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Art Of Living According To Joe Beef: A Cookbook Of Sorts (2014)

by David McMillan(Favorite Author)

4.32 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

129916398X (ISBN13: 9781299163980)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Ten Speed Press

review 1: I didn't check this out for the recipes, so perhaps I am not this book's ideal reader - I was more interested in the writers' anecdotes about Montreal and building their dream restaurant(s) there. I found their style of writing too affected and self-consciously wacky to really enjoy (and intentionally or not, very reminiscent of David Chang) - so while they're probably nice enough people to talk to (and to have cook for you), they're a bit too irritating to spend much time with in print.The pictures are beautiful, though.
review 2: I really wanted to like this cookbook but I just don't get it. Maybe I have to be Canadian. Maybe I have to be interested more in cuts of meat like rabbit and horse and other pets. Why not dog? Cat? Hey if it's meat these cheffie ty... morepes think it's some kind of cool thing to eat it.There was not one recipe in this cookbook that interested me. They said it was French food but I don't know French people who will batter and deep fry foie gras and serve it like the KFC monstrosity the "double-down" and then pour maple syrup on it. Yes, it's as gross as that sounds but not nearly as bad as the horse steak.No one in this country (unless they are sickos) is going to be eating a freaking horse and to be fair they say so in the book but I guess they think it makes them hipper than everyone in the US who loves their horses and other pets and won't eat them. Horses are not raised to be food (not even in Canada)so yes that does mean when they get horse meat they are eating a poor creature that met a terrible and undignified end. As a horse owner and lover of horses, when I came upon this recipe I just went - ok - that's it for me. They lost me. As I continued to read the book I found the chefs David and Fred even more insufferable with every page.I don't think people who drink excessively are cool (especially anyone over the age of 23). I don't think people who have no regard for health and don't respect their customers are groovy and fun. I'm just not into having some dude who is big as a grizzly bear swearing at me or having some waitress tell me that the restaurant may not be right for me because they don't have printed menus and I have to read the menu off the chalkboard.I find all of that pretentious. And comments from David Chang from momofuku only reinforced this opinion in the Forward of the book. I guess he likes to eat and drink excessively (and from looking at these fat guys that's easy to pick up on) but that's not how I enjoy my life or my food.It's all trying to hard. The fact that David Chang says its NOT trying too hard means it is. Saying the guys (David & Fred) don't want to work (they make a point of saying they only want to work three or four days a week, I guess so they can be drunk the rest of the time - hell all the time, they drink at work)is a way of being all so above it all. They disisn't have a have a decorator for the restaurant (and it looks it), they have a bison head in the bathroom with a remote control fart machine that they use when people go in there. Yeah, ok, that sounds like forty year old frat boys. But the food is what really turned me off. It's ugly and cooked to death if it's cooked at all. It's meat, meat, meat with a side of meat. It's foie gras and maple syrup. Foie gras and everything practically. Bone marrow and foie gras and horse and the Easter Bunny and everything that you ever thought was charming and gentle and sweet and cute ending up dead and bloody on your plate. And when your stomach is turning they offer you a "sausage martini" with a Vienna sausage in it. Excuse me while I hurl. I don't want to drink meat.I cannot imagine eating at Joe Beef and their so called "Art of Living" sounds like nothing more than being drunk, fat, rude, liking trains and eating anything that can be thrown on a plate.I'm no hippie vegetarian (though I was once so let that color the pot-shots fans of this book and place will take at me)but this is not the way I am ever going to cook (building my own smoker? for real? why I can't I buy one? does it make me cooler and more hip to build one? let me get out my welder - I so want to be like them - will I have to be drunk too?) and I do not want to join the meat club that includes eating pets.I'm returning this to Amazon, I disliked it that much. I was really interested because I like some of the food that David Chang has at momofuku and he said this was his favorite restaurant. Obviously he's into this hip-chef-rude-guy thing (like mentioning in his Forward how "hot" all the servers at Joe Beef are - excuse me, grow the hell up - you don't have servers in NYC that are hot? You don't surf internet porn like every guy in the world? What exactly does this have to do with the food and restaurant? That some porky married guys (fathers in fact) hired some hotties like all places in urban areas do, duh.)You know the funny thing is I think there are only five or six recipes for beef in the whole freaking cookbook at a place called "Joe Beef" (it is named after a real person who had a tavern in Montreal in the 19th century). I mean WTF? Where's the beef?I found some of the stories somewhat interesting but don't need them in a cookbook. I don't care about the chefs interests. So they like trains. They like to drink. The Irish fattie wants to pour wine into his eyeballs. They like flea markets. (I know they are married to women but they sound like a couple - antiquing and wine-tasting weekend anyone?) Whatever. The food is ugly, gross and ridiculous.The entire experience made me want to eat salad and to curl up with my cat. Not to eat her. less

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