December 7, 2011, 3:57 PM |
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by Anthony Bourdain
What do Norah Jones, Christopher Walken, the band “ ****edUp”, Vegan Black Metal Chef, Sam Brown, nightmare of Eastern European folklore Krampus, the Catalonian Pooping Log, Dave Arnold, chefs Lidia Bastianich, April Bloomfield, Kurt Gutenbrunner, Eder Montero, Alexandra Raij, Carlos Llaguno Morales and the voices of Adam Richman and Andrew Zimmern have in common?
They all foolishly agreed to appear in our scandalous, dark, action-packed fever dream of a Holiday Show which airs this Monday, December 12th at 10PM—when, presumably, the kiddies will be asleep.
Frankly, I think it’s our finest (and most disturbing and deranged) hour yet, a holiday classic. The above artists were—all of them—heroically good humored and generous with their time. And I’d like to give particular thanks to Sam Brown—whose appearance is particularly fearless, frightening and so far from her “brand” as to make us all look like wussies. Thank you Sam. Never shall I make another snarky remark. You ****in’ rule. Now wash that mouth out with soap. Your language is appalling! Thanks Norah Jones for learning to sing scatological ditties in Catalan—and for all your work on the show. Christopher Walken. Now I can scratch a major item off my bucket list. And the rest of you…I am forever grateful.
Do NOT miss this. Christmas has never been stranger.
Posted By: hcho
August 28, 2011, 10:36 AM |
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I just got back from family vacation, where, for ten days, I violated all my rules and everything I’ve ever preached about how to travel. I stayed put. I rarely left the hotel grounds. I ate in the same two restaurants for most of my trip—rarely deviating from pasta, pizza and gelato. Though there was a lake a few hundred yards walk down, I never put so much as a toe in it—spending the bulk of my days instead, splashing around in the shallow end of the pool with a Barbie pail , an inflatable porpoise, and a relentlessly energetic 4 year old girl. It was marvelous. Continue reading: SOUTHERN COMFORT »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
August 18, 2011, 3:22 PM |
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In the end, we were all fine–as untouched and untroubled as we’d been before Iraq.
If anything changed, if there was a single takeaway from what we saw in Kurdistan and what we learned during three days of “Hazardous Environment Training” in what our British instructors called “Virginiastan”, it was the absolutely jaw-dropping realization of exactly how physically difficult it is for our military personnel on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.And I’m not talking about the fighting. I’m talking about just being there, moving about in regulation gear, training. the day-to-day. Watching on TV and in films, perhaps you realize intellectually that the standard issue body armor, with the ceramic plates weighs around 45 pounds, but until you actually wear the stuff, much less try and help carry the slippery dead weight of an unconscious man across broken ground, you have no idea. Add the additional burden of an M-16, ammunition, pack and gear, Kevlar helmut and you’re already humping about 95 pounds of additional weight through heat that, in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, reaches well over 110 degrees. The body armor doesn’t exactly breath. You’re running sweat within seconds–just standing still. Presumably, you are being trained to–at moment’s notice, hoist a similarly attired buddy over your shoulder and carry his weight as well. It’s damn near superhuman. And that’s before you’ve ever had to fire a shot in anger. In the back of your mind too, I came to find out, is the certain knowledge that none of this heavy armor–not the Kevlar vest, not the ceramic plates—and not the helmut–will protect you in the slightest from an AK-47 round. Nor will a cinderblock wall. A bullet from an AK, the most widely used weapon on the planet, will cut through all of it like cheddar. Continue reading: SAFETY FIRST »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
August 6, 2011, 7:34 PM |
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Dear Camille,
I hear you were very upset with me after seeing the promo for this show, which I filmed recently with your Daddy and his friends. You saw me take Daddy’s guitar and smash it against a tree and I’m sure that was upsetting. That this was in fact a not so subtle homage to the early works of John Landis and John Belushi is something you could have hardly been expected to know, ANIMAL HOUSE having been released long before you were born, and I apologize. Continue reading: DESERT SESSION: A Letter to Josh Homme’s Daughter »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
July 29, 2011, 10:02 AM |
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It all began with Ferran Adria in more ways than one. It was because he reached out to me in 2001, invited me to come see him (in spite of the fact that I had written unflatteringly of him in Kitchen Confidential) that my partnership with zero point zero production began. It was because he agreed to throw his life, his restaurant, his workshop and creative process open to our cameras that we began our first venture in independent television production. It was because of him–and Food Network’s lack of interest in an El Bulli show–that Chris Collins, Lydia Tenaglia and I went out on our own, reached into our pockets and funded that first bare bones trip to Spain to shoot what later became the film (and subsequent episode of No Reservations), “Decoding Ferran Adria”. It was Ferran, who, truth be told, became the impetus for our show, now in its 7th year. And it was Ferran who was responsible for my meeting Chef Jose Andres when he showed up at an early screening of the film as his US representative. I can well remember Jose standing up at the end of the film and announcing to the audience his approval. It was a very proud moment for me. In those days, when Jose’s mouth moved, it often seemed that Spain was speaking. That kind of generosity should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever known or worked with Ferran Adria or his brother, Albert. They have always shared, never clung jealously to their hard won creations. And once again, in spite of the world world banging at their door, looking to get one last meal, one last interview, one last meal at their legendary restaurant, once again, they opened their lives to me. Continue reading: A BEGINNING. AN END »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
July 22, 2011, 10:00 AM |
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Growing up in New Jersey back in the bad old days of American gastronomy, “Italian” food inevitably meant the same thing, wherever you found it: deep fried, breaded and pounded veal cutlets, swimming in red sauce with a raft of gluey semi-melted cheese on top, overcooked spaghetti, usually pre-prepared in large batches, rinsed of its starches in cold water, reheated and then indifferently topped with a ladle of the same red sauce as above. Enormous, bready meatballs, fragrant with dried oregano, baked ziti the consistency of caulking compound.. Continue reading: THE RED SAUCE TRAIL »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
July 11, 2011, 2:18 PM |
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Say what you want about Castro–(we CAN, after all, Cubans not so much)–he managed, through design or neglect, to keep Havana beautiful.
Run down, crumbling, many buildings barely habitable–even the national baseball team has to play during the day because their stadium lights are broken and the country is too poor to fix them. Where things barely work, where time is arrested, where a failed ideology wheezes along on life support long after its inventors and sponsors abandoned it–at least, at least Havana is un-****ed by time. Where Moscow and St Petersburg brim with newly uglified buildings, malls, and the old cookie cutter concrete blocks leftover from the workers’ paradise, Havana looks like a shabbier but still gorgeous version of its older self. When it all changes, as it surely shall, I hope Havana’s waterfront, the malecon, the old hotels, the facades, the Nacional, the Tropicana, the cars–they remain–at least in appearance and design–the same. I’d hate to see fast food signs, the boutique hotels, bottle service, frat bars and canary yellow Lamborginis of the douche side of Miami. When everybody’s wired and connected and chatting freely, watching 500 channels of cable and voting their minds, I hope the mojitos don’t start coming in sno-cone form, the old neighborhoods dug up for golf courses or water parks.
It’s easy, I know, to over-romanticize the unspoiled. Especially when “unspoiled” means “poor”. But look. Look.
Whatever your politics, however you feel about Cuba–look at tonight’s show and admit, at least, that Havana is beautiful. It is the most beautiful city of Latin America or the Caribbean. Look at the Cuban people and admit that they are proud and big hearted and funny and kind–and strong as hell, having put up with every variety of bullshit over the years. On these things, I hope we can agree.
Posted By: anthony bourdain
July 1, 2011, 10:16 AM |
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You can say that we are deliberately tackling a tired and well worn format for the sheer challenge of seeing if we can make it interesting and possibly even useful. We are well aware that many of the meals and experiences on No Reservations are, frankly, impossible to duplicate. The upcoming last meal at El Bulli show being a particularly extreme example. The crew and I got drunk one night and said, “hey, let’s make Samantha Brown’s show! Only….different…and good! ” unlike No Rez, you will actually be able to do the stuff covered on the show. And unlike other shows of the genre, you might actually want to. We were very pleased with the techniques show—which was also a very classic, well travelled and restrictive format. We managed to make that fun and interesting and put our own stamp on it. So why not this? It’s faster, more democratic and more caffeinated than No Rez. But just as obnoxious.
Posted By: anthony bourdain
April 29, 2011, 12:03 PM |
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The ’66 T-Bird roared across the high desert somewhere between Morongo and Joshua Tree, sliding mushily across lanes as if guided by some reptilian death wish. Turning the wheel was like trying to slalom with an oil tanker, each time it would be a few long, long, and occasionally terrifying micro-seconds before there was any acknowledgement that there was anyone at all in control. In the narrow, twisting passes and draws, charging the wide, aquamarine colored beast down the road without hitting the dividers felt like dropping a squirming rat down a drain pipe. One could only hope he came out the other end. Continue reading: HAVANA CLUB…and LONELY T-BIRD »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
April 19, 2011, 4:35 PM |
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Reportedly, there are about 4 million requests for reservations per year at EL BULLI, inarguably, the world’s most innovative and exciting restaurant. Only a few thousand are accommodated. There have been about as many words written on the subject, most of them focusing, understandably, on Ferran Adria, the chef, and on the wildly creative and forward thinking techniques and presentations he has introduced each year to the world. A snarky, sour grapesy, but not entirely untrue piece on slate.com recently described a writer’s syndrome called IAAEBAYD (or something like that): I Ate At El Bulli And You Didn’t; a common malady that infects most of the writers, myself included, who have been among the tiny minority lucky enough to have eaten at El Bulli—much less been given access to the people behind it. Invariably, the author points out, every article about El Bulli has to contain a passage describing the twisting and treacherous road from the nearest town on Spain’s Costa Brava to the remote cove where the restaurant is tucked away at one end of a mostly unpopulated beach. Continue reading: WHERE THE ROAD ENDS »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
