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

• Rated 4 stars

“If you like to read about the immense work going on in the kitchens at restaurants you eat at, then this book is for you. Bill Buford was a writer for the NY Times, and ended up taking a long leave to work in Mario Batali's kitchen. They work his ass off, and he travels throughout Italy to learn more. His writing style is good, and you can feel his pain. But you also sense his love of food and cooking. Mario, I could care less about him, but the recipes that you get from reading the book alone (very vague, but easy to put together) have all come out very good at my house. A great read.”

• Rated 4 stars

“I can't wait 'til he goes to France, which I think he implied will happen in the book's final pages.....rollicking good read”

• Rated 5 stars

“Bill Buford's Heat is indescribably delicious. I wish I could meet him and Mario Batali. The closest I've come to Mario is watching him on his Food Network shows. Marco Pierre White has got to be, hands down, the most colorful character I think I've ever read about. I've worked in 5 different restaurants but nothing I've done even comes close to what Mr. Buford has encountered/suffered/endured, emerged victorious and lived to tell. However, like Mr. Buford, I used to make food and invite people over to eat it ~ it is great fun. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“I think I need to stop reading kitchen memoirs, they're all starting to sound the same. Working in a kitchen sucks, the people are crazy, yet there's something that draws a person to the career, a kind of perverse stick-to-itiveness that can raise one from loser status to having pride and the respect of one's cooking peers.

This author gave up his journalism career for a while to work in the kitchen of Mario (Molto Mario) Batali's restaurant, Babbo. It describes Mario's colorful personality and quest to learn true Italia n cooking, inspiring the author to make several trips to Italy to learn from the masters himself.

The book is well-written and has an engaging style, but I guess I'm just kind of pooped out on this whole genre because not much of it stuck in my memory. His attempts at humor fall kind of flat, and I'm just not that interested in Italian cooking to begin with to make this book worth my while.”

• Rated 0 stars

“I throughly enjoyed this one. Buford does a great job portraying the kitchen culture in a fine restaurant and food culture in Italy. His honest, self-deprecating style makes the story ring true -- and funny.”

• Rated 5 stars

“I knew Mario Batali could drink, but I had no idea how much until I read this book!”

• Rated 3 stars

“A very fun and informative read if you are a foodie. I liked it a lot.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Buford held my interest as he dove into working at Babbo, then went to Italy to learn to make pasta and the history of pasta making; but as a butcher--not so much. Heat almost became two books when Buford traveled to Italy. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“If you're a "foodie"... and especially an Italian Foodie, than this is a MUST READ book. I read it just before a recent trip to Italy, and it inspired me to go spend the afternoon at the shop of the Dante-quoting butcher, Dario Checchini!”