Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress
by Debra Ginsberg
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Book Summary Information
Author: Debra GinsbergEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-07-31
ISBN: 0060932813
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress
Book Review: A Rare and Entertaining Insight
Summary: 5 Stars
WAITING is more than the chronicle some other reviewers make it out to be; more than a mere narrative of twenty years spent waiting tables. It's a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the restaurant business, from the perspective of the floor, of the people who come into direct contact with restaurant patrons.
In keeping with the backdrop, it does contain anecdotes about the business, insights into the personalities who bring food to the table, and even tips on how to be a better customer (and avoid possible retribution). I worked as a chef for several years and enjoyed reading Ginsberg's perspective from the other side of the pick-up window. I particularly liked her character descriptions.
But WAITING is a memoir in every sense of the word. Ginsberg talks of early loves, motherhood, and career ambitions. Although waiting tables is viewed by most people, waitresses included, as a temporary job rather than a career, as interim work when nothing better is available, Ginsberg views the activity as fulfilling in its own right. The title of the book is intentionally ambiguous.
As other reviewers have suggested, WAITING is a great complement to Anthony Bourdain's KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL. True, their writing styles are different; Ginsberg's is clean and comfortable. She's a natural story teller.
I couldn't put the book down. It reveals a slice of American life and culture that should interest everyone.
Summary of Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress
A veteran waitress dishes up a spicy and robust account of life as it really exists behind kitchen doors.
Part memoir, part social commentary, part guide to how to behave when dining out, Debra Ginsberg's book takes readers on her twentyyear journey as a waitress at a soap-operatic Italian restaurant, an exclusive five-star dining club, the dingiest of diners, and more. While chronicling her evolution as a writer, Ginsberg takes a behind-the-scenes look at restaurant life-revealing that yes, when pushed, a server will spit in food, and, no, that's not really decaf you're getting-and how most people in this business are in a constant state of waiting to do something else.
In a truly just world, everyone would have to wait tables for at least six months, just to know what it's like. Failing that, we have writer-waiter Debra Ginsberg's tasty memoir to remind us about life on the other side of those swinging doors. Horror stories? After 20 years of serving other people's food, she's got 'em--and being handed a drunk's vomit-soaked napkins certainly fits the bill. But even though she expresses the usual frustrations with bad tippers and control freaks, in the long run Ginsberg is anything but bitter. In fact, she recently left her publishing job to return to waiting tables, hooked on the freedom, spare time, and ready cash the lifestyle provides. Of course, there are other perks too. Sex thrives in the close quarters and steamy atmosphere of a typical restaurant (not to mention with the high-drama personalities who work there). Fans of Kitchen Confidential will be relieved to know there's as much bad behavior among the floor staff as there is in the back of the house. As in that book, Ginsberg also relates some eyebrow-raising tales about what can happen before your food gets to your table. (The moral here: "It really does pay to be nice to your server.") But Waiting is far more than just a sexual soap opera or a cautionary guide for dining out; it's also the story of one woman's coming of age, most of which just happens to take place while she's wearing an apron. During her tenure as a waitress, Ginsberg thrives as a single mother and comes into her own as a writer--and waiting (as she suggestively calls it) helps her do both. Most of us (including waiters) think of the profession as a stopgap, not a career, but what happens on the way to somewhere else, Ginsberg writes, is every bit as important as the final destination: "Perhaps the most valuable lesson I'd learned was that the act of waiting itself is an active one. That period of time between the anticipation and the beginning of life's events is when everything really happens--the time when actual living occurs." --Mary Park
Women Books
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