Michael Gibney (1)Critiques

4 stars if you are into cooking and restaurants and Top Chef...3 stars or maybe even two if you are not.

Once I got used to the POV I enjoyed it and its a very quick read.

There is a big kitchen related glossary that was overkill in my mind but would be essential if you weren't already immersed in restaurant language but if you aren't then you probably don't want to read this book.

I wonder if real pros like or hate this one?

I was reluctant to read this because it is written in the second person and that is darn hard to do successfully. However, in this case it gave the book an immediacy and "you are there" sense that is essential to understanding the craziness that goes on in the kitchen of a busy restaurant. Very well written and a terrific read.

I really wanted to like this book, and when Gibney is telling a story, it's fast-paced. But the story keeps getting interrupted by his explanations of the food industry and attempts to educate the reader about fancy food (and fancy food terms). Not being fluent in Spanish was also a drawback for me, since many of the interactions in the kitchen are in that language, and Gibney never takes the time to translate for us. That's just frustrating to read. I'm not getting the message at the end of the book either...if you've been working nearly non-stop at the restaurant since 9am, know you have to be back for another long day tomorrow starting at 8:30am, why the hell are you still up sitting on your front steps drinking a beer and smoking at 5 in the morning?? Go to bed!!

I grabbed this as a fast read when I needed a book, and it is a fast read, but much of it is just tedious.

Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have a fascination with the restaurant world. I never had the impression it was glamorous like television tried to make it seem. In my head it was always this seedy, sexy, corrupt place where sometimes delicious food got made. Most chef memoirs support that theory and Sous Chef was no exception. What I liked about this one and what I think set it apart from others is that Gibney titles each chapter after a part of a chef's day and really took the time to walk the reader through the life of a sous chef in 24 hours. I felt the stress along with him. The pain. The agony. The excitement. He wrote it in such a way that captured me from the beginning and though at times I found my interest waning a little, I was fascinated to the end. Such a unique perspective and definitely an educational read.

OMG, is this book boring!

Like, really boring.

Maybe that is a rather illiterate book review but it's an honest one. Kitchen Confidential is so much better but thinking about Anthony Bourdain just makes me too sad right now to even try a comparison.

This book goes into detail about working in the kitchen of a high end restaurant. All the smoking, the cussing, the prep, the hangovers. . .Glad its not my world. I did appreciate the end where the sous chef parties too hard and sits outside, thinking of his career and his girlfriend.

Still, so happy the book is over.

If you are interested in hour a professional kitchen runs this is a fascinating look into that world.

This book was considered a best book of the year by Time Magazine. It was just okay for me. The book walks you through a day in the life of a sous chef so it got a little boring. But it does make me admire all those people preparing food for me when I go out to eat. And it does make me really admire those restaurants that have open kitchens which requires a lot more of silence.

I finished this book quickly which is always a good sign (if a book is really bad, I don't finish it at all). I enjoy reading about the inner workings of restaurant kitchens and this book was exactly on point. An easy read, not overly complicated, from the point of view of someone other than the actual chef or owner.

Definitely an interesting story. Having worked in restaurants for a lot of my life, this book struck a chord with me. It was enthralling and, oddly, one of the few books written in the second person where it didn't bother me. If you like cooking, or like experiencing a day in the life of someone who lives very differently than you do, this book is for you.

Foodies and especially those who have worked in the restaurant industry will enjoy Sous Chef. The second person narrative chronicles 24 hours in the life of a sous chef at an upscale restaurant in New York. There are already plenty of memoirs from celebrity chefs, but the sous chef is usually a footnote in these works, or perhaps the subject of an angry rant when the wrong type of meat is ordered. However, as the reader learns, the sous chef is responsible for making sure the kitchen runs smoothly, rendering the sous chef’s place in the kitchen as essential as the produce, meat, and pantry staples needed to create a delicious dish. Duties encompass making sure the inventory is correct, the prep work is complete before service, and of course, being ready to jump on the line and cook when the kitchen is behind. Michael Gibney does not glamorize the restaurant industry, but adds enough gritty details that the reader actually feels like he or she is actually cooking on the line. There is no shortage of drama in the kitchen, and the sous chef must deal with it all, from coworkers who get sick during a busy Friday night service, to dealing with suppliers trying to tack on extra items the kitchen didn’t order. Sous Chef is a fast and entertaining read at 240 pages, and Gibney even provides a glossary for those unfamiliar with kitchen techniques and the esoteric ingredients found in many upscale kitchens.

Kathleen K. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

Well-written, clear-eyed view of the hectic, hard work that goes into putting a plate of food before a restaurant diner.

I received an ARC from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

I like cooking narratives and I'm intrigued in the daily life of a restaurant kitchen. So this book seemed like it should be a winner. In some ways, it worked. The reader will definitely get a sense of the details in the daily life of a chef (thank you for the vocabulary glossary!) and the skill/technique needed to execute effectively. However, I didn't really connect with the author's ruminations on his own life / girlfriend / etc. Just felt like a different book and didn't hang together. Like another reviewer, I preferred Marcus Samuelsson's Yes, Chef to this one. Still, not a waste of time.

In some ways this was a slightly shorter, slightly smarter, and much less profane version of Anthony Bourdain's [b:Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|33313|Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly|Anthony Bourdain|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388175950s/33313.jpg|4219]. But for those who like cooking and food memoirs (of which I am one), this was an enjoyable read, and parts were very good. (Not quite on the level of Marcus Samuelsson's [b:Yes, Chef: A Memoir|13069213|Yes, Chef A Memoir|Marcus Samuelsson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329368167s/13069213.jpg|18329805], but still, very good.)

Nonetheless, I was forced to give it three stars because of the wholly gratuitous squickiness of the following passage:

You gently lay the cheese in the middle of the desk and begin to undress it, slowly peeling away the wrappings to reveal a semihard mound with delicate curves and moon-white skin. To use your fingers would be uncivilized. You trace the tip of a knife across the surface in search of the right place to enter. In one swift motion, you pierce the rind and thrust into its insides. You draw the blade out, plunge in again. You bring the triangle to your lips. It melts when it enters your mouth. Your palate goes prone; gooseflesh stipples your neck.

It's a shame the editor didn't cut some of the ridiculous purple out of that prose. Or stop to ask whether it makes sense to say that your palate lies flat with its front facing down. (The front facing down part is important, because it's what distinguishes something prone from something supine.) Sounds like the author thinks prone means "still"--and that's a mistake that shouldn't have made it to publication.

Originally posted at http://olduvaireads.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/weekend-cooking-sous-chef-by-michae...

You are the opening sous chef. You make the rounds. You do the prep. You get ready for the the dinner rush. You organise, dole out the jobs, you cook cook cook.

The ‘you’ is thrown around often enough that you get used to it.

The intention is to immerse the reader in this kitchen life. And it works.

You feel the stress of the job. The passion for cooking. The tension in the kitchen as the orders come in. It is a tough rough 24 hours in the life of a sous chef and that second person narrative constantly drives it into the reader. This is your job. You’re not just reading about it!

And while I’ve always had an inkling that life in the restaurant world is far from a walk in the park, I guess I never quite realised just how far from a stroll it all is. Instead it’s like those one crazy endurance races. The kind that goes on for hours.

Just the specials alone are an enormous task. Reading the list of specials, as a foodie, I could only go mmmm but it never occurred to me how much work would go into it. And a lot of it is about prep and distribution of the work.

Take the garnishes for example.

“They are relatively simple but require a fair amount of work. The ‘carrot’ on the monkfish, for example, refers to a carrot puree. The process is less obvious than making baby food. You have to cook the carrots under a cartouche in bay-and-juniper-scented carrot juice, which means that someone has to juice some carrots and chop up others. The ‘endive’ in that dish refers to a classically braised endive, but someone needs to halve them before they can be cooked. The beluga lentils are cooked, but they need to be inspected for quality. The tarragon needs to be picked for the compound butter,and the mise for the sapori forte needs to be cut. The potatoes need to be peeled and dressed. The potato dressing needs to be made. The boquerones sauce needs to be made. Herbs need to be picked. The line needs to be set. The carrots need to be pureed – but they’re not even cooked yet. They’re not even cut yet. There is so much to do, too much to do.”

And this happens every single day.

Sure the specials may change and so will some of the tasks, but I cannot get over how all this happens every single day that the restaurant is open. And worse – on the weekends, there’s a brunch service! What a high stress job!

It’s a complete learning experience.

From what food glue is, to what each kitchen staffer’s role is, to how a professional kitchen is planned out and run. And what monkfish is (its skin is like mucus apparently and its meat is not flakey but, well, meaty). And how a dish goes from fridge to line cook to sous chef to chef to back waiter to front of house to diner. And that velvet foots are mushrooms. And that a sous chef (at least a good one) needs to know “everything about everything that’s in every dish” because of dietary restrictions, allergens and all that.

Sous Chef was a whirlwind of a read. A great read for any foodie.

The reviews here have this one pegged pretty well -- great when it comes to conveying how it actually feels to work on the line, but flawed in other places. The problem of doing second-person POV is that, instead of making me feel more immersed in the narrative, it kept pulling me out as 1) I had to keep looking up the specialized vocabulary (it would've been nice if the e-book had hyperlinked words to their definitions and 2) I kept yelling at "me" about the stupid decisions being made about smoking, drinking, staying up too late, etc. Now if this was a Choose Your Own Adventure book, where you could see how your choices influence the running of the kitchen, then it would've been more enlightening and considerably less annoying.

I received this book through Early Reviewers. This was an awesome book of the day in the life of a sous chef. It's also written where you are the sous chef and you can literally feel yourself in the kitchen cooking, getting in trouble, etc. I'm amazed with all the cooking books I've read so far that I keep learning something new about the kitchen every time I read a new cooking book.

For the rest of the review, visit my blog at: http://angelofmine1974.livejournal.com/87497.html

Overall I enjoyed this book, but with some reservations. I think the structure was great and I learned a lot, even if the writing style got in my way every once in awhile. If you are a fan of the hot dog professional chef lifestyle, then don't miss this one. If you just like cooking and eating normal food without a lot of French words and machismo, then this might not be the book for you.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2015/03/sous-chef-24-hours-on-line-by-michael.html ]

I listened to the audio. It was quick and undemanding, and slightly informative. I did not enjoy the reader. He sounded like a young Casey Kasem, and that was totally wrong for the book. I think they went that way because the book is written in second person and the sportscaster-ish voice gave in a "you are there" sort of feel, but given the content the voice did not work. Rather than sucking you in, it created more distance. I didn't mind the second person device, but I didn't really want to be the person doing all those self-harming and selfish things, so I might have been happier with a proper narrator.

As for content, for we foodies who have not worked fine dining it let us in on a few interesting facts but overall I found it sort of boring. I understand that the writer wanted to give us the warts and all experience, but his approach sapped all of the fun out of the story. It was kind of like working a tough 18 hour shift, and I already know what that feels like. It was not all that edifying and not entertaining. If you want to know what working in a fine dining kitchen is like because you are considering it as a career, you should read this. Consider it like a textbook. If you want a fun glimpse behind the curtain, stick with Bourdain.

A gritty, enlightening account of a day in the life of a New York sous chef. You will never view your high end restaurant meal in the same way again.

I received this book as part of the Early Readers program. The life of a sous chef is not easy as anyone who has ever worked in the restaurant industry can tell you. Michael Gibney does a wonderful job of walking his readers through a 24 hour period in the life he lived as a sous chef.

While the book is fictionalized and melds several positions together, the basic facts of the story ring true. From early morning to late night, there is a great deal of work that takes place in a high end restaurant--most of it under the supervision, not of the chef, but the sous chef.

As another reviewer said, "I wouldn't last a day in his world." More than anything else, this book peels back the veneer of high end restaurants and allows the reader to see what it truly takes to put that award winning meal down in front of a diner. I would easily recommend this book to anyone who has ever thought the work of a chef or sous chef or waiter or any other position in a restaurant is one of glory and prestige. What is really is is a great deal of work.

My blog post about this book is at this link.½

24 hours in the life of a sous chef. This is a small, cloistered world where it takes years to reach the top. The author is nearing that peak, and this describes in great technical detail a day in the life of his profession. I haven't personally cooked in a restaurant kitchen of this caliber, but have cooked dinners for large groups for years. I wouldn't last a day in his world. I understand his exhaustion, and his exhilaration as well. When I began the book I thought this would be a sterilized version of one of Bourdain's books, but it showed the problems as well as the teamwork with all the warts. You find out why so many kids go into culinary arts programs, but so many also leave. Not an easy business. I'd recommend this book for anyone who wants to peak inside their favorite restaurant's kitchen, or someone thinking of getting into the business at this level.

SousChef provides a fascinating, second person view of the behind the scenes function of a restaurant. The controlled, hectic pace of the kitchen that the author describes is very interesting.½

Having watched an enormous number of Food Channel shows over the years, this book was not completely surprising but by using an example of only one day, there is an incredible amount of detail----all of which made me really and truly wonder how anyone winds up in the restaurant profession. It sounds just plain brutal and then what happens? Getting drunk and smoking cigarettes is so much a part of the picture. In many ways, the customer has absolutely no idea what is coming out of the kitchen, no matter how high-minded Gibney makes it sound in terms of the commitment of the kitchen to "feed people."

A behind the scenes look at the frenetic life of a kitchen in a top-rated restaurant. Given more immediacy written in the second person, SousChef drops you down into the midst of controlled chaos. Deliciously dishy, with just enough technical terms to make you feel a part of that world. (Happily, an appendix provides ample definitions for the novice.) Not quite as raw as Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. A remedy for those demanding eaters who take for granted the wonders appearing before them. I enjoyed the book thoroughly. Gibney possesses an MFA in addition to solid cooking credentials. He's accomplished a lot for his relative youth. Then again, a professional kitchen is clearly a young person's game! If you are a fan of Buford's Heat or Hamilton's Blood, Butter & Bones, SousChef will make a fine addition to the bookshelf.