Sumptuously entertaining fare.
An experienced sous chef and first-time author skillfully deconstructs a 24-hour work cycle of a sous chef in a New York kitchen.
Gibney builds his narrative around the intimate, intense and demanding dance occurring within the kitchen of a busy NYC restaurant, and his intent is clear from the beginning: He wants readers right beside him during the entire journey. The author includes a floor plan of the kitchen with its 17 zones and a diagram of the kitchen chain of command, from executive chef to busboy and food runner. For readers unfamiliar with a Honesuki (“a triangular Japanese poultry boning knife”) or which part of the pig a guanciale comes from (“unsmoked Umbrian salumi made from salted and spiced pig jowl”), the author’s inclusion of kitchen terms makes following along all the more fun. Gibney began working in restaurants at age 16, more than 13 years ago. When he was 22, he landed his first sous chef gig. “In that time,” he writes, “I’ve seen all manner of operation—big, small, beautiful and ugly. I’ve climbed the ladder from dishwasher to chef and cooked at all the stations in between.” In addition to the author’s skill in the kitchen, Gibney displays solid storytelling ability. He breathes life into the mix of outsized personalities inhabiting the confined, hot, noisy space of the kitchen and illuminates the range of knowledge and skills required by his profession. Following a few pages enumerating the answers to possible questions wait staff might pose about a new dish, he writes, “You need to know everything about everything that’s in every dish, and you must be able to identify which items may conflict with which dietary guidelines.” Gibney ably relays mountains of information in this remarkable trek through his storehouse of knowledge.
Sumptuously entertaining fare.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7787-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
