In the cramped, steamy kitchen of Babbo, he was expected to operate efficiently from the onset. Buford's description of his culinary activities at home ("chaotic, late, messy") will chime with many who get the urge to perform on the range. His research rapidly revealed the yawning gulf between the enthusiastic amateur cook and a professional kitchen. This unlikely shift came about when he decided to write a profile of the restaurant's chef/patron Mario Batali, a Rabelaisian figure renowned for both his TV appearances and his appetites (he has been known to drink his way through half a case of wine over dinner).īatali agreed to take on Buford as a "kitchen slave". After 24 years as a top-flight editor, first with Granta then The New Yorker, Bill Buford started working in the kitchen of Babbo, a fashionable Italian restaurant in Manhattan. As career moves go, only Arthur Rimbaud's decision to become an arms dealer in Africa is comparable.
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