The book that helped define a genre: Heat is a beloved culinary classic, an adventure in the kitchen and into Italian cuisine, by Bill Buford, author of Dirt. Bill Buford was a highly acclaimed writer and editor at the New Yorker when he decided to leave for a most unlikely destination: the kitchen at Babbo, one of New York City’s most popular and revolutionary Italian restaurants. Finally realizing a long-held desire to learn first-hand the experience of restaurant cooking, Buford soon finds himself drowning in improperly cubed carrots and scalding pasta water on his quest to learn the tricks of the trade. His love of Italian food then propels him further afield: to Italy, to discover the secrets of pasta-making and, finally, how to properly slaughter a pig. Throughout, Buford stunningly details the complex aspects of Italian cooking and its long history, creating an engrossing and visceral narrative stuffed with insight and humor. The result is a hilarious, self-deprecating, and fantasically entertaining journey into the heart of the Italian kitchen.
“You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France.” —The Wall Street Journal What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France. But what was meant to be six months in a new and very foreign city turns into a wild five-year digression from normal life, as Buford apprentices at Lyon’s best boulangerie, studies at a legendary culinary school, and cooks at a storied Michelin-starred restaurant, where he discovers the exacting (and incomprehensibly punishing) rigueur of the professional kitchen. With his signature humor, sense of adventure, and masterful ability to bring an exotic and unknown world to life, Buford has written the definitive insider story of a city and its great culinary culture.
From the author of the widely acclaimed Heat, an exhilarating account of Bill Buford's adventures in the world of French cooking. 'A romping, chomping, savoury tour de force... Hilarious' Simon Schama What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and (with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France. But what was meant to be six months in a new city turns into a wild five-year odyssey. As Buford apprentices at Lyon's best boulangerie, studies at a legendary culinary school and cooks at a storied Michelin-starred restaurant, he discoveries the true grit, precision and passion of the French kitchen. 'Hugely entertaining' Observer 'Rollicking, food-stuffed entertainment... Gourmets and gourmands will savour this' Spectator
From one of our most interesting literary figures – former editor of Granta, former fiction editor at The New Yorker, acclaimed author of Among the Thugs – a sharp, funny, exuberant, close-up account of his headlong plunge into the life of a professional cook. Expanding on his James Beard Award-winning New Yorker article, Bill Buford gives us a richly evocative chronicle of his experience as “slave” to Mario Batali in the kitchen of Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo. In a fast-paced, candid narrative, Buford describes three frenetic years of trials and errors, disappointments and triumphs, as he worked his way up the Babbo ladder from “kitchen bitch” to line cook . . . his relationship with the larger-than-life Batali, whose story he learns as their friendship grows through (and sometimes despite) kitchen encounters and after-work all-nighters . . . and his immersion in the arts of butchery in Northern Italy, of preparing game in London, and making handmade pasta at an Italian hillside trattoria. Heat is a marvelous hybrid: a memoir of Buford’s kitchen adventure, the story of Batali’s amazing rise to culinary (and extra-culinary) fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters. It is a book to delight in, and to savour. From the Hardcover edition.
They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.
HEAT is the story of an amateur cook surviving - or, perhaps more accurately, trying to survive - in a professional kitchen. Until recently, Bill Buford was an enthusiastic, if rather chaotic, home cook. His meals were characterized by two incompatible qualities: their ambition and his inexperience at preparing them. Nevertheless, his lifelong regret was that he'd never worked in a professional kitchen. Then, three years ago, an opportunity presented itself. Buford was asked by the New Yorker to write a profile of Mario Batali, a Falstaffian figure of voracious appetites who ran one of New York's most successful three-star restaurants. Batali had learned his craft by years of training - first, working in London with the young Marco Pierre White; then in California during the Food Revolution; and finally in Italy, being taught how to make pasta by hand in a hillside trattoria. Buford accepted the commission, if Batali would let him work in his kitchen, as his slave. He worked his way up to being a 'line cook' and then left New York to apprentice himself under the very teachers who had taught his teacher: preparing game with Marco Pierre White, making pasta in a hillside trattoria, and finally, in a town in Northern Italy, becoming an Italian butcher. HEAT is a marvellous hybrid: a memoir of Buford's kitchen adventure, the story of Batali's amazing rise to culinary fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters. It is a book to delight in, and to savour.
Ten years after the success of the 1983 Best of Young British Novelists issue, four judges -- A.S. Byatt, Salman Rushdie, bookseller John Mitchinson and Granta editor Bill Buford -- set out to identify twenty more young and promising writers. The list introduced astonishing emerging talents: Alan Hollinghurst, Will Self, Hanif Kureishi, A.L. Kennedy and many more. A widely varied anthology including novel extracts and stories that showcase a generation of writers coming into its own.
A selection from the beloved bestseller Among the Thugs, “Waiting for a Goal” pinpoints the actual soccer amid the rampant hooliganism. They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin’ Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs, and themselves. Their dislikes encompass the rest of the known universe, and England’s soccer thugs express their feelings in ways that range from petty vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. And for nearly a decade, from World Cups to beer halls, Bill Buford was one of them. Among the Thugs is the terrifying, definitive account of football hooliganism, a hall of fame sports book but also a paragon of immersive journalism. In “Waiting for a Goal,” Buford shepherds the reader into the stands, directly over the pitch, bringing the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter S. Thompson to bear on the most beautiful game there is. An eBook short.
Daniel Boulud, one of America's most respected and successful chefs, delivers a definitive, yet personalcookbook on his love of French food. From coming of age as a young chef to adapting French cuisine to American ingredients and tastes, Daniel Boulud reveals how he expresses his culinary artistry at Restaurant Daniel. With more than 75 signature recipes, plus an additional 12 recipes Boulud prepares at home for his friends on more casual occasions, DANIEL is a welcome addition to the art of French cooking. Included in the cookbook are diverse and informative essays on such essential subjects as bread and cheese (bien sûr), and, by Bill Buford, a thorough and humorous look at the preparation of 10 iconic French dishes, from Pot au Feu Royale to Duck a la Presse.. With more than 120 gorgeous photographs capturing the essence of Boulud's cuisine and the spirit of restaurant Daniel, as well as a glimpse into Boulud's home kitchen, DANIEL is a must-have for sophisticated foodies everywhere.
The best and, at times, the most disturbing of Granta pieces relating to the family are gathered in this 400-page anthology. Raymond Carver, Mona Simpson, Geoffrey Wolff, Angela Carter, Mikal Gilmore, Louise Erdrich, Saul Bellow, Doris Lessing, Peter Carey, Bret Easton Ellis, and twelve other equally powerful writers tackle this most consuming of subjects. The Granta Book of the Family includes fiction, memoir, biography, and reportage, and is inspired by the relationships forced on us by the accident of birth -- relationships that form and brand character and life.
Stanely Booth was meant to be the authorised biographer of the Rolling Stones, but, shortly after he began writing in 1968, things started to go wrong. The American concert tour that he joined ended in murder at a race track in the Californian desert, and the time that followed - in which Booth was assaulted by Hell's Angels, beaten up by American soldiers, run over by a lorry, imprisoned, and subjected to epileptic fits while trying to withdraw from drugs - was characterised only be confusion, loss and disillusionment. Completed fifteen years after it was begun, 'The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones' is only in part about the group of musicians it depicts. It is also a social history and a confession - a chronicle, in the tradition of Michael Herr's Dispatches, of people united in a curious commitment to their own destruction.
Featuring original photographs, many rare and unseen, 'Vespa', delves into the facets of the famous brand from its innovative technical and stylistic design to its freedom-inspired customers.
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