Back of the House
The Secret Life of a Restaurant
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Food writer and clinical psychologist Scott Haas wanted to know what went on inside the mind of a top chef—and what kind of emotional dynamics drove the fast-paced, intense interactions inside a great restaurant. To capture all the heat and hunger, he spent eighteen months immersed in the kitchen of James Beard Award-winner Tony Maws’ restaurant, Craigie on Main, in Boston. He became part of the family, experiencing the drama first-hand. Here, Haas exposes the inner life of a chef, what it takes to make food people crave, and how to achieve greatness in a world that demands more than passion and a sharp set of knives.
A lens into what motivates and inspires all chefs—including Thomas Keller, Andrew Carmellini, whose stories are also shared here—Back of the House will change the way you think about food—and about the complicated people who cook it and serve it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Adding another addition to the long line of books about restaurants, chefs, and chefs in their restaurants, Haas focuses on Tony Maws, the chef of Craigie on Main, a buzzy place in Cambridge, Mass., that specializes in "obviously offbeat" American cuisine "like pig's head and other odd ingredients." While Haas's book could educate (or warn) some readers about what happens in the kitchen apparently, a lot of yelling other books make the same point more vividly, such as Anthony Bourdain's now-classic Kitchen Confidential. Haas, a clinical psychologist, insists both on analyzing the chef and inserting himself unnecessarily into the book. The analysis drags the books down, but a sudden digression towards the end is worse: Haas visits New York and interviews several of his famous chef friends, including Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller. Both of these chefs are far more intriguing than Maws, and readers may find themselves disappointed to have to return to Boston and more psychoanalysis, rather than learn more from those culinary notables.
