Book Summary and Reviews of Heat by Bill Buford

Heat by Bill Buford

Heat

An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany

by Bill Buford

  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • Published:
  • May 2006, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Bill Buford—author of the highly acclaimed best-selling Among the Thugs—had long thought of himself as a reasonably comfortable cook when in 2002 he finally decided to answer a question that had nagged him every time he prepared a meal: What kind of cook could he be if he worked in a professional kitchen? When the opportunity arose to train in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, Buford grabbed it. Heat is the chronicle—sharp, funny, wonderfully exuberant—of his time spent as Batali’s “slave” and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary masters in Italy.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Starred review. "his is a wonderfully detailed and highly amusing book" - PW
"Brightly rendered and sophisticated, as befits a New Yorker writer, but very uneven." - Kirkus
“I have never read a funnier or more authentic account of the making of a serious cook. Give Mr. Buford three stars.”–Peter Mayle, author of A Year in Provence
“Bill Buford jumps into the Italian kitchen world of New York and Tuscany as a can-do amateur (and crisp writer) and peels off the lid. What a cast of characters he finds! The descriptions of the food and people are rich, but the passionate tale is bittersweet as we view the lives of the circus performers backstage.”–Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don’t Get Fat

This information about Heat was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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