Medium Raw

I’m proud of the television show that came out of it—because it demonstrated in specific, realistic, and very visual terms not just how a busy kitchen works, but how fucking hard it is; how much it requires of a person, the kind of teamwork, the kind of endurance, the mindset, choreography, and organization—and what it takes away.

When people ask me if I ever miss it, my answer is always the same.

No. I don’t.

I know people want me to say yes. Yes, of course I miss it. But I had enough. I had twenty-eight years of it, I tell them, twenty-eight years. I was forty-four years old when Kitchen Confidential hit—and if there was ever a lucky break or better timing, I don’t know about it. At forty-four, I was, as all cooks too long on the line must be, already in decline. You’re not getting any faster—or smarter—as a cook after age thirty-seven. The knees and back go first, of course. That you’d expect. But the hand-eye coordination starts to break up a little as well. And the vision thing. But it’s the brain that sends you the most worrying indications of decay. After all those years of intense focus, multitasking, high stress, late nights, and alcohol, the brain stops responding the way you like. You miss things. You aren’t as quick reading the board, prioritizing the dupes, grasping at a glance what food goes where, adding up totals of steaks on hold and steaks on the fire—and cumulative donenesses. Your hangovers are more crippling and last longer. Your temper becomes shorter—and you become more easily frustrated with yourself for fucking up little things (though less so with others). Despair—always a sometime thing in the bipolar world of the kitchen—becomes more frequent and longer-lasting as one grows more philosophical with age and has more to despair about.

You’re basically done—or on your way to being done. Your brain knows it. Your body knows it—and tells you every day. But pride persists.

What I do miss, I tell them, and will always miss, is that first pull on a cold beer after work. That is irreplaceable. Nothing approaches that. That’s the kind of satisfaction no bestseller can ever beat—no television show, no crowd, no nothing. That single moment after a long and very busy night, sitting down at the bar with your colleagues, wiping the sweat off your neck, taking a deep breath, with unspoken congratulations all around—and then that first sip of cold, cold beer. It tastes like victory. Happy waiters, flush with tips, are ringing out, the cooks look pleased with you and with each other, and you remind yourself that nothing came back the whole night.

Maybe it’s Curtis Mayfield, “Superfly,” that comes on the sound system then—put on by a sympathetic bartender—or “Gin and Juice” (also for the old folks), or something the moment somehow, by collective will, requires: “Gimme Shelter” or The Stooges’ “Dirt.” Songs from some other time—not this one—songs that will always mean something to somebody present, but maybe you had to be there.

You look at each other with the intense camaraderie of people who’ve suffered together and think,

“We did well tonight. We will go home proud.”

There are nods and half-smiles. A sigh. Maybe even a groan of relief.

Once again. We survived. We did well.

We’re still here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Kim Witherspoon, Dan Halpern, Karen Rinaldi, Peter Meehan, Mandy Moser, Chris Collins, Lydia Tenaglia, the entire zeropointzero production and post-production crew, and the truly incredible Laurie Woolever.

Thanks, Tony Bourdain

About the Author

ANTHONY BOURDAIN is the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, in addition to the megabestseller Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour. His work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and he is a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine. He is the host of the popular television show No Reservations.

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ALSO BY ANTHONY BOURDAIN

Nonfiction

Kitchen Confidential

A Cook’s Tour

Typhoid Mary

Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook

The Nasty Bits

No Reservations

Fiction

Bone in the Throat

Gone Bamboo

Bobby Gold

Credits

Jacket design by Allison Saltzman

Jacket photograph by Melanie Dunea/CPi

Copyright