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

I highly recommend this book to anyone with any sort of interest in food or cooking. I cook, because I have a family and I sort of enjoy it. That's about the extent of interest you need to have to find this book interesting, funny, profound, and highly enjoyable. The food itself is as much a character as the people Buford encounters (and boy, are they colorful!). Buford has a great gift for description - I could see everything he was talking about even though much of it was foreign to me (and to him). He becomes as swept away by his mission as I got reading the book. And the last section of the book, "Dinner With Mario," is as great an ending to a book as any fiction or thriller has ever had. I loved this book, and I will never look at food (in a restaurant, grocery store, or my kitchen) the same again.

Heat is a great treat and must read for a foodie. There is a lot of information about the author's relationship with Mario Batali. He spent a lot of time working and learning in Babbo, one of Batali's restaurants. The book is also a culinary journey into Tuscan food. Mr. Buford has spent a lot of time in Italy learning how to make pasta, how to be a butcher, and just absorbing the lure of Italian cooking.

This is a well told story of a New York writer who went to work for Mario Batali at Babbo before journeying to Italy to learn more about the food and the language. He learns pasta and butchering as told with insight and humor. Prepare to be hungry.

Highly entertaining tale of life in the kitchen. Made me laugh out loud at times and salivate with hunger at others. Dario the "Dante-quoting butcher" was a highlight of the book for me. Now I want to go to Italy too! At any rate, it's inspired this amateur cook to learn some new skills.

This book is for people who really love to cook or really love to eat. Buford goes into depth exploring his passion (food and how to prepare it). At times the reader finds themselves saying, "Enough. Next, please!" Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable look into the inner workings of a high stakes restaurant and I would recommend reading it. Beware, however, that this is not a book that you can read in one sitting-- I had to read a chapter or two at time and I suspect others will have a similar experience.