Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain

In his glittering journey from journeyman cook to globe-trotting professional eater and drinker, Anthony Bourdain found himself holed up in the Caribbean, driving drunk over unlit golf courses and along cliffs edges. Something had to change- both for him, and in the world of food and dining. Shuttling between Bourdain's bad old days and his present, Medium Raw is a gloriously freewheeling investigation of those changes, as he investigates - and confesses, rants and interrogates, with typical Bourdain brilliance- some of the most controversial figures in food, returning time and again to the only two questions that matter: why cook? And why cook well? From a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs he compares to a Mafia summit to rhapsodies over the perfect bowl of pho, Medium Raw cuts to the bone with its razor-sharp wit, rage and sheer appetite.