TART

The anonymous kitchen maven, a minor celebrity in the U.K., recounts life in the service industry.

SC, let’s call her, opens her narrative by revisiting a tough time: depressed, jobless, living with her parents in her mid-20s, not having much luck in love or lust after having concluded a steamy office affair. (“Before I knew it, we were fucking on the photocopier like we were in a mainstream porn category.”) Then came an audition in a London kitchen, with hunky chefs and hormonally supercharged wait staff, and SC is in her element. The better parts of her book place her on the line, butterflying a mullet or firing a chop, where she’s actually cooking. The poorer parts are mostly charmless sexual encounters with partners such as a topknot-bedecked bartender who “reminded me of just how impactful a good shagathon can be on one’s sensibilities.” Sometimes SC’s narrative approaches literal food porn (“I can feel the imprint of his hands on my arse like I’m a Wagyu cow and he’s my keeper, massaging my body to relax my muscles”), but mostly it’s just tedious recitation. No demerits there, necessarily: Even Pauline Réage and Henry Miller grow tiresome after a while, but SC’s book doesn’t quite rise, beg pardon, to those literary heights. Moreover, SC, even more tediously, tends to preen in self-regard: “I’m the prize. He’s the piss on the pavement.” “I think only of myself and my wonderful body that works just fine, my nice mind and my fucking incredible hair.” And, with respect to that hand imprint, “Only I am of course a lot sexier than a cow; I’m more like a thoroughbred pony.” It’s enough to make a person go vegan, if not already.

If it’s sweaty sex you want, this has a few moments. If it’s sweaty chefs making wondrous grub, stick with Bourdain.