Amuse Bouche

A controversial new book has sparked a backlash, prompting a store in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to abruptly rescind a speaking invitation to the author. Is it a racy Henry Miller-style novel? A political screed? A Howard Stern tell-all? No, the R-rated tome arousing concerns about obscene language and public decency is, of all things, a cookbook.

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But Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is not your average cooking manual. Bourdain, never one to hold back, once referred to vegetarians as "the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit." The book is written in the same brusque...