(Sorry, I realize the image has nothing to do with the post outside sharing a name, but it was too excellent not to use. I’ll try to ensure pictures link up with text more fully in the future.)
Marco Pierre White’s cult classic cook book/porno mag has been re-released in softcover. After selling for triple digits on the used book market for years, the publishers decided maybe the time was right to cash in on some of the continued interest in this book. And what a book it is, it established MPW’s reputation to a large extent through the first half which present grainy black and white photos of him and his brigade hard at work. The second half of the book presents recipes which are somewhat dated especially in presentation. Everything is arranged in circles. Circles were the precursor to vertical apparently.
The recipes aren’t exactly something you are going to run out and cook, unless you employ a staff of at least two assistants and a full time washer. And the book features some of the ugliest plates known to man kind. So that’d be helpful if you run an ugly tableware blog. His word of wisdom are sprinkled through out the text, my favorite being in regards to the dessert Assiette of Chocolate;
This is disgusting; it’s a horrible dish. It’s vulgarity pure and simple. It’s a dish invented for suburbia; it should be called “Chocolate Suburbia.” Why do we serve it? Because we’re commercial. Because at the end of the day , you have to please the customer. And this does.
~KT
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Now, if only they would re-release Canteen Cuisine! I purchased White Heat years ago at the Book Warehouse for $10. But CC is going for over $135 used right now. Every once in a while you can find it for under $80. But I always miss my fleeting opportunity.