Learn to Write Compelling Prose From a Chef Turned Best-Selling Author

“An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.”

Early July, running my fingers across a stack of books turned makeshift paperweights, I grabbed a yellow spine with “Anthony Bourdain” printed in thin black ink.

Often, I’ll plow through a good book in two weeks. Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog was this way. So was Ogilvy on Advertising and The War of Art.

But Anthony Bourdain’s memoir Kitchen Confidential hit me like a ton of wet bricks. From the first sentence, I’ve been enchanted by this roller coaster of a story, praying the damn thing never comes down. And it’s taught me more about writing (and life) than any college course.

So, I can’t help but share a few of my favorite lines and lessons. Here’s what the legendary writer will teach you about creating beautiful, memorable prose.

Enjoy.

Set The Scene And Make It Interesting

A damn good opening establishes expectations for what’s to come. It builds a honeyed relationship with the reader, sticking with them long after they close the book.

Anthony Bourdain’s scene setting ability is stunning. He places you at the center of his world, leaving you sweaty and anxious as he navigates an intense job interview or feeling searing pain as he grabs a flesh melting sizzler platter with bare hands.

How to do it:

• “The only other sign that anyone had ever lived there was a lone chef’s jacket on a hanger in one of the closets — like an artifact, evidence of an ancient astronaut who’d been here before me.”
• “Who’s cooking your food anyway? What strange beasts lurk behind the kitchen doors? You see the chef: he’s the guy without the hat, with the clipboard under his arm, maybe his name stitched in Tuscan blue on his starched white chef’s coat next to those cotton Chinese buttons. But who’s actually cooking your food? Are they young, ambitious culinary school grads, putting in their time on the line until they get their shot at the Big Job? Probably not. If the chef is anything like me, the cooks are a dysfunctional, mercenary lot, fringe-dwellers motivated by money, the peculiar lifestyle of cooking and grim pride. They’re probably not even American.”
• “Burning with a desire for vengeance and vindication, I applied myself to gaining entry to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.”

Use Visual Language To Further Your Story

I used to set out on a white-hot, no fucks given path of metaphors, squeezing them into every nook and cranny of my writing. It’s an addicting habit that tends to alienate readers after a few sentences.

While Bourdain’s content has fun with wordplay, it isn’t abstract. You don’t need to be an accomplished chef to understand his experiences in the culinary underbelly.

He communicates his message clearly and effectively, weaving in heart-throbbing imagery to further the story — not replace it.

How to do it:

• “I can’t describe to you the sheer pleasure, the power of commanding that monstrous, fire-breathing iron and steel furnace, bumping the grill under the flames with my hip the way I’d seen Bobby and Jimmy do it.”
• “Then he raised his own enormous palms to me, brought them up real close so I could see them properly; the hideous constellation of water-filled blisters, angry red welts from grill marks, the old scars, the raw flesh where steam or hot fat had made the skin simply roll off. They looked like the claws of some monstrous science-fiction crustacean, knobby and calloused under wounds old and new.”
• “They’d let us practice our knife-work on whole legs of beef, my novice butcher classmates and me absolutely destroying thousands of pounds of meat; we were the culinary version of the Manson family.”

Mix Up Your Pacing

In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain routinely subverts expectations with masterful pacing.

Sometimes he’ll drag you down a deep dark rabbit hole. Other lines are short and quippy. They strike lightning quick like Muhammad Ali’s fist. It keeps his thoughts moving and prevents giant blocks of lazy text from disengaging readers.

How to do it:

• “Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime…Please, treat your garlic with respect…Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.”
• “Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever”
• “Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me . . . and others. This was valuable information.”

Don’t Be Afraid To Tell Your Truth

Bourdain is quick to admit how he treated the world as an “ash-tray.” His character is, at many times, sinful, swearing, stealing, and stomping on people’s emotional wellbeing.

In the gluttonous world of self-help content racing to out-righteous each other, Bourdain is a spattering of refreshment. He proves how interesting and relatable fractured humans can be. One who doesn’t always make the right decision, isn’t wealthy, and fucks up important moments.

Bourdain taught me that people read you…for you. For your opinion.

How to do it:

• “I do have a heart, you see. I’ve got plenty of heart. I’m a fucking sentimental guy — once you get to know me. Show me a hurt puppy, or a long-distance telephone service commercial, or a film retrospective of Ali fights or Lou Gehrig’s last speech and I’ll weep real tears. I am a bastard, when crossed, though, no question.”
• “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
• “An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.”

Put Craft At The Center Of Your World

Finally, I have to mention Bourdain’s utter devotion to the craft of cooking.

Like writers, cooks who show up everyday get their flowers after years of learning, refining, and evolving. Be the ultimate craftsman. Most success comes from structured repetition.

How to do it:

• “Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman — not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen — though not designed by them”
• “What most people don’t get about professional-level cooking is that it is not all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavours and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking — the real business of preparing the food you eat — is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way.

Parting Words

Bourdain had a pen full of pepper, writing unapologetic, unfiltered prose that everyone — from Michelin chefs to funnel cake dippers — get lost in to this day.

If you want the tools to write well, you need to read. And Anthony Bourdain is the mentor every nonfiction writer should study. Savor each lesson with a cheap pint in Bourdain’s honor. Let them seep into every crevice of your creative being. Sit with them.

Then, go write a sentence or two and tell me every word doesn’t flow out a little differently than before.

I hope you appreciate Kitchen Confidential as I have.

Psssst. It’s your conscious. Whatever you do, don’t click this link.