It had been over a decade since Bourdain’s previous cookbook, Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook, when Appetites landed. The book excellently captures the chef-turned-culinary explorer’s enthusiasm for gutsy, full-flavored food as well as his blunt persona. (In the headnotes for his macaroni and cheese, he notes, “If you add truffle oil, which is made from a petroleum-based chemical additive and the crushed dreams of nineties culinary mediocrity, you should be punched in the kidneys”).

For some folks, this will simply be a culinary souvenir of a wildly popular figure. For those who look to cook, some recipes are quick and humble enough to provide weeknight dinner with a single stop at a neighborhood grocery; others are simple but draw on exotic pantry items such as Korean gochugaru powder; and a few others are ambitious, multipart recipes one might expect from a former restaurant chef.

There’s even a Thanksgiving menu—we’d show up for it!—that includes a three-day tactical plan.

In short, this is a book by a man who famously loved to eat and to cook and it promises a big payoff.

Color photographs throughout. Cloth.