July 3, 2010, 10:25 AM |
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I’m done.
My mad run cross country, held up by copious amounts of Afrin, Sudafed, throat spray, asperin, Woodford Reserve, Red Bull and beer is over. I’d gripe about grim hotel bathrooms and sleeping on airport floors but instead want to thank all the people who had it a lot worse than me–who cheerfully drove for hours, stood out in the heat and sun, lined up in sweaty theater lobbies, got stacked into bookstores with struggling air conditioning, were herded into lines–and then flung in the general direction of yours truly –all for a blurry photo and a hurried signature.
I hope I spelled your name right.
Continue reading: GRACIAS! »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
June 10, 2010, 9:19 AM |
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And my jacket, too. Also, I hate my boots, the well worn, floppy ones sitting there forlornly in the corner, the socks, the toilet kit and pretty much everything else.
I’m loading into my suitcase for an insanely packed bounce across America. It’s only two days after my latest book, MEDIUM RAW, was released and already, my pupils float unseeing in my skull, my head is full of mush. I’ve been interviewed about 60 times in the last few days and every time I answer the same question in the same way, I hate myself nearly as much as I hate the contents of my suitcase — whose only crimes are overfamiliarity.
Slipping on my shirt, the boots, packing and repacking over the next few days will, I know, soon come to feel like putting on an old, previously worn jester suit at some rennaissance fair of the Damned. Green Bay, Tulsa, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Cincinatti, Austin, Miami … Reeling off the names, it sounds like a James Brown song, “Night Train” — which I will no doubt be humming to myself during many pre-dawn drives to airports.
Continue reading: I Hate My Shirt »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
April 10, 2010, 1:30 PM |
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I get a perverse and evil satisfaction out of putting members of my crew on camera at every opportunity. Their discomfort–particularly once the “vampire clip” microphone is attached to the inside of their shirt (and they have to remember that every trip to the bathroom might provide considerable amusement to the guy wearing the headphones in the other room) — is exquisite. The shoe on the other foot as they say…Those used to heedlessly pointing the cameras at others are suddenly caught under its merciless and unwavering gaze. Every pimple, bad pant decision, errant hair, ill advised comment potentially the subject of timeless Comedy Gold.
Continue reading: Zamboni Time »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
April 4, 2010, 10:28 AM |
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This Monday’s “special episode” is indeed, special. Meaning, not normal, out of the ordinary. Unique, one might say. It really is unlike anything we’ve tried before–and regardless of how well it goes over with regular viewers who tune in expecting another hour of me shoving food into my face in an international location–I’m really, really proud of what we’ve done. To those who have bemoaned the disappearance of the quality “stand and stir” format, this is for you.
We’ve preserved, on tape, in one hour, some of the best and most respected chefs in the world, teaching us (and I include myself in that “us”–because I learned a lot too) the indisputably “best” way to prepare some very fundamental, everyday dishes. You may think you know how to roast a chicken, for instance. But until Thomas Keller shows you how he does it, the matter, far as I’m concerned, isn’t settled.
Continue reading: Higher Education »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
March 29, 2010, 9:56 AM |
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I wrote a book recently and in the months long period between putting the last period on the last page and publication, there’s a gathering dread.
- What is it I’ve just written?
- What’s it about?
Presumably, I’ll have to answer those questions soon — in interviews, on book tour, when the whole machinery starts up again and begins clanking away full-speed. I thought-when I was writing the thing that it was a gentler thing I was making, a reflection of my more……philosophical outlook these days: an examination of the changes in the world of professional cooking (and the changes in my life) in the ten years since I sat down to write “Kitchen Confidential” in a white heat each morning before going in to work at Les Halles.
Continue reading: Cloud Nine »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
March 13, 2010, 9:39 AM |
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I’ve been to what? Eighty, ninety countries?
I’ve seen a lot of things.
But no place has so utterly confounded me, intimidated, horrified, amazed, sickened, depressed, inspired, exhausted and shown me–with every passing hour–how wrong I was about everything I might have thought only an hour previous. This is a country, founded by freed slaves from America–and intended to be very much in our image– but recently emerged from civil wars so brutal, so surrealistically violent as to defy imagining, where drugged gunmen in wedding gowns and wigs once shot hacked (and frequently cannibalized) their way into power. It is also a place where mothers and grandmothers stripped off their clothes and naked and unarmed, confronted those same gunmen mid-massacres, getting them to stop. It is now the first African nation with a woman president. It’s a country where you find 28 year olds proudly graduating from high school–the school system having evaporated during the many years of conflict. There’s a church on nearly every corner–but underneath it all, traditional “masked societies” still rule the hearts and minds and behaviors of many…
Continue reading: Red Dust »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
March 13, 2010, 8:39 AM |
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I’ve been to what? Eighty, ninety countries?
I’ve seen a lot of things.
But no place has so utterly confounded me, intimidated, horrified, amazed, sickened, depressed, inspired, exhausted and shown me–with every passing hour–how wrong I was about everything I might have thought only an hour previous. This is a country, founded by freed slaves from America–and intended to be very much in our image– but recently emerged from civil wars so brutal, so surrealistically violent as to defy imagining, where drugged gunmen in wedding gowns and wigs once shot hacked (and frequently cannibalized) their way into power. It is also a place where mothers and grandmothers stripped off their clothes and naked and unarmed, confronted those same gunmen mid-massacres, getting them to stop. It is now the first African nation with a woman president. It’s a country where you find 28 year olds proudly graduating from high school–the school system having evaporated during the many years of conflict. There’s a church on nearly every corner–but underneath it all, traditional “masked societies” still rule the hearts and minds and behaviors of many…
Continue reading: Red Dust »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
February 7, 2010, 12:39 PM |
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I’ve talked before about how some of the best stuff happens once the cameras stop rolling and I’d have to say that once we were done shooting the meal scene with Bill Murray for Monday’s Hudson Valley show, what happened next was one of those times: He had to be in New York pretty quickly. I was headed home. Producer Tom Vitale had a rented SUV parked outside for just that situation and the three of us piled into the car, Tom at the wheel, me riding shotgun, Bill in the back.
Continue reading: Backstory »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
February 7, 2010, 11:39 AM |
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I’ve talked before about how some of the best stuff happens once the cameras stop rolling and I’d have to say that once we were done shooting the meal scene with Bill Murray for Monday’s Hudson Valley show, what happened next was one of those times: He had to be in New York pretty quickly. I was headed home. Producer Tom Vitale had a rented SUV parked outside for just that situation and the three of us piled into the car, Tom at the wheel, me riding shotgun, Bill in the back.
Continue reading: Backstory »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
January 31, 2010, 11:39 AM |
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The early, pre-production stage of No Reservations, where we decide what our next locations will be, is a complex and deliberate process.
Actually…no. It’s not.
Continue reading: Working in a Coal Mine »
Posted By: anthony bourdain
