The Devil in the Kitchen

I'm a fan of the gastronomic memoir genre, particularly Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" and Ruth Reichl's "Tender at the Bone," "Comfort Me With Apples," and "Garlic and Sapphires." So, I had high hopes for acclaimed British chef Marco Pierre White's "The Devil in the Kitchen," especially after reading the following jacket quote from Bourdain:

"Marco Pierre White was the original rock-star chef, the guy who all of us wanted to be. From the moment my chef pals and I got a look at his first cookbook and at photos of the Man Himself, in all his haggard, debauched-looking, obsessively driven glory - we dreamed of nothing more than to be just like him."

Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Sorely disappointed. Indeed, I couldn't bring myself to finish the last few chapters. White's account of his life behind the stove got off to a (semi) promising start, but then devolved into a trudge through "How I Earned Each Michelin Star and Nearly Worked Myself to Death in the Process." Bourdain came off as somewhat of an ass in Kitchen Confidential, but at least he was an entertaining ass, with plenty of fun, ribald tales to tell. Oddly, the descriptions of the dishes White prepared (and such descriptions were pretty sparse, far from Reichl's eat-off-the-page prose) mostly sounded unappetizing (perhaps because of my general aversion to organ meats).