's Bestselling Step-by-Step Cookbook. It has every classic recipe that you could ever, ever need! There isn't really anything too international or exotic, but it contains very detailed instructions about all the basics from creating a bouquet garni to a roux to the perfect pie crust.
Jeffery Steingarten has been a great food critic really long time (and former Iron Chef judge). It isn't a cookbook, but one of my favorite food books is The Man Who Ate Everything. It is ten years old, but it is still an absolute mandatory read for anyone who loves food/eating.
Peace, Love and Barbeque
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Love-Barbecue-Recipes-Outright/dp/1594861099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417791602&sr=8-1&keywords=peace%2C+love%2C+and+barbeque
The recipes in this book are fantastic, and make up the basis of many of my rub and sauce recipes.
Just finished reading French Milk by Lucy Knisley. It was actually a little disappointing. I like the idea of the book. It's a travel journal from her birthday trip to Paris with her mother at the age of 22. She stays there for a month and draws journal comics everyday chronicling their time together. The problem is the idea of discovery and wonder is sucked out of this particular trip, because she's been to Paris before and she spends quite a bit of time going to places she's already been. The other problem, for me, is that she comes off as a bit spoiled. I love journal comics and no matter the person's personality, I love their honesty and candidness. However, she seems to complain quite a bit and it's a little off putting considering the tremendous opportunity to spend a month in a beautiful foreign city.
I have been following Lucy's blog and I tend to like a lot of her small single page comics. Despite how I feel about French Milk, I still look forward to reading Relish as I love to cook and eat and I like the idea of a memoir that recounts someones life through the food they cook and eat.
Does he cook? Some combination of a cast iron skillet, Anthony Bourdain's newest cookbook and a bottle of red wine/whiskey/craft beer.
The variation in what foods people like is 99% acquired! (citation: my ass) That means you can learn to like pretty much anything. You just need to keep eating it.
In the book 'The Man Who Ate Everything', the author is appointed as a food critic, so he systematically lists all the food that he has a personal distaste for, including 'kimchi, lard, Greek cuisine, and blue food. He succeeds at all but the last, and is "fairly sure that God meant the color blue mainly for food that has gone bad." '.
He says that the general rule of thumb is eating something 8 to 10 times, in the most positive context possible (meaning it eat properly cooked and serve it with the right sauce or whatever), will convert you from a hater to a eater.. though a serious hatred can take many more.
read his first book, then report back. i worked in a kitchen for about a year when i was 14 at a family owned italian joint. i didn't realize until AFTER reading his book that my experiences there were not unique to that restaurant.
Relish by Lucy Knisley! It's really more of a graphic memoir, but it's a graphic memoir about her experiences with food and it contains illustrated recipes. It's gorgeous, a fun light read, and the recipes are pretty (I actually haven't tried any yet).
You might enjoy this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Wise-Guy-Cookbook-Goodfella/dp/0451207068 It's Henry Hill's cookbook. The Goodfellas recipes are in there.
I don't know which thread (though I would be interested in seeing it) however I recently checked out this book at my library and it has some interesting suggestions along those lines, include cost breakdowns/differences so you can compare to your area
Have you read Setting the Table? If so, what are your thoughts on the advice in there? Seems like while the book was meant for general business, it might be very applicable to your situation.
Here's a really nice accessible book on him if you're interested
I don't want to shit on your dreams dude, but maybe you should check this book out before you make up your mind for sure.
Food service is some crazy shit, and education or not you don't get to the top without going through the bottom to get there.
Take a look at Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. She explores several recipes and considers things like time, cost, and effort required to determine whether they are best made at home or purchased.
I seldom buy bread anymore - its so easy to make!
You should check out the book "Buy the Bread, Make the Butter".
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
I don't agree with all of her conclusions, but it's worth checking out for her insights into making things at home versus buying.
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should (and Shouldn't) Cook from Scratch to Save Time and Money
well to be honest, i havent read many books on the subject, but i have listened to a million podcasts, ted talks, and the like. also my parents were both managers of people and projects, so there were a lot of discussions around the topic of how to make the most of your team, being a leader, etc growing up. also team sports as a youngling were a big influencer. then there is my personal experience and observations of 20+ years in restaurant management working with 20+ restaurants of various types that taught me a few things. (i cringe saying team building cause its kind of a dirty word these days, because of dumb team building excersises, but thats what it is, so)
there are a million resources out there. if you google "team work" "team building" "how to build strong teams" you will be swamped with info.
lets see if i can find some stuff-
i have referred to this list frequently from an article called "the ugly truth about team building" about the dumbness of corporations thinking team building exercises work when really the issue is one of poor leadership. in my experience you will find 95% of the issues amongst management will occur in one of these areas. if these are all addressed, things are probably humming along-
"Here are the principal energy blockers I see in corporations and not-for-profits, startups and government agencies:
• Fuzzy or missing strategy
• Unaddressed conflict
• Role confusion
• Red tape bureaucracy
• Slow processes requiring multiple approvals
• Over-reliance on measurement and quantitative goals
• Little to no conversation about culture, norms, energy, conflict or feelings
• Inexperienced leaders
• Little focus on experimentation, collaboration and innovation, and
• Lack of praise, acknowledgment and information-sharing"
https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742763/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499155744&sr=1-1&keywords=danny+meyer
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ted+talk+teamwork&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=ted+talk+teamwork&tbm=vid
http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this
Blue Highways
Read it. Take them. Second on joining Planet Fitness, will give you access to nice bathrooms/showers/AC/WiFi along the way, as well as an exercise outlet. Find one next to Wal Mart and bonus campsite out front. $1,500 will be challenging, but get as far as you can go. Couchsurf where you can, learn to love Ramen. You won’t be able to afford many meals out, stock up at grocery stores, not convenience stores. Set your expectations low, your tolerance high, and just take the experience for what it is. You’ll learn a lot. Quickly. As a parent, I’d hope you have a safety net, or at least are not burning the bridge on your way out of Florida. Enjoy it, if I have any regrets at 51, it’s that I didn’t do something similar before settling in to life, but am looking forward to do this in another decade, albeit a bit more comfortably.
Have you read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan?
I went to order it off of Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Compiled-Artie/dp/0446530573), and then I saw that the scumbag Henry Hill had also made a mob cookbook; https://www.amazon.com/Wise-Guy-Cookbook-Favorite-Goodfella/dp/0451207068/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Q4NZQGNH0RHE11RJTM71
For this and other related questions, read this awesome book (couldn't put it down) called 'Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch'
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt/dp/1451605870
Also, check out Relish, a graphic novel. It has a few recipes in it (not a huge amount), but it is a very enjoyable read:
http://www.amazon.com/Relish-Life-Kitchen-Lucy-Knisley/dp/1596436239
Make the bread buy the butter, telling you what's more worthwhile to make vs buy and the foodcost
http://www.amazon.ca/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
I don't think he comes off very well on that show, but his books drawn from his Vogue columns are great! I highly recommend The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must've Been Something I Ate.
OK, so here are a few options to think on:
Two books to read:
Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon and Ghost Rider by Niel Peart (the drummer for Rush, who is BTW, an excellent author, and has done some epic solo journeys). Both are solo travelogues.
A quote from the first book:
"A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance. It was a question of dignity."
The main reason I recommend Ghost Rider, is for one of Neil's road habits, which is that he collects stickers from the Ranger Booth at National Parks, and has a goal to collect them all. This is a cool idea because it gets you somewhere you might not otherwise go, and he seemed to meet a lot of interesting people this way.
edit: I would add about Ghost Rider, that it is also an incredibly moving book, in that it deals with Neil's grief over the loss of his only daughter (car wreck) and his wife (cancer) in the span of year. His way of grieving is to ride his motorcycle some 12,000+ miles.
yes.
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I had my life in a complete shit, at about age 25. I was divorced, working jobs I hated with a degree I didn't want to get but was pressured by my parents to get because it was lucrative. I got laid off on my birthday, my wife cheated on me, we had moved to Seattle where I knew next to no-one and it was very difficult to make friends easily. I left with hardly anything except the dog and was very happy. Do you know why? Because I had had some damned stupid epiphanies when I was 16 where I had seen myself on my death bed and glimpsed all these things I saw to do before I died. (Try imagining yourself there and what you'd want to see, its sobering.) And you know what? I knew two things. I refused to give that old man any regret. and all the wounds I had now were a part of who that old fuck was.
-------
Shit now it got tough. I set out to do what I loved doing, but had no idea what the fuck that was. So I read a lot of philosophers, psychologists and people I respected's biographies. R. Buckminster Fuller helped. So did Joseph Campbell. I learned about my Unconscious mind. I began to un-learn bad habits by forcing myself to do things I didn't want to do to unlearn fear. I read books on Unlearning such as "The Essential Crazy Wisdom" and "Shaving the Inside of your Skull." I unlearned attachment to money by living on hardly anything and reading "Your Money or your Life". I unlearned attachment to social norms / groupthink by doing strange things in public. Seriously. It didn't help when girls started liking me for this, that was only encouraging. But it was good too because I got good at calling myself on my own bullshit, like when I was being ungrounded, or attached to things that are insignificant.
Finding out what you Love is tougher. Campbell says "follow your bliss" and then he saw what people made of that and said "I should have said 'follow your blisters'." For me, I tried to remember what it felt like to play as a child and I tried to do one thing a day that felt like play.
Of course by now you're wondering if I got another job. Naw, I consulted here and there, but shit for the life of me I'd have the weirdest people ask me to do the weirdest things. Since I was nutty, I started finding there were lots of nutty people with nutty money. I began working for lawyers, writers, pharmacists, flag makers, silk soy milk, the world health organization, universities, I even worked in hollywood. shrug.
Life is weird if you let it be.
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Soon I began to find various mentors, I contacted authors by hunting down their emails. I took them to lunch. It didn't take too long for me to become homeless at this point (hell everyone was being then and I figured I might as well choose it because I was being lame and wasn't traveling.) And so I began traveling around meeting authors and taking them to Thai restaurants. I learned so much about my own potential, my own proclivities. Fuck I learned what my learning style was, after 20 some years in an education system no one had bothered to even test that shit. I used couchsurfing.com a lot and read books like Blue Highways and then learned more and more about not trusting what my limbic system's predictions of what I thought life was, and rather would put myself in situations and truly experience these things, and was time and again wowed by the wonder of this.
Of course around this time that movie about that wanker who died in Alaska came out and everyone kept telling me how I reminded me of him. Sure I went camping a lot too but that kid was a numbnuts. Damn dude.
-------
Pretty soon I was traveling around like Kane in Kung fu, getting in adventures and helping people and shit. I'd move from place to place, went all the way down the Pacific Ocean side of the US, then across America, mostly on foot. I met amazing people, met celebrities, couchsurfed in mansions and only slept out when I wanted to. It was as if because I was so curious as to who I really was inside, everyone was really curious in me. I think an ounce of that curiosity is enough for the average person to get by. If you have any curiosity of who you are, or what your potential is, then you'll do pretty well. But the problem is you get superstitious because life is so fucking crazy. seriously.
The other problem with this lifestyle is that you begin to see how fucking feeble and fragile our society is. Drop oil and 99% of this country is fucked. I mean close the 7/11 and you've killed 80% of the state of california cause they can't get doritos. I wish I were joking here. Anyhoo, I decided to go a little rural and walked and walked until I found ways to help people and learn gardening, survival skills, etc. I did work with Iraq Veterans in Sweat Lodges helping them find themselves. I couchsurfed. I wrote Universities and made up titles and gave lectures on subjects I loved but had no credentials on. People hesitated to let me on stage, but I was well received because I loved what I was talking about. I learned hypnosis (mentor) and put friends in trance to help them learn to speak with their Unconscious minds. I lived.
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Now mind you I did all this with my dog too. He had a good time. People loved him but then I got summoned home by a death in the family. While there, I did what I needed to do and gave the abridged version of what I was doing with life to people (Rilke: 'never horrify your parents by telling them what you truly are.')
Next I decided to find people who were like me. I had been homeless a year and figured I'd need to find some people who basically lived as if in the 1800s. I kept wandering until I found a farm where they had an extra cabin. They liked me, I fit in great and was invited to live there. I lived here still and am having a great time. I built earth batteries to power it. I carried water from a spring that comes out of some rocks at the base of a mountain. I have a beautiful girlfriend who wants to paint and kiss me and pet my dog and plant our garden. I write stories and make japanese swords out of scrap pieces of wood that smell.
Now at this point, I can't tell you how to do it, thats your own way. Thats what you see when you think of yourself on your death bed. Sure its morbid, sure it takes a lot of time, sure it is fucking insane and horrifying, but thats what gives it meaning. Things like that strike you to your core and there you are, who you really are. Just keep breathing and calm yourself. Its just your imagination.
TLDR: my life sucked. I stopped doing what others told me to do. I stopped making decisions out of fear. I played every day. Then did crazy shit. Now am happy.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain has long sections about exactly this topic.
Restaurants are hard. Really hard. Basically, if you weren't born into it or didn't start when you were 18 and never let up, don't bother.
Empire of Blue Water is a great telling of his life story. We probably know more about him than any other pirate, him being a government official for so long. Not many pirates, especially from the Golden Age of Piracy, have much in the way official records to back up their legends.
I'm a big nerd when it comes to pirates, in case that wasn't clear.
I can't say I learned a ton about nutrition either. Had the most exposure during my peds rotation when took care of a number of patients starting a ketogenic diet for seizure control.
What context of nutrition are you looking for? In an ICU/TPN setting the knowledge of nutrition needed is going to be very different than your average patient coming into a primary care clinic, or in a sports medicine clinic with very serious athletes.
When talking to your average patient, I find Michael Pollan's book [In Defense of Food] (https://www.amazon.com/Defense-Food-Michael-Pollan/dp/1594133328) helpful. It lays out some common sense guidelines for healthy eating and addresses the challenges of doing meaningful research on diet and nutrition.
And here is the Amazon link to that "Scavenger's Guide..." book https://www.amazon.com/Scavengers-Guide-Haute-Cuisine/dp/1401352375 . Cheers!
> Setting the Table as Danny Meyer
https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742763
Ordered it for my Kindle just now. Will begin reading it today. Thanks!
Her autobiography is also really good:
http://www.amazon.com/Sharks-Fin-Sichuan-Pepper-Sweet-Sour/dp/0393332888/ref=la_B001IGLRVG_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410116038&sr=1-4
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential is a great read.
Biography/History/Travelogue about James Cook and his voyages.
There is a book that just came out about this:
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
There's a great book Blue Latitudes a great read that recreates Captain Cook's route. Very funny and interesting
Yes. All these Food Network shows make being a chef seem glamorous, when it's everything but. Everyone should read Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain and then decide if culinary school is a good idea.
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon. I absolutely love travel writing, and this is the best travel book that I've ever read.
I've just started All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, and it's good, though it's not one of those books you just can't quit reading, if you know what I mean? I'm enjoying it, but I'm taking it slow.
I've also recently read Interpreter of Maladies (highly recommend), Life After Life (fairly good), and Relish, which is a comic about food, and I just loved. http://www.amazon.com/Relish-Life-Kitchen-Lucy-Knisley/dp/1596436239
Nice. Thank you! Reminds me of a recipe from Henry Hill (of Goodfellas fame...he wrote a cookbook that I think is good, even though the layout and marketing is utter shit) except that you use bacon and onion instead of pancetta and garlic. I will try it, thanks!
Any chance you know of any brussels sprouts recipes that involve dry vermouth? I had some at a restaurant, and there was definitely dry vermouth in it...which was fucking amazing.
edit: never mind, I think this recipe might be it!!
I would recommend Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers singer/original member) and L.A. Son by Roy Choi (chef/Kogi truck mastermind). Both autobiographies tell stories about how growing up in LA shaped who they are.
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
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Not sure if its the time period you are looking for but Empire of the Blue Water goes into some depth on pirate/privateer wealth. Port Royal was one of the richest cities in the West Indies before being completely destroyed in an Earthquake. Modern Kingston was a small village on the mainland across the bay from Port Royal at the time.
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Blue-Water-Americas-Catastrophe/dp/0307236617
This book my help you
They recorded the sound they heard into writing on pen and paper I meant.
For those looking for citations, http://www.amazon.ca/Blue-Latitudes-Boldly-Captain-Before/dp/0805065415
Fascinating book. I sail a lot as a hobby and enjoy reading books about the age of discovery. Amazing what those guys were able to accomplish with no electricity or charts, and only their bare hands.
The Australian first contact was in fact recorded in the ships crew diaries.
When Cook sailed, a naturalist gentleman adventurer paid to crew on the boat as a sponsor. He kept meticulous diaries of the journey.
Cook's diaries and ships logs were more informational (Seas heavy, sailed west.) etc.
what recipes can you share? what is your background--have you been to China before?
I like this cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop, although I haven't actually tried the recipes:
http://www.amazon.com/Sharks-Fin-Sichuan-Pepper-Sweet-Sour/dp/0393332888/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265825355&sr=8-4
here is a recipe for the only Chinese food I usually make at home:
Jook (congee):
Bring to a boil, simmer for as long as you have patience. Eat with liberal amounts of pork sung sprinkled on top and soy sauce drizzled in.
Blue Highways - A Journey Into America by William Least-Heat Moon
The idea is that you take only the blue-colored highways on a map (meaning the lesser-traveled roads, i.e. NOT big Interstates) to meander your way across the country and you'll experience more.
/s Not sure what color they would be in Google Maps though...
edit: broken link and description
[Empire of Blue Water] (https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Blue-Water-Americas-Catastrophe/dp/0307236617) by Stephan Talty. It focuses primarily on the real Captain Henry Morgan, the privateer, turned pirate, turned pirate hunter, but uses his life story as a jumping off point to go into the history of piracy in the early Americas. Fascinating stuff.
If you're interested there's a pretty awesome chapter about bread in The Man Who Ate Everything which is an awesome book to read about food in general.
I've read mostly books about the craft of Bartending but being interested in owning, and operating my own bar and restaurant I gave this book a read and I thought it had a lot of great insight from many industry leaders. Worth a read for sure :) https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742763
Hey - on the CYA thing, it turns out that TriChor should break down into CYA - but I have Zero CYA unless I add it.... I am looking into this.
ON the "Service" side, It is an interesting animal, the key is developing a culture, and in the pool business ( high employee turnover, low margins, cranky homeowners) this would be tough. But culture (why do we do what we do) , and vision (how we do what we do) - is vital to a good ( happy customer) business. Point being, you may not have to shrink, but show your employees that they work for the clients, not you, THE clients pay them.
After the POol business, I was field service engineer for electric systems, then robotics, then sold service for robots and the sold engineering services.... you get the point...
Service businesses are interesting to me. I recommend Settting the Table, by Danny Meyer, a restaurateur turned restaurant mogul... He created Shake Shack etc.
I am sure you will find many parallels.
Empire of Blue Water - covers the main characters (e.g. Morgan), and gives a history of piracy in the caribbean around the 17th Century. Some incredible tales of hardship, perseverance and success. https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Blue-Water-Americas-Catastrophe/dp/0307236617
A huge part of IT work is "customer" service (whether the customer be users, or actual customers of the company). I came from the restaurant industry so that's where I learned that set of chops. The best book on how to treat a customer in my experience is...
Setting the Table by Danny Meyer
You must read March by John Lewis.You might also like Trinity and Relish.
Peace, Love and BBQ. Mike Mills, baby!
If you plan to spend any more than a year or so in the industry, you owe it to yourself to read this book. It's a much better response to your comment than I could come up with.
If anyones interested, you can buy the Sunday Gravy that Henry was making during the helicopter scene.
The real Henry Hill loved to cook and he apparently made the sauce for sale.
He also wrote a cookbook for sale, that includes the Sunday Gravy recipe, the penitentiary sauce seen in OPs vid, and more. Not trying to advertise, just wanted to share something about the real Henry Hill
http://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confidential-Adventures-Culinary-Underbelly/dp/0060934913
I enjoyed [Blue Highways] (http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America/dp/0316353299), but it's a few years old. Maybe something by [Sarah Vowell] (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sarah+vowel)?
Principles,
Foodservice Organizations,
Culinary Math are all good technical books to know.
Some already mentioned Leadership Lessons, which is a great read. Also try Setting the Table by Danny Meyers for an overall look on running a hospitality business.
These books are a must and Will help you even if your slinging pie
Setting the Table
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060742763/ref=mw_dp_sim_ps3?pi=SL500_SY125
The Mere Mortal's Guide to Fine Dining
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767922034
Windows on the World
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1402757468/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
Start with setting the table, it has alot of stuff in it that seems like commonsense, but, if you do it.......you will find that most of it works
"make it nice"
Huh? What are you on about?
And look at what he wrote in the tip. Are you really that bad at your job? Buy this book. Read it. Get back to me.
https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742763
EDIT: Fuck, if you have a Kindle I'LL buy it for you.
I work in NYC fine dining and any one of the thousands in my profession who take hospitality seriously would also cringe at this faux pas. The CEO of my company even wrote about how cringy it is in his NYT best selling business book. https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742763 He also opened Eleven Madison Park which is consistently rated the top rated restaurant in the world. Definitely not my unique option. You should consider reading this book if you’re interested in hospitality
Some cooking-related comics:
One of my favorite police/detective-type comics is Blacksad, a series of noir stories set in a anthropomorphized world, following private investigator John Blacksad. I'm not sure if your dad would find the art too "kiddy" at first (anthropomorphism sometimes gets that reputation), but this is definitely not a kid-friendly book. It's set in 1950s America, was created by two Spaniards, and was originally published in France.
For car comics, I haven't read this one, but Phoenix: The Ford Pinto Story made my list of SPX-debuts last year that sounded really interesting. I don't think I ever saw it reviewed though, so can't really say much more than that it exists.
Ah, yes, the inevitable "In-N-Out sucks!!!" posts. Here's my take on In-N-Out in Texas.
I'm one of many Californians who made the foolish decision to move to Texas in the mid 2000s for housing. I've had a miserable time of it, and would rape my dead mother for the chance to go back home, but various circumstances prevent me from doing so. Let me at least have my fucking In-N-Out.
If you don't like it, it's pretty simple. Go to Whataburger, and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.