Inspecting restaurants for Michelin is not an occasional diversion for people with an educated palate who like to eat, but a full-time, long-term, salaried career. Inspectors have usually had eight to ten years of experience working in the hotel or restaurant business—“a basic education,” Arnaud called it—before joining Michelin. Then there is a tr

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

gastrite (sugar and vinegar)

If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel—as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them—wherever you