jazzfood wrote:it seems to me that he was observing and reporting others reactions. not complaining. carry a dead pig over your shoulder past an organic wheatgrass stand onto a scooter and into your upper east side elevator and you're bound to get a reaction. irony, contempt, etc...

I tend to read that section the same way. The reactions of everyone (wheatgrass person, biz man in elevator) seem pretty much exactly the way you'd expect these folks to act (which may, in itself, be a negative criticism of the narrative technique; if Buford wanted to "embellish" and add some drama, the wheatgrass person would have had a conversion experience and joined the carnal ranks of omnivores at the sight of the delicious piggy -- and then come along to help in the butchering).

exactly. like the other nite when i was @ an event that had peta protesters hassleing women in fur. they were yelling about how many animals died for that fur, she responded about how many animals she had to sleep with to get it in the first place. then i pointed out that they were wearing leather shoes and coats and belts. we all ended up @ primehouse.

jazzfood wrote: we all ended up @ primehouse.

...and then...?

some things are better left to the imagination.

BTW - I'm not in any way saying the same about Anthony Bourdain - I REALLY enjoy his shows and I enjoy his writing. It just seems to me that the shows are more about food than the two books I've read.

that very well may be. and they portray the behind the scenes very accurately whether you choose to believe it or not. that's all i'm saying.

Marco Pierre White, one of the many colorful psychos chronicled by Buford, is interviewed in today's Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/main.jhtml?xml=/wine/2006/07/29/edmarco29.xml

The "Heat" meet has been scheduled: next Wednesday, April 4. 7 pm. Quartino.

See the events board thread for more or to RSVP.

For those who might want to join the discussion (or are just looking for an excuse to go to Quartino), much of the book originally appeared in The New Yorker and I see that they have one of the opening chapters in their free archive.
The Secret of Excess: How a life became cooking

Buford also has an article in the current issue, again generously also available on-line, about Gordon Ramsey The Taming of the Chef.

So read something--anything--and join us Wednesday.

Buford also has an article in the current issue, again generously also available on-line, about Gordon Ramsey The Taming of the Chef.

I read the Ramsey NYer piece last week, the same night I started reading Heat, and my first impression of Buford (my first time thinking about his writing more broadly) was that he seems to have a thing with [human leg] calves. Either he just has excellent anatomical memory and/or remembers comments people make about calves and/or just by coincidence his subjects have had memorable calves. Maybe it's Buford's added carnality from making love to his wife like a butcher or from earlier on from his football hooligans research. In 30 minutes of bedtime Buford reading, I came across both passages below.

From Heat, p.9, recounting M.P. White on Batali:

"I will never forget him," White said, when I met him in London. "He has fucking big calves, doesn't he? He should donate them to the kitchen when he dies. They'll make a great osso buco. If he walked in today, and I saw only those calves, I'd know it was Mario."

From "Notes of a Gastronome: The Taming of the Chef" (NYer 4/2/07):

Ramsay is six feet two, light on his feet, once a teen-age recruit for the Glasgow Rangers, the legendary Protestant soccer club of his birthplace (though he grew up in England), bionic to the touch (especially his calves, which he invited me to feel and described as “loaves of foie gras”—inaccurately, since foie gras is squishy whereas these mutant monstrosities were like oversized bowling pins).

So I'm wondering - when I read this, I had the overpowering need to eat lardo or similar cured pork fat items as mentioned in the book. the best I was able to come up with locally (at not exorbitant fees) was bobak's smoked hunter bacon but would love to hear if folks had better substitutions.