Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Stock. Stock is the backbone of good cooking.

Order!, when yelled at a cook means 'Make initial preparations' such as searing, half-cooking, setting up for finishing. Fire! means 'Finish cooking' and get ready for 'pick up'.

We saute in a mixture of butter and oil for that nice brown, caramelized color,

offset serrated knife.

dissent

'Beef Parmentier'? 'Shepherd's pie'? 'Chili special'? Sounds like leftovers to me.

Marijuana or mota or chronic

fomenting

Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London is invaluable. As is Nicolas Freleng's The Kitchen, David Blum's Flash in the Pan, the Batterberrys' fine account of American restaurant history, On the Town in New York, and Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel. Read the old masters: Escoffier, Bocuse et al as well as the Young Turks: Keller, Marco-Pierre