Cookbook

[mamster]

One of the criticisms of your work has been that it's all about the drunken attitude, not enough about the food.  Are you going to show your critics up by doing a cookbook aimed at the home cook?

[bourdain]

That criticism is entirely valid. I am "executive chef" (whatever that means these days) at a brasserie--a very good, very authentic one, I think--but a brasserie just the same. That's basically a French diner. I am not now, never was, and never threatened to be a great chef--and the times I tried to be one, I usually bankrupted my owners. That I will most likely end my career at Les Halles is appropriate--It's the kind of food I should have been cooking all along--and a fair expression of my strengths and weaknesses as a cook. References to me iin the press as a "top chef" are flattering

but innacurate. I am known to most people almost entirely for my admittedly lurid and obnoxious memoir and whatever other writings I can crank out while still enjoying my 15 minutes. I am, however, planning a Brasserie Les Halles Guide To Strategy and Tactics of French Cooking--which I've been describing as Julia Child meets Full Metal Jacket. I will NOT write the recipes alone--leaving that to the owners and chefs of the various Les Halles--and will use the standard, time-tested recipes that existed long before I arrived there. I will provide translation, commentary, explanation of professional techniques, staging and mis-en-place and anecdotal material which will hopefully allow the home cook to see how cassoulet, for instance can be easily attained by staggering preparation over time and using the right beans (Tarbais), and ingredients. I hope it will be a butt-ugly utilitarian cookbook, resembling an army field manual: brown butcher paper cover, pre-stained--so you're not afraid to bring it in the kitchen with you. First sentences will be: "Listen up, screwhead! What is your major fucking malfunction!?"

[Deacon]

. . . Julia Child meets Full Metal Jacket. . . . First sentences will be: "Listen up, screwhead! What is your major fucking malfunction!?"

R. Lee Ermey strides into the kitchen wearing a Marine Corps uniform and a toque:

"What's the matter, numb-nuts? Didn't mommy and daddy give you enough coq-au-vin when you were little?"

[Lady T]

That settles it for me, anyway: I'm buying that book the minute it hits the street!