Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

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

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
Heat An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave Line Cook PastaMaker and Apprentice to a DanteQuoting Butcher in Tuscany
Author: Bill Buford
A highly acclaimed writer and editor, Bill Buford left his job at The New Yorker for a most unlikely destination: the kitchen at Babbo, the revolutionary Italian restaurant created and ruled by superstar chef Mario Batali. — Finally realizing a long-held desire to learn first-hand the experience of restaurant cooking, Buford soon f...  more »
ISBN-13: 9781400034475
ISBN-10: 1400034477
Publication Date: 6/26/2007
Pages: 336
Rating:
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
 72

3.7 stars, based on 72 ratings
Publisher: Vintage
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

5ducksfans avatar reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 92 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
I highly recommend this book to anyone with any sort of interest in food or cooking. I cook, because I have a family and I sort of enjoy it. That's about the extent of interest you need to have to find this book interesting, funny, profound, and highly enjoyable. The food itself is as much a character as the people Buford encounters (and boy, are they colorful!). Buford has a great gift for description - I could see everything he was talking about even though much of it was foreign to me (and to him). He becomes as swept away by his mission as I got reading the book. And the last section of the book, "Dinner With Mario," is as great an ending to a book as any fiction or thriller has ever had. I loved this book, and I will never look at food (in a restaurant, grocery store, or my kitchen) the same again.
reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 36 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
Heat is a great treat and must read for a foodie. There is a lot of information about the author's relationship with Mario Batali. He spent a lot of time working and learning in Babbo, one of Batali's restaurants. The book is also a culinary journey into Tuscan food. Mr. Buford has spent a lot of time in Italy learning how to make pasta, how to be a butcher, and just absorbing the lure of Italian cooking.
reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 48 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Interesting take on what goes on in the kitchen of restaurants. In this book Mario is Jesus and his understudies are the disciples.
reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 31 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is a well told story of a New York writer who went to work for Mario Batali at Babbo before journeying to Italy to learn more about the food and the language. He learns pasta and butchering as told with insight and humor. Prepare to be hungry.
cm2baker avatar reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book is for people who really love to cook or really love to eat. Buford goes into depth exploring his passion (food and how to prepare it). At times the reader finds themselves saying, "Enough. Next, please!" Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable look into the inner workings of a high stakes restaurant and I would recommend reading it. Beware, however, that this is not a book that you can read in one sitting-- I had to read a chapter or two at time and I suspect others will have a similar experience.
Read All 12 Book Reviews of "Heat An Amateurs Adventures as Kitchen Slave Line Cook PastaMaker and Apprentice to a DanteQuoting Butcher in Tuscany"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 120 more book reviews
An interesting book to listen to, although I don't know if I would have enjoyed reading it as much. The author meets Mario Battali on an informal basis and becomes interested in (a) Mario as a individual in re: how he became a world-class chef and (b) how one actually becomes a chef. The rest of the book covers the author's work in Battali's kitchen, visits to chefs Battali worked for and with, trips to learn to make pasta the way Battali makes it, and his apprenticeship with a butcher who worked with Battali's father at one point. However what seems to be a very Battali-centric book becomes much more - a book about food and our attitudes towards food and the author's efforts to understand the whole foodie culture. By the end, I recognized that Battali was really just a framework for the author to hang his story on and not the focus of the book at all
reviewed Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany on + 16 more book reviews
This is an entertaining book that is great if you're interested in "behind the scenes" at a top restaurant or if you're more broadly interested in where your food comes from. I found the first part of the book, while the author is working at Babbo, and the second part of the book, while he's at a butcher shop in Tuscany, to be almost different books, but both were really interesting. The author is great at writing scenes that you can easily visualize.

Book Wiki

Common Title
People/Characters
Bill Buford (Primary Character)
Mario Batali (Major Character)
Dario Cecchini (Average Character)
Joe Bastianich (Average Character)
Marcos Pierre White (Minor Character)

Genres: