It doesn’t take a savvy chef or a native New Yorker to enjoy Kitchen Confidential. While the setting and subject matter are unusual, anyone could get a kick out of this book. It is captivating and surprising with a funny-scary whiplash that has the same tasteful balance as the meals coming out of Bourdain’s kitchens. The chapters are like well-planned courses, each imparting its own flavor to the book.

Bourdain’s multifaceted approach to the culinary arts and the food business gives you a unique impression of the trade that you’d never catch a glimpse of as a simple patron of restaurants: He takes you through the trials of culinary school, the tense negotiations with food vendors, the pirate-like stealing of cooks from other restaurants, as well as a few things you probably didn’t want to know…

I will eat bread in restaurants, even if I know its been recycled off someone else’s table. The reuse of bread is an industry-wide practice… This doesn’t bother me and shouldn’t surprise you. Okay, maybe once in a while some tubercular hillbilly has been coughing and spraying in the general direction of that bread basket, or some tourist who’s just returned from a walking tour of the Wetlands of West Africa sneezes – you might find that prospect upsetting. But you might just as well avoid air travel, or subways, equally dodgy environments for airborne transmission of disease. Eat the bread.

Really? I was under the blissfully ignorant assumption that all of that delicious restaurant food was carefully made under carefully-abided health (and moral) standards.

How about hollandaise sauce? Not for me. Bacteria love hollandaise. And hollandaise, that delicate emulsion of egg yolks and clarified butter, must be held at a temperature not too hot nor too cold, lest it break when spooned over your poached eggs. Unfortunately, this lukewarm holding temperature is also the favorite environment for bacteria to copulate and reproduce in. Nobody I know has ever made hollandaise sauce to order… Equally disturbing is the likelihood that the butter used in the hollandaise is melted table butter, headed, clarified and strained to get out all the bread crumbs and cigarette butts. Butter is expensive, you know.

As alarming as these claims are, Bourdain explains them, justifies them, and even defends them. The books isn’t an exposé of the horrors of the kitchen, it’s more like a reality check. These restaurants are businesses with struggles, politics, strengths and shortcomings. I’d rather know the real story, and Bourdain is an amazingly eloquent writer for someone who’s spent decades flinging insults at degenerate line-cooks in a steamy, hectic kitchen. If his writing is this good, imagine his food…

The book was on the 2007 New York Times Bestseller list, and has earned consistently high marks from readers. Amazon gives it 5 stars.

James Cameron's "Avatar"

…And you thought Avatar was a hit…

Activision’s latest episode of its smash-hit series “Call of Duty” surpassed $1 billion on sales today, rivaling James Cameron’s decade-in-the-making film “Avatar.” Fans of Avatar consider the movie to be so phenomenal that it makes reality uninteresting, and even “depressing” by comparison. Apparently, judging from its sales, “Call of Duty” is just as popular.

What’s the big deal about “Call of Duty”? Well, if you weren’t already aware, “Call of Duty is a video game, not a movie, and rarely does a video game haul in $1 billion in just a few short months. Even World of Warcraft, an addictive, well-established, video game with nearly 12 million paying subscribers, is not making money as quickly as “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”

Strangely, the company that makes this wildly successful military sim (Activision) can’t seem to convince investors of the strength of its products; Activision’s stock price has fluttered around $10 per share despite having consistently successful game releases, and over $13 billion in cash reserves. In fact, after the latest “Call of Duty” game hit stores, Activision hauled in $550 million in the first five days. In terms of dollars spent, people bought “Call of Duty” faster than they bought Avatar tickets, Harry Potter books, or any other heavily anticipated release.

The fact that a top-shelf video game company’s standing can slump while it cranks out hit after hit is a testament to the fact that the general public simply isn’t ready to consider video games (and their releases) to be more than a sideshow designed for a subculture of college-aged males. But, whether the game is mainstream or not, and whether it appeals to everyone or just a few, it sold faster than those all-too-mainstream Harry Potter books, or those Avatar tickets that are now crumpled in the pockets of millions of moviegoers.

Like Avatar, Call of Duty has a rich, computer-rendered environment.

Consider this. Avatar was a (masterfully written) movie with beautiful scenery and classic good-versus-evil themes centered around a love story. Call of Duty is a gritty, violent game that basically drops you into the middle of a scene from Saving Private Ryan. Avatar, one could argue, appeals to a very broad audience, whereas Call of Duty is marketed narrowly at young males privileged enough to own a fast computer. Despite its tremendous success, I can’t help but wonder how much more successful Call of Duty would be if it somehow appealed to women, the middle-aged, and all of the other audiences that Avatar reached.

3D television caught the eye of all CES onlookers.

The timing for this announcement couldn’t have been better for these pioneer companies: Shortly before CES, James Cameron’s Avatar surpassed 1 billion in sales, proving that 3D technology was worth the expense for millions of consumers. In Las Vegas, the message was that this technology won’t just be for smash-hit films decades in the making. Clearly, 3D technology wasn’t just a viable possibility for the home theater; Channels were already underway to stream 24 hours per day of 3D content into any household with a basic cable subscription, and one of the latest 3D-ready television sets.

Sony, LG and Samsung were among those showcasing their new 3D TVs. These new displays require a pair of polarized glasses to view the content in 3D. Exponentially better than the old red-and-blue cardboard glasses punched out of magazines, these hi-tech 3D lenses display slightly different images to you left and right eyes, giving the illusion of depth to the content.

New, polarized 3D glasses. Slightly less dorky, exponentially more powerful.

Some of the more expensive models served 60 images to each eye per second, which makes for smooth motion, clear image and jaw-dropping picture depth. Those lucky enough to view these new displays witnessed characters, objects and effects literally leaping off the screen. Some viewers dodged baseballs that seemed to race out at them, while others flinched as hand grenades appeared to roll inches from their bodies and shower them with sparks and metal.

It seems that it’s no longer a matter of if 3D televisions will become to new standard, it’s only a matter of when. This begs the question: Will the new channels catalyze the sales of 3D displays, or will the screens be the factor that pulls us into the 3rd dimension?

I certainly don’t want to add to the overabundance of sales pitches disguised as helpful advice, so instead I’ll just share some objective diet and nutritional information that you might not have known. I certainly have no ‘miracle product’ for you; just a few points worth considering.

Calories

Not all calories are created equal. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Most dieters are obsessively counting calories, as if it’s the only way you can measure your food. They are focusing on the quantity of calories that they’re consuming, and ignoring the quality of the food itself. If you asked a typical dieter to choose between 200 calories of steamed vegetables  and a 200 calorie soda, they would make the (obvious) healthy choice with no hesitation. But, left on their own, a less-than-savvy dieter will seek some universal metric to measure their progress, and choose fewer calories over better calories.

Sometimes, the metric of choice is “grams of fat,” but the majority of new dieters focus on calories, and they develop tunnel-vision, ignoring all other health factors in their diet and exercise. Why do these dieters seek out these metrics as the end-all measurement for food? I believe it’s because they’ve been trained to do it. These careful eaters will read the standard nutrition labels that are required on every food product in the US. They trust that the information on the food packaging is the complete and total picture. The efforts of these new dieters are admirable, albeit misguided. Everything on the package besides the nutrition facts is pure marketing, and there’s much that the FDA-backed labels do not include, like glycemic index for example…

What is Glycemic Index?

Glycemic Index (GI) is essentially a measure of how quickly food is digested. To be more technical, it’s a measure of how quickly carbohydrates in the food are broken down and fed into your bloodstream. Food with a high GI will be absorbed quickly into the bloodstream, giving you a quick energy boost, and then leaving you tired and hungry way too soon. If you had eaten something that ‘fed’ your bloodstream more slowly and steadily, you’d enjoy lasting energy, and no premature food cravings. Have you ever seen a child eat a large amount of candy, run around like a maniac for 45 minutes, and then fall asleep? You are witnessing his blood sugar skyrocket and plummet after eating something with a very high GI.

Nutri-Grain Bars. They're meant to look and sound healthy, but they're mostly just corn syrup and processed flours, which gives them a very high GI.

Although it sounds fun, and we’d all enjoy a bout of temporary insanity followed by a nap, few of us have time for it. However, some people do it without even being aware of how it happened. Have you ever struggled through a drowsy afternoon after a large lunch? Yep, you’re on the roller coaster of rising and falling blood sugar levels, which greatly affects your energy and focus. Some call it a ‘food coma,’ which does a good enough job of describing how sharp and energetic you can be after your poorly-chosen meal. Food comas my be common, but you shouldn’t conclude that big meals or late meals cause them. Only unhealthy meals do. My advice? Choose your food carefully, avoiding sugary or processed foods. If you don’t watch your blood sugar now, you might have to later in life as a diabetic.

Would you ever want to eat something with a high GI? Only in very specific and rare situations. If you are a diabetic with very low blood sugar, yes. If you’re an athlete who is exhausted and needs to replenish their glycogen level before finishing their contest, yes. But, don’t consider the athlete or the diabetic too lucky; it doesn’t mean they get to have a candy bar or a pint of ice cream. There are naturally occurring foods with high glycemic indexes, and in both examples it would be better to eat potatoes or watermelon than Snickers or Twix. Sorry, if you want to be healthier, there’s really no scenario where it’s “good for you” to eat candy or junk foods. Gatorade was designed for the aforementioned athlete who feels depleted mid-workout. If you find yourself drinking a sports drink while you watch TV, understand that you’re drinking a beverage that has been designed to rocket your blood sugar as quickly as possible. I doubt you needed that ‘boost’ while relaxing on the couch, but you might not have known any better.

Portions and Eating Speed

In the US, obesity and its related diseases have ballooned (no pun intended) into a monstrous nationwide epidemic. It’s costing the country unthinkable amounts of money, and it’s no easy task to address this complex, multifaceted, heavily-politicized issue.

There have been all sorts of proposed solutions. Some of the suggestions involve pharmaceuticals, and some use the issue as fuel for the movement for health care reform. I’m not going to get into that. My suggestion is simple; have everyone try a true European meal.

In Europe, and most of the world outside the US for that matter, portion sizes are much smaller and eating is done at a slow, deliberate pace. Some particularly offendable Europeans would be appalled at both the size and eating pace of  an American meal. I imagine we are to the Europeans what competitive eaters are to us; awe-striking abominations of eating speed and power.

Takeru Kobayashi, competitive eater, can put down 1 hotdog and bun every 4 seconds. Ironically, he is not American.

In Italy, dinner is just as much of a social event as it is a dining event. It’s far more ceremonious that the average American dinner, and eating is done slowly over about 2 hours in between much conversation. This is a better way to eat dinner, not just because you can touch base with your family and friends, but because you won’t eat more food than your body truly wants: It takes 15 minutes for the stomach to signal to the brain that it’s full and sated. If you are at the Italian dinner table, your slow pace of eating has caused you to eat exactly as much as you wanted, if not a few bites more. But if those were 15 American minutes, you might have eaten an enormous amount of food that you were never hungry for. Entire American meals are eaten in 15 minutes, and if you make a habit of eating too fast for your body to tell you “stop,” you’ll obviously ingest thousands of calories per week that no part of you ever wanted. Plus, it would be hard to convince me that you enjoyed your meal. a full meal in 15 minutes doesn’t sound enjoyable to me, it sounds more like waterboarding torture with hollandaise sauce instead of water.

There’s no easy way to stick to your New Year’s resolutions, whether they be diet-related or not. The best thing you can do is remind yourself of the choices you’re making. Ideally, your resolution would be a smashing success, and you’d meet your goals unfettered. But, if you have a setback, I imagine you’d rather choose to break your diet or decide to have an unhealthy meal rather than unknowingly sabotaging yourself with food that you never knew was bad for you. Anyone could tell you to choose healthy food, I’m just telling you to know your choices.