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Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love, and Death in the Kitchen
THE GRIT AND GLORY OF RESTAURANT LIFE, AS TOLD BY A SURVIVOR OF KITCHENS ACROSS AMERICA Cooking Dirty is a rollicking account of life €œon the line€ in the restaurants, far from culinary school, cable TV, and the Michelin Guide€”where most of us eat out most of the time. It takes the kitchen memoir to a rough and reckless place. From his first job scraping trays at a pizzeria at age fifteen, Jason Sheehan worked on the line at all kinds of a French colonial and an all-night diner, a crab shack just off the interstate and a fusion restaurant in a former hair salon. Restaurant work, as he describes it in exuberant, sparkling prose, is a way of life in which €œyour whole universe becomes a small, hot steel box filled with knives and meat and fire.€ The kitchen crew is a fraternity with its own cigarettes in the walk-in freezer, sex in the basement, the wartime urgency of the dinner rush. Cooking is a s
355 pages, Hardcover
First published June 23, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
May 3, 2019
What a rollicking adventure in the kitchens! Sheehan does write similar to Bourdain but I truly believe it because they tell it like it is. The culinary world is anything but glamorous. It's a shite storm most of the time and in Cooking Dirty, it's the god-honest truth. I tip my whisk to you, Sheehan. From one retired chef to another.
My Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Mr. N
My Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Mr. N
March 26, 2020
Anthony Bourdain gave the world a lot, including opening the doors for writers like Jason Sheehan. On the surface, their stories are similar - both came up in the hard world of kitchens and lived a sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle, and both left professional cooking to about food.
But really, their stories are quite different. Sheehan strikes just the right balance between swagger and searing honesty here. He never lies, exactly, but he's a great storyteller. I have no doubt many of the people he worked with were colorful, but they're all larger than life in this book. But when he talks about himself, and his struggles with drugs, impulsive behaviour and other bad choices, he lays it all on the line. He's charmingly self-deprecating about his entry into professional food writing, and talks about how it's not about writing about food, but telling the story of yourself and the food you ate.
And speaking of storytelling, his writing is vivid and engrossing. My favourite chapter was his account of a full shift at an all night diner. He takes us through prep, his oddball coworkers, and the middle of the night rush from a line dancing bar across the street. I felt like I was there, and could reach out and flip an egg on the flat top if I wanted and feel the shimmering heat from the burners.
If you like food and cooking memoirs, definitely pick this up. Sheehan is by turns confiding and a raconteur, and always hilarious.
But really, their stories are quite different. Sheehan strikes just the right balance between swagger and searing honesty here. He never lies, exactly, but he's a great storyteller. I have no doubt many of the people he worked with were colorful, but they're all larger than life in this book. But when he talks about himself, and his struggles with drugs, impulsive behaviour and other bad choices, he lays it all on the line. He's charmingly self-deprecating about his entry into professional food writing, and talks about how it's not about writing about food, but telling the story of yourself and the food you ate.
And speaking of storytelling, his writing is vivid and engrossing. My favourite chapter was his account of a full shift at an all night diner. He takes us through prep, his oddball coworkers, and the middle of the night rush from a line dancing bar across the street. I felt like I was there, and could reach out and flip an egg on the flat top if I wanted and feel the shimmering heat from the burners.
If you like food and cooking memoirs, definitely pick this up. Sheehan is by turns confiding and a raconteur, and always hilarious.
August 27, 2014
Thank goodness Sheehan acknowledged his writing is very similar to Anthony Bourdain (whom I've read a lot of), because at first it comes off like he is just riding the coattails of Bourdain and doing a little copy cat plagiarism type stuff. But, as you read through this book Sheehan's narrative and writing style soon become strikingly different. I can't help but compare this book to Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. They are both brash, cuss filled, memoirs of kitchen life that highlight the worst possible things that happen behind the scenes of a restaurant. Similar topics include disgusting food handling, drug/alcohol addiction, workplace violence, harsh work conditions, injuries, and just the terrible lifestyle choices that seem to be common place in every kitchen. Even though the topics are almost identical Sheehan's writing is much more personal. He gives us a glimpse into his soul; raw emotions, motivations, passions, and vivid descriptions of his deepest thoughts. He clearly articulated his highest ups and his lowest lows, which I found extremely interesting. His lifestyle, and it appears the lifestyle of almost all cooks, is so far removed from my 9-5 suburban family man life that it is hard to imagine, yet, intriguing to read about. Sheehan explains it all in such a fun and insightful way. Sometimes he is sarcastic and pokes fun at the crazy life he lived, and sometimes he is serious and lays out some heavy stuff. Both styles made me want to keep reading.
Sheehan takes us from the beginning where he stumbled into a dishwasher job, worked his way through the ranks, failed time and time again, then finally burnt out and moved onto food writing. He lets us in the backdoor the restaurant and shows us the strange world that few know about. He writes about the pirate mentality of the kitchen, the comparisons to war and the battlegrounds, the machoism, and the insular world of restaurant workers. He brings up the paradox of how when he was cooking he was so passionate and alive, yet at the same time despised the toll it was taking on his life. Once you get caught up in the work there is no other life outside the kitchen. I found it a bit surprising, and sad, that for a decade or more Sheehan seemed to have only dysfunctional relationships with everything and everyone (his job, his girlfriends, his family) due to the demands and lifestyle of a cook.
Finishing up this book I'm left with a greater insight (and respect) for those who work the grills and fryers of every restaurant. How it does take a different sort of character to work the odd hours and every holiday that most of us take for granted. It also leaves me with a guilty feeling that I do not want my children going into the 'food services' industry and be caught up in the strange (and very unhealthy) lifestyle that seems to go along with it. However, I would encourage them to read about it and would even buy them this book.
http://bookwormsfeastofbooks.blogspot...
Sheehan takes us from the beginning where he stumbled into a dishwasher job, worked his way through the ranks, failed time and time again, then finally burnt out and moved onto food writing. He lets us in the backdoor the restaurant and shows us the strange world that few know about. He writes about the pirate mentality of the kitchen, the comparisons to war and the battlegrounds, the machoism, and the insular world of restaurant workers. He brings up the paradox of how when he was cooking he was so passionate and alive, yet at the same time despised the toll it was taking on his life. Once you get caught up in the work there is no other life outside the kitchen. I found it a bit surprising, and sad, that for a decade or more Sheehan seemed to have only dysfunctional relationships with everything and everyone (his job, his girlfriends, his family) due to the demands and lifestyle of a cook.
Finishing up this book I'm left with a greater insight (and respect) for those who work the grills and fryers of every restaurant. How it does take a different sort of character to work the odd hours and every holiday that most of us take for granted. It also leaves me with a guilty feeling that I do not want my children going into the 'food services' industry and be caught up in the strange (and very unhealthy) lifestyle that seems to go along with it. However, I would encourage them to read about it and would even buy them this book.
http://bookwormsfeastofbooks.blogspot...
October 24, 2009
"Chefs are the new rock stars" is a catchphrase that gains velocity every time Andrew Zimmern plugs his mouth with an obscure, barely dead mollusk or the broiled sex organs of an animal unique to New Zealand. The cast of "America's Next Top Chef" is a limping gallery of jail house tattoos, stealing pulls off a bottle of cooking sherry in the aftermath of a challenge. Walk through the alley of a city's restaurant district, and you'll find upward of three suspect-looking dudes in dirty whites parked near a reeking dumpster mawing on the end of a Marlboro Red.
In Jason Sheehan's food memoir "Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen," the kitchen grunt turned writer sets out to present an honest look at what happens behind those swinging diner door. If Sheehan was a rock star in his former life -- which started as a dishwasher at a pizza joint, and spanned hotel dining rooms, the Waffle House, Irish Pubs, and all-night eateries between Rochester, New York and Tampa -- he was the sort of ill-behaved rock star who urinated on the plants in the lobby and stubbed cigarettes on the bony ass of a barely legal groupie.
Dude was a bad ass, now removed from the bad assery with a few stories to tell -- thousands of years worth, by his own math.
There is the time he defrosted a dinner's supply of fish with hot water from the power sprays. The time another guy on the line accidentally dipped his hands in the deep fryer, burning them so badly that he didn't even feel it for a second. Meanwhile, his flesh dripped off his bones. No, wait, that was the burned rubber from the gloves he was wearing. Sheehan finds a bit of tooth embedded in his knuckle after a fight. He wakes up on the floor of a kitchen to find his friend aggressively hitting a version of third base with a hostess from down the street. She's perched on Sheehan's cutting board.
Drug deals in the parking lot, tenuous mafia-like connections, black out binge drinking, and longterm relationships with women who might turn his own chef's knives on him in the middle of the night.
This is some wild shit.
Sheehan writes paragraphs exactly like one would expect from someone who digs hot fires, sharp knives and cross country drives in a clunker, with little spare cash. He's a guy without a recipe. That is to say, he writes like a thrill seeker with ADD, who spits the eff word like he has Tourettes. It's pretty raw and undisciplined with bits of repetition and scattered time lines.
But that is part of what makes it awesome: The lack of convention, and a story that hasn't been sifted and refined with the globby chunks discarded.
Side note: I had a hard time linking cover art and story to the man in the author's photo. He paints himself as a long hair in soiled garments in both. The back flap features a photo of a guy who looks remarkably like the character Ryan "Chino" Atwood from "The O.C."
Whatever. That's between Sheehan and his god.
In Jason Sheehan's food memoir "Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen," the kitchen grunt turned writer sets out to present an honest look at what happens behind those swinging diner door. If Sheehan was a rock star in his former life -- which started as a dishwasher at a pizza joint, and spanned hotel dining rooms, the Waffle House, Irish Pubs, and all-night eateries between Rochester, New York and Tampa -- he was the sort of ill-behaved rock star who urinated on the plants in the lobby and stubbed cigarettes on the bony ass of a barely legal groupie.
Dude was a bad ass, now removed from the bad assery with a few stories to tell -- thousands of years worth, by his own math.
There is the time he defrosted a dinner's supply of fish with hot water from the power sprays. The time another guy on the line accidentally dipped his hands in the deep fryer, burning them so badly that he didn't even feel it for a second. Meanwhile, his flesh dripped off his bones. No, wait, that was the burned rubber from the gloves he was wearing. Sheehan finds a bit of tooth embedded in his knuckle after a fight. He wakes up on the floor of a kitchen to find his friend aggressively hitting a version of third base with a hostess from down the street. She's perched on Sheehan's cutting board.
Drug deals in the parking lot, tenuous mafia-like connections, black out binge drinking, and longterm relationships with women who might turn his own chef's knives on him in the middle of the night.
This is some wild shit.
Sheehan writes paragraphs exactly like one would expect from someone who digs hot fires, sharp knives and cross country drives in a clunker, with little spare cash. He's a guy without a recipe. That is to say, he writes like a thrill seeker with ADD, who spits the eff word like he has Tourettes. It's pretty raw and undisciplined with bits of repetition and scattered time lines.
But that is part of what makes it awesome: The lack of convention, and a story that hasn't been sifted and refined with the globby chunks discarded.
Side note: I had a hard time linking cover art and story to the man in the author's photo. He paints himself as a long hair in soiled garments in both. The back flap features a photo of a guy who looks remarkably like the character Ryan "Chino" Atwood from "The O.C."
Whatever. That's between Sheehan and his god.
November 30, 2010
Comparisons to Anthony Bourdain are inevitable, and in fact Sheehan acknowledges his debt to Bourdain repeatedly for paving the way for his approach to writing about restaurants. I have enjoyed Sheehan's restaurant reviews in Denver's weekly Westword for several years. He invites the reader into his life, informs the reviews with his years of kitchen experience, and has a knack for clever turns of phrase and fascinating detours/digressions. He often leaves me wondering "where is he going with this story?" only to bring everything back around by the end of a review.
In Cooking Dirty, Sheehan provides a grittier, more blue-collar/service industry/working class perspective on food, cooking and the restaurant world than Bourdain. Full of testosterone and swearing and fire and knives and sex and injuries and addictions and passion, Sheehan's visions of the kitchen are both a love letter and a catalog of horrors. Sheehan keeps leaving and returning to the kitchen like a victim of an abusive relationship - he knows intellectually that it will hurt him over and over again, but he can't help but go back for more.
Full of hilarious moments and colorful kitchen slang like "making pancakes" (you'd never guess in a million years), the story is an enjoyable memoir. If I were editing the manuscript, I might have cut down on some of the repetition, particularly Sheehan's weirdly romanticized memories of his various substance abuse problems. But overall, Cooking Dirty is written with genuine passion, and the fact that Sheehan had so damn much fun in the kitchen makes his reminiscences fun to read as well.
In Cooking Dirty, Sheehan provides a grittier, more blue-collar/service industry/working class perspective on food, cooking and the restaurant world than Bourdain. Full of testosterone and swearing and fire and knives and sex and injuries and addictions and passion, Sheehan's visions of the kitchen are both a love letter and a catalog of horrors. Sheehan keeps leaving and returning to the kitchen like a victim of an abusive relationship - he knows intellectually that it will hurt him over and over again, but he can't help but go back for more.
Full of hilarious moments and colorful kitchen slang like "making pancakes" (you'd never guess in a million years), the story is an enjoyable memoir. If I were editing the manuscript, I might have cut down on some of the repetition, particularly Sheehan's weirdly romanticized memories of his various substance abuse problems. But overall, Cooking Dirty is written with genuine passion, and the fact that Sheehan had so damn much fun in the kitchen makes his reminiscences fun to read as well.
April 30, 2014
If Anthony Bourdain had a literary son it would be Sheehan. Sheehan does admit he owes a debt to Bourdain. The both have a swashbuckling chef mentality. They stomp into the kitchen, they don't always place nice, but they get the job done. They are pirates cutting a swath through the kitchen, working then drinking, and doing any available drugs.(If you need drugs just ask someone who works in the kitchen of a restaurant. Chances are they will know what and where and who has the best deals.) Once you become part of the line it is is like being part of a special club. When Sheehan leaves a job and is jobless he feels more than just the usual loss. He is out of the kitchen and its unique culture. Kitchen help are some unique individuals. They can be rude, crude, hungover, stoned, and general messes, but they take pride in their work. Sheehan got his start working scraping pans in a pizzeria when he was 15 and it started him working in kitchens for many years to come. He never worked in a fancy five star restaurant, but in the kitchens of dives,diners, a seafood place in Florida, which wins for worst workplace- 140 degree kitchen in Florida and cooking seafood. Intertwined with his restaurant work is his tempestous relationship with his girlfriend Sam(who unsurprisngly becomes his ex), Sheehan's quitting of drugs, and a health crisis that takes him out of the kitchen, but makes him a food writer. Just a great read- entertaining, and smart. Those looking for recipes and a culinary memoir where food saved someone- look else where. Those who want a rollicking portrait of what goes on behind the kitchen door- get reading!
August 9, 2009
Parts of this book were really interesting. Sheehan really brings to life how a kitchen operates, how lowly paid they generally are, how risky the job be in many of the crappy kitchens. But too much of the book is just plain boring ol' navel-gazing. I'm really not interested in how many drugs this guy took. In fact, it was boring. When his whole life falls to shit somewhere after Florida (when he's in his mid twenties), you don't have to be a doctor to figure out what was wrong with him. You smoke that much, you drink that much, you take that many kind of drugs, you work those hours...eventually your body is going to give up on you. It's really at that point that I began asking myself why I was meant to like this guy?? (Not sure why I hadn't asked it earlier).
If you write your autobiography in your mid-thirties (and that's essentially what this book is), you really do need to have changed the world in some astounding way or you need an ego the size of several basketballs. Why else would you think people would be interested in what you had to say?
This book was great when Sheehan was talking about kitchens, but just plain boring when he started talking about himself. I'd recommend reading about the first half, or at least up until when he moves to Florida. After that, the book, much like his life, takes a turn for the worse.
If you write your autobiography in your mid-thirties (and that's essentially what this book is), you really do need to have changed the world in some astounding way or you need an ego the size of several basketballs. Why else would you think people would be interested in what you had to say?
This book was great when Sheehan was talking about kitchens, but just plain boring when he started talking about himself. I'd recommend reading about the first half, or at least up until when he moves to Florida. After that, the book, much like his life, takes a turn for the worse.
October 15, 2009
I'm a sucker for this sort of story. I like Anthony Bourdain a lot. Apparently if someone sets out to freak people out about how disgusting and crazed it is in a restaurant kitchen, I am their target reader.
Like Bourdan, Sheehan enjoys portraying not only how horrible the kitchen is, but also how horrible he and everyone else is as well. In the hands of a lesser writer, this material--particularly the consumption of vast quantities of drugs and alcohol--would grow tiresome. But he's good at capturing both the magic and the nightmare of the lifestyle. While I totally got the appeal, I also had no desire to emulate his choices. And I'll also keep eating in restaurants--particularly as I don't usually dine in the types of places he describes in the most disgusting terms of all.
I also enjoyed his description of his transition from crazed chef to slightly-less-crazed married man and writer (winner of a James Beard award, no less). Here, his self-deprecation was both realistic and appealing. I do believe, as he describes, that in desperation, he somehow managed to stagger into a career that suited him perfectly.
Like Bourdan, Sheehan enjoys portraying not only how horrible the kitchen is, but also how horrible he and everyone else is as well. In the hands of a lesser writer, this material--particularly the consumption of vast quantities of drugs and alcohol--would grow tiresome. But he's good at capturing both the magic and the nightmare of the lifestyle. While I totally got the appeal, I also had no desire to emulate his choices. And I'll also keep eating in restaurants--particularly as I don't usually dine in the types of places he describes in the most disgusting terms of all.
I also enjoyed his description of his transition from crazed chef to slightly-less-crazed married man and writer (winner of a James Beard award, no less). Here, his self-deprecation was both realistic and appealing. I do believe, as he describes, that in desperation, he somehow managed to stagger into a career that suited him perfectly.
January 15, 2013
This is my favorite kind of book - one that gives you insight into a totally different way of life than mine.
Jason Sheehan is a Cook, mind you - not a Chef. There's a big difference. Cooks like Jason are the guys (almost always men) who crank out the burgers and the eggs over easy and the pizza day after day. They stand on their feet for 12 hours at a time. They cut themselves with knives and burn themselves with hot oil. They get hot and sweaty and swear at each other and, at times, punch pummel each other. They'll quit a job on any pretext whatsoever and know they can always get another one as their skills are in such demand. They do drugs and get drunk before, during and after work. They have to work so fast they get into that state of "Flow" that the U. of Chicago professor with the unpronounceable name writes about. They are tough guys whose hearts break when plates of food comes back uneaten.
Having read "Cooking Dirty", I have a huge appreciation for what they do and will never take my bowl of pasta for granted anymore.
Thanks, Cooks.
Jason Sheehan is a Cook, mind you - not a Chef. There's a big difference. Cooks like Jason are the guys (almost always men) who crank out the burgers and the eggs over easy and the pizza day after day. They stand on their feet for 12 hours at a time. They cut themselves with knives and burn themselves with hot oil. They get hot and sweaty and swear at each other and, at times, punch pummel each other. They'll quit a job on any pretext whatsoever and know they can always get another one as their skills are in such demand. They do drugs and get drunk before, during and after work. They have to work so fast they get into that state of "Flow" that the U. of Chicago professor with the unpronounceable name writes about. They are tough guys whose hearts break when plates of food comes back uneaten.
Having read "Cooking Dirty", I have a huge appreciation for what they do and will never take my bowl of pasta for granted anymore.
Thanks, Cooks.
July 22, 2010
"Cooking Dirty" appeared on the New Arrivals shelf at my college library, and I'll admit that I checked it out because of the cover and title. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the eloquent, captivating, and sometimes disgusting tale Sheehan spins about his rise in the chef profession. "Cooking Dirty" is peppered (no pun intended) with side-splitting anecdotes -- I couldn't keep from laughing when reading aloud several passages to my girlfriend. Sheehan makes your mouth water with descriptions of the dishes he's prepared over the years, and I was inspired to try out a few basic dishes myself. This is definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in a good laugh and a peek at what goes on behind the swinging doors that lead from the dining room to the kitchen of all your favorite restaurants.
June 29, 2013
What could have been another whiney, self-promoting diatribe turned out to be a humble, well-written coming of age story, as Sheehan matures in the kitchen, in his relationships, and as a food writer.
There's more of the kitchen management and logistics in Sheehan's work than I usually find in this genre, and it's fascinating to see the complexity of the work.
Delightful! and some vignettes are just hilarious! Sheehan well deserves his James Beard award, and I just hope that he's got another couple of books in him.
--Ashland Mystery
There's more of the kitchen management and logistics in Sheehan's work than I usually find in this genre, and it's fascinating to see the complexity of the work.
Delightful! and some vignettes are just hilarious! Sheehan well deserves his James Beard award, and I just hope that he's got another couple of books in him.
--Ashland Mystery
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July 3, 2009I just started reading again and this is the first. Just a prologue and one chapter in, and I am captured. It is well written and I am excited to get back to reading. More later...
December 2, 2011
Over and over and over again.......being a chef makes you a bad-ass. Everything else sucks. There....saved you the time. Oh, and he quit being a chef when he turned 30.
December 18, 2017
This kitchen memoir had a rollicking style that was engaging and easy to get caught up in. The only place I really stumbled was the three-page long transcription of a galley conversation conducted entirely in kitchen slang, which wasn't given all that much explanation; I felt like I was wading through it, so I skipped ahead until regular narration picked up again. If the point was simply that kitchen slang is a different language unintelligible to the uninitiated, yes, I take your point, did you really need three pages to make it?
However, as quick and compulsive a read as it was, I don't feel like I came away from it with any insight I haven't gotten from a dozen other foodie/chef/gourmet memoirs I've read. It feels harsh to dismiss someone's life experiences like that, but I already knew the culinary world is rife with drugs, alcohol, and sex, and reading Sheehan's somewhat glorifying account of them disturbed me a little. It isn't that he ever advises anyone to do drugs, or to work high or drunk, but more of the macho attitude that embraces the fact that not only did he do it, most of the people he knew did it, and they're also crazy bad-asses who will work through any amount of pain and injury not to let the guys in their kitchen down.
Even though I was already aware of that too, he went into such detail about both the attitude and so many injuries that it turned my stomach at times, because I've been looking at taking better care of myself, and if I chop off part of my finger on a dinner shift, I'm not taping it back on and finishing the night--I'm going to get proper medical care and then going home. Clearly I wouldn't hack it on the line, and I know that, but a certain derisiveness for even the most basic-self care permeates this work, and it's never truly challenged as negative.
However, as quick and compulsive a read as it was, I don't feel like I came away from it with any insight I haven't gotten from a dozen other foodie/chef/gourmet memoirs I've read. It feels harsh to dismiss someone's life experiences like that, but I already knew the culinary world is rife with drugs, alcohol, and sex, and reading Sheehan's somewhat glorifying account of them disturbed me a little. It isn't that he ever advises anyone to do drugs, or to work high or drunk, but more of the macho attitude that embraces the fact that not only did he do it, most of the people he knew did it, and they're also crazy bad-asses who will work through any amount of pain and injury not to let the guys in their kitchen down.
Even though I was already aware of that too, he went into such detail about both the attitude and so many injuries that it turned my stomach at times, because I've been looking at taking better care of myself, and if I chop off part of my finger on a dinner shift, I'm not taping it back on and finishing the night--I'm going to get proper medical care and then going home. Clearly I wouldn't hack it on the line, and I know that, but a certain derisiveness for even the most basic-self care permeates this work, and it's never truly challenged as negative.
July 8, 2017
I read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential a couple of years ago, and numerous food books and memoirs since. But I haven’t found anything that could match the fierce joy, fun, and truth of Bourdain’s book until I picked up Jason Sheehan’s Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love, and Death in the Kitchen. Unless you are familiar with Westword, an alternative newspaper from Denver or follow the Beard Awards for food writing closely, there’s no reason you should have heard of Sheehan. Sheehan would be the first to tell you that he wasn’t a chef. He was a cook...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
February 22, 2017
A real-life, brutal truths on a chef's journey in the culinary world, I would say.
A definite eye-opener for me, and also mind. The struggles and pains are not a joke. Working towards your passion in the cooking industry is definitely full of pain, scars not mentioning the emotional distress.
My first time reading a memoir/autobiography of someone that chose a career that is not so famous, at least then. Glad that I read this.
Although, it is just one man's journey in the cooking industry, but it set a benchmark for the rest of them.
I will never look at the people that cook me food in the F&B industry the same.
December 17, 2024
I enjoyed Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential [and his other books too, including his fiction] so I figured I would like this too. I was right. It doesnt seem like he cooked at the same level as Bourdain, but the story that he tells is more like what people we all know in the food industry are likely to go through. There's a lot of trauma, but this is still a good book to read if you want to know more about what your food in a restaurant goes through before it reaches your table.
March 5, 2020
I think I've read this before, but wasn't sure. Some parts seemed familiar, but much of it was new. Sheehan is a very entertaining writer. I really liked the fiction that he wrote and I loved his memoir. I felt many parallels between his profession life and mine. Fortunately, our person lives bare no resemblance to each other.
January 19, 2021
Interesting read. This wasn't the usual restaurant memoir. This guy really has a lot of problems that might have been caused by working in the restaurant industry, or magnified because he worked in the restaurant industry or none of the above: he's just effed up. I totally agree with him about stems on spinach leaves - trim those things off!
February 4, 2023
I love cooking/chef books. I'd have given this one half a star less if I could have but it was good enough to go up instead of down. The book started to drag about 3/4ths of the way through but picked up for the last chapters. But I'd definitely recommend this book to food-obsessed people.
January 13, 2021
boring. Didnt finish it.
July 25, 2022
too many convoluted stories. very difficult to read.
October 2, 2022
Just boring. I love food memoirs and I just couldn’t vibe with it.
September 4, 2024
Coarse & under-edited but well-written, gritty, hilarious culinary story w/heart & realism.
October 27, 2009
I always suspected that restaurant kitchens were staffed by the kind of people that work nights in hospitals. That is to say, oddballs, misfits, misanthropes, loners and losers, the kind of people that cover the bald spot on the back of their head with shoe polish or turn tricks for their second job. As a veteran of hundreds of night shifts in a big city hospital, I can attest to the fact that lots of night shift workers don't quite fit in with those more conventional and stable souls that labor during daylight.
Jason Seehan's book, Cooking Dirty, a memoir of his years working in restaurant kitchens confirmed my suspicion. His book is populated by that scary collection of hard working, hard fighting, drug addled, driven, talented, burnt, scarred and toughened chefs and cooks who prepare your meals when you go out to eat.
Cooking Dirty lays it all out -- the impossibly long hours, the exhausting work, the low pay and lack of job security, the freak outs, the tantrums, the fights, the dirty short cuts -- that make up the "high-stress, high-pressure business" of restaurant cooking, "heavily populated ...by egotistical perfectionists, knife-wielding manic-depressives, short-timers with often highly dubious histories and unstable sensualists of every stripe." Sheehan terms his own job experience "the screwheaded weirdness and zapped-out combat-zone chic of being a working cook."
I will admit that some of the narrative is a bit overheated. I doubt that the water in a chef's jacket actually boils, no matter how hot it gets in the kitchen. Nonetheless, that and other over-the-top observations provide an entertaining, if hyperbolic, description of what an overworked and overheated, pushed and pressured kitchen on the verge of being overwhelmed with orders, feels like. Perhaps some or much of this is known or suspected by some savy diners. Sheehan's true revelation, if there is any, is the reason why cooks put up with this life -- a combination of sheer love of the work, the satisfaction of performing under pressure, and the sense of comraderie among cooks. Sheehan calls the kitchen "a game preserve for the weird...with walls, protections, dikes against the inrush of reality...insulating and comforting and codddling to those on the inside."
Sheehan had lots of different cooking gigs, from diners, to pizza joints to corporate kitchens, pursuing a job path that wreaked havoc on his personal life and health. After flaming out, he improbably became a food critic and writer, good enough to win the prestigious James Beard award. In style and personality, he is a lot closer to Anthony Bourdain than Ruth Reischel. His stuff is gritty, real and good, maybe even a little bit more so than Bourdain's, but less finely crafted and insightful than Jonathan Gold's. Still, Cooking Dirty, is a wild ride through the kitchen, worth wading through a bit of purple prose.
Jason Seehan's book, Cooking Dirty, a memoir of his years working in restaurant kitchens confirmed my suspicion. His book is populated by that scary collection of hard working, hard fighting, drug addled, driven, talented, burnt, scarred and toughened chefs and cooks who prepare your meals when you go out to eat.
Cooking Dirty lays it all out -- the impossibly long hours, the exhausting work, the low pay and lack of job security, the freak outs, the tantrums, the fights, the dirty short cuts -- that make up the "high-stress, high-pressure business" of restaurant cooking, "heavily populated ...by egotistical perfectionists, knife-wielding manic-depressives, short-timers with often highly dubious histories and unstable sensualists of every stripe." Sheehan terms his own job experience "the screwheaded weirdness and zapped-out combat-zone chic of being a working cook."
I will admit that some of the narrative is a bit overheated. I doubt that the water in a chef's jacket actually boils, no matter how hot it gets in the kitchen. Nonetheless, that and other over-the-top observations provide an entertaining, if hyperbolic, description of what an overworked and overheated, pushed and pressured kitchen on the verge of being overwhelmed with orders, feels like. Perhaps some or much of this is known or suspected by some savy diners. Sheehan's true revelation, if there is any, is the reason why cooks put up with this life -- a combination of sheer love of the work, the satisfaction of performing under pressure, and the sense of comraderie among cooks. Sheehan calls the kitchen "a game preserve for the weird...with walls, protections, dikes against the inrush of reality...insulating and comforting and codddling to those on the inside."
Sheehan had lots of different cooking gigs, from diners, to pizza joints to corporate kitchens, pursuing a job path that wreaked havoc on his personal life and health. After flaming out, he improbably became a food critic and writer, good enough to win the prestigious James Beard award. In style and personality, he is a lot closer to Anthony Bourdain than Ruth Reischel. His stuff is gritty, real and good, maybe even a little bit more so than Bourdain's, but less finely crafted and insightful than Jonathan Gold's. Still, Cooking Dirty, is a wild ride through the kitchen, worth wading through a bit of purple prose.
July 30, 2009
Sheehan is a good writer. I've enjoyed his work as a restaurant critic for Denver's Westword for awhile and he's managed to take that edgy style of his and expand it into a full book.
This book chronicles his life working in kitchens--not famous ones, just regular ol' restaurants. At times, it got a bit redundant. I wanted to say, okay, we get it: cooking on a line during the rush is like going into battle and the guys who do it are tough. The book could have standed a bit of editing--too many similar stories about getting slammed during a dinner (or late night) rush. The book finishes with a little bit about how he got into food writing.
But all in all, I really enjoyed this book. The book will inevitably be compared to Bourdain's, but while that book is touted as an expose of the restaurant industry, this one is more of a memoir of how Sheehan has used and abused himself and turned out okay in the end.
And I'm wondering if the restaurant in the epilogue is Osteria Marco?
This book chronicles his life working in kitchens--not famous ones, just regular ol' restaurants. At times, it got a bit redundant. I wanted to say, okay, we get it: cooking on a line during the rush is like going into battle and the guys who do it are tough. The book could have standed a bit of editing--too many similar stories about getting slammed during a dinner (or late night) rush. The book finishes with a little bit about how he got into food writing.
But all in all, I really enjoyed this book. The book will inevitably be compared to Bourdain's, but while that book is touted as an expose of the restaurant industry, this one is more of a memoir of how Sheehan has used and abused himself and turned out okay in the end.
And I'm wondering if the restaurant in the epilogue is Osteria Marco?
July 29, 2009
I really liked Sheehan's perspective on kitchens and restaurants (particularly after just finishing a story by a captain at Per Se). His experience and style is similar to Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" but Sheehan's story feels more real somehow. Bourdain worked in some of the best restaurants in New York while Sheehan worked at all types of restaurants - fine dining, fish shacks, chains, mom and pop pizza joints and everything in between. If you've never worked in food service, you will have a much better appreciation for what goes on behind the kitchen doors. At times it felt a bit overly dramatic (how many cuss words can someone work into one sentence or even over edited as he skipped from place to place, year to year, but he probably doesn't want to reveal every detail of his life here. Regardless Sheehan is a gifted writer (James Beard winner) and his experiences with food - cooking and writing - are a good read!
February 24, 2011
Jason Sheehan captured audiences nationwide as the highly revered, contagious and confrontational 'Food Critic' for Denver's Westword magazine. His literary work for Westword was far removed from classical approaches; focused rather on the experiences that surround food more so than the cooking techniques and execution of local chefs and restaurants.
A few of my favorites pieces by him:
Mama's House - Eating Ethiopian Food with Denver's Ethiopian Population's Mother
http://www.westword.com/2006-01-05/di...
Sum More, Please - Super Star Review
http://www.westword.com/2006-04-06/di...
Oh, and Jason's book 'Cooking Dirty'? Well it picks up where his reviews left off or began, depending on when you were first introduced to his eclectic writing. Part life story, part humor, its a solid read and while it never fully captivated me there are enthralling chapters that make it worth reading.
A few of my favorites pieces by him:
Mama's House - Eating Ethiopian Food with Denver's Ethiopian Population's Mother
http://www.westword.com/2006-01-05/di...
Sum More, Please - Super Star Review
http://www.westword.com/2006-04-06/di...
Oh, and Jason's book 'Cooking Dirty'? Well it picks up where his reviews left off or began, depending on when you were first introduced to his eclectic writing. Part life story, part humor, its a solid read and while it never fully captivated me there are enthralling chapters that make it worth reading.
August 29, 2011
in "Cooking Dirty", Jason Sheehan digs into the same territory that Anthony Bourdain wrote about in his first book, "Kitchen Confidential", but it is a generation later, and if anything, the kitchens of America are even more violent, crazy, and disgusting than when Bourdain was working his way up the ranks. Sheehan sometimes goes over the top with his prose, but he gives an honest and open telling of his very erractic life and career, sharing intimate stories of his successes and failures in various (30+) kitchens and in life. If even 10% of what he writes is true, it is a freaking miracle that any of us who eat our regularly have not been killed by food poisoning or a lunatic dishwasher. The descriptions of the characters that populate the restaurant business, the lingo and the dishes are entertaining to anyone who enjoys cooking and eating. Lots of fun, laugh out loud funny all the way through.
September 27, 2012
Had never heard of Jason Sheehan before but I've enjoyed chef's autobiographies (Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsey) in the past and when I saw this one on Kindle for 99p I thought I would give it a go.
I quite enjoyed the start of the book where Sheehan describes how he got into cooking, by accident it seems and his early years working in a pizza parlour and a Chinese restaurant, that doubled as a gambling den and hosted the local swingers club. Both of which Sheehan indulged in. But then he goes on to describe working in a succession of restaurants, each apparently getting worse than the last, where he cooks, drinks, takes drugs and has sex until he eventually has a breakdown. After this he loses his muse for cooking and eventually becomes a food critic and writer.
There are some interesting and funny stories along the way but must admit I found it a bit repetitive and only just managed to stick it out to the end.
I quite enjoyed the start of the book where Sheehan describes how he got into cooking, by accident it seems and his early years working in a pizza parlour and a Chinese restaurant, that doubled as a gambling den and hosted the local swingers club. Both of which Sheehan indulged in. But then he goes on to describe working in a succession of restaurants, each apparently getting worse than the last, where he cooks, drinks, takes drugs and has sex until he eventually has a breakdown. After this he loses his muse for cooking and eventually becomes a food critic and writer.
There are some interesting and funny stories along the way but must admit I found it a bit repetitive and only just managed to stick it out to the end.
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