Kitchen Confidential

Go and read this book NOW. It is probably the best thing that has come into my hands EVER. Maybe it's because I am in the restaurant world and I truly get what he is talking about, or maybe it is just because he doesn't hold back one bit when exposing the restaurant industry for what it is. If you want to understand my day to day life a little more, read this. Just some quotes:

"No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American. "

"So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. "

"I'm asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it's this: to be part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one's hands - using all one's senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure (though oral sex has to be a close second)."