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Title

• Heat

Author

• Bill Buford

Publisher

• Knopf

Heat

An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany

Overview

From the publisher

Bill Buford — author of the bestselling Among the Thugs — had long thought of himself as a reasonably comfortable cook when, in 2002, he finally decided to answer a question that had nagged him every time he prepared a meal: What kind of cook could he be if he worked in a professional kitchen?

When the opportunity arose to train in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, Buford grabbed it. Heat is the chronicle — sharp, funny, wonderfully exuberant — of his time spent as Batali’s “slave” and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary masters in Italy.

Heat is a marvelous hybrid: a richly evocative memoir of Buford’s kitchen adventure, the story of Batali’s amazing rise to culinary (and extra-culinary) fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters.

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Heat