Over my recent travels I had some time to read – it’s so great to be a passenger rather than a driver. On the trip to and from Toronto I managed to breeze my way through two of famous food TV host Anthony Bourdain’s latest books, with mixed reviews.

In “The Nasty Bits”, he’s put together a series of quirky weird essays that span from career advice to bragging about luxury resot stays to scathing teardowns of Woody Harrelson. This is a chef who’s words are sharper than his knives, and it’s alternately hilarious and depressing to share his observations of the cooking industry. Definitely worth reading, although a lot of it is addressed directly to a professional cooking audience and not the broader audience at large.

Medium Raw, on the other hand, was a disappointment, at least in terms of underhanded provocation. His exceptional writing is still on display here, but as a follow up to his scathing bestseller “Kitchen Confidential” he basically apologizes, chapter after chapter, for all the nasty things he’s said in the past. I appreciate that he’s grown mellow with success and he has to work with a lot of the people he took pot shots at in previous books, but I think the apology to Rachel Ray was entirely unnecessary. And Jamie Oliver, who he skewered publicly in previous essays for all his “matey, mockney bullshit”, is back in his good graces for his charity work.

There’s a good mix of fascinating autobiography in this one – Anthony is a guy who’s struggled with a lot of demons, and some of his stories about his shady drug-addled past are really laid bare. I respect that he put all of that down on paper, and I imagine it was really tough to dredge it up. It makes for a really fascinating read. But don’t expect the sardonic nasty wit, until you hit the chapter “Alan Richman is a Douchbag”, which is somewhat incredible. I never want to cross this guy.