Secret Ingredients

Anthony Bourdain is an asshole. The fantastic writing found in Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, though incredibly entertaining, could not hide the snobby jerk behind the pen. In Secret Ingredients, however, his article was the only one that I could stand reading. Having worked in a restaurant, Bourdain's article, "Don't Eat Before Reading This" made me laugh out loud, while the other articles came off as snooty and stuck up (although I guess that's what I should have expected reading something published by the New Yorker). The French words were overwhelming and the characters seemed unreal. Who flies to France to eat at a restaurant? No one I know. Yet plenty of people work at restaurants, and even more people eat at them. The audience for most of the reviews in the New Yorker's Secret Ingredients was a group of people with whom I spend little time. And furthermore, who could care about restaurant reviews after reading Omnivore's Dilemma, anyway? It all seems so pointless.