The Anthony Bourdain thread

(18 course chef's tasting menu quad-prep) = a total of 72 off-the-menu dishes custom made from the kitchen to be split 4-ways. it's basically a merry go round of food. plates get dropped, each diner takes a bite and then rotates to the person on your left. pretty intense! you have to be in the mood for it but at The French Laundry, it's definitely worth it.

So You Wanna Be a Chef by Anthony Bourdain

(long, contrite, well worth reading!)

really enjoyed that, thank you. he is a bit irritatingly macho but it was a great read.

"And you can tell that he thinks he's doing penance for his bad temper/self-centeredness by telling you about it, as if revealing his worst self is its own punishment"

re: buford, the book i read before 'heat' was the one where he embeds himself with football hooligans and takes part in a riot, so the charlie brown insecurities of 'heat' are pretty hilarious by comparison.

He wears his drug phase like a badge of honor. It's corny and sad.

Oh, I read Among the Thugs a long time ago, actually I'm embarrassed to say I hardly remember anything of it except at the end when he spins a tale of shoving some nice pensioners out of the way on a stair. I mean the guy is a douche.

jaymc.xls would be interested to know that in this episode "gastronomy pioneer" (jay's lolworthy words, not mine) mr. Grant Achatz

Ha, did I say that? Well.

I did refer to Ferran Adria as a "pioneer" in an encyclopedia article; feel free to write in if you dispute it.

i can see further upthread where you link to an interview where someone else refers to him as a pioneer? maybe that's what shasta means

I never got the impression he has any pride about his drug use, I always thought he references it more like a warning.

i.e. as in this article

Hey yeah, that wasn't me, that was whoever edited that Slate interview!

i think it was in the gastronomy thread with that chubby "alt" looking guy who I still have never heard about it. possibly started by that one poster (name escapes me) who gets v excited about single-speed conversions and fatty foods... think he's a borderline freegan type (?), posted a lot about the bro-ness of critical mass? sorry if this is you dude, just my impression based on my pisspoor ilx scanning sessions.

jdchurchill's thread about Graham Elliot Bowles.

I dunno, he sure talks about the drug use a lot ... usually along with an anecdote about how sweet the New York Dolls were.

And it's not like he isn't currently a drug addict. He popped a shitload of pills in that behind-the-scenes episode!

eek, sorry jaymc i think i confused you with Anton...

Graham Elliot Bowles:"Molecular gastronomy is like the culinary version of Emo…"

Didn't care for the Ruhlman book, which I started to read directly after Heat. Thought it was overly dry - as I don't want to learn to cook, I'm more interested in the social exploration of Bourdain and Buford's books.

(xp after glancing at that thread again) ...although from that thread I think both of you have this real hero-worship for Achatz (midwestern pride?) which while I think he's a great dude and a great chef, he often gets mentioned in the same breath as far-greater talents. imho, nn: i have never eaten at Alinea, but I ate plenty of his cooking at previous gigs.

Genuine question: who were the pioneers of molecular gastronomy in the USA? How far behind was Achatz / Alinea?

Hostess? Actually, I'm curious what the interplay is between giant processed snack company food science culture and haute cuisine. Do they respect each other from afar, or do they draft and trade personnel pretty frequently?

Wiley had a James Beard while Achatz was still working the line at TFL.

Haha I guess I'll need a wikipedia to understand that answer.

Ok my lovely American wife has explained "Wiley" "James Beard" and I've figured out The French laundry ( unless you mean Transport for London ....)

Sorry:

Wiley Dufresne (sp? America's best known Molecular Gastronomy chef) had a James Beard award for best rising chef while Grant Achatz was still working on the line (saucier? protein station?) at The French Laundry.

...although from that thread I think both of you have this real hero-worship for Achatz (midwestern pride?)

?

I've never eaten at Alinea, either, so there's no hero-worship on my part. I do really want to eat there, though, which shouldn't be too surprising since it's widely considered the best restaurant in the city in which I live.

It's also possible that over the years I have also misjudged Achatz's relative importance in the culinary scene, given all the attention that he has received in Chicago (but also elsewhere, e.g. the New Yorker profile). But that's because I didn't really become interested in this stuff until fairly recently. I had never heard of Wylie Dufresne until I watched the first season of Top Chef Masters last summer.

I have eaten there, it was v good. I was under the impression that Achatz was at the leading edge of the molecular thing in the US (if not the actual first), which is why I asked the question. Not that it makes any difference to the quality of the food, of course.

wd~50 in NYC opened a few years (03?) before Alinea to much higher fanfare (maybe due to east coast media bias lol). dufresne is much more visible, infamous for running around like a chicken with its head cut off during quickfire challenges on reality cooking program(me)s.

shasta recommend some food (culture/crit not how to/cook) books. not bothered if writer comes off as 'mean' or 'a douchebag' or if some of the people in it are 'assholes'.

for example zola's 'belly of paris' - should i read that? not a zola fan but who knows. anyone doing contemporary aj liebling or joseph mitchell writing about oysters and steak dinners type stuff?

i don't think i've ever read a food culture book other than kitchen confidential or fast food nation. i'm an eater not a reader.

Botany of Desire is Michael Pollan's lesser known book, but maybe his most engrossing.

i'm probably the only person whose response to omnivore's dilemma was a desire to take up hunting

That was the best bit... Mmmmmm wild boar.

where does your wife work again sr. schwantz? pastry chef no?

She now works as a mom, and is working toward a degree in family therapy. Pre-kids, she was executive chef at Bar Tartine, and she was sous chef at Incanto for a while. We should have dinner some time...

whoa! had no idea...

So wait, do you work in the business, or just love to eat?

i'm probably the only person whose response to omnivore's dilemma was a desire to take up hunting

I know someone who had a similar reaction from watching the movie Babe. She'd been a vegetarian for 10 or so years, but the movie's "it's just the way things are" speech resonated with her to quite the opposite effect - it *is* the way things are, so she got a hamburger right afterwards and has been a meat-eater ever since.

balls - new yorker food book has some good stuff in it?

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/140006547X.01._SX220_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

i'm probably the only person whose response to omnivore's dilemma was a desire to take up hunting

― balls

Have I got a book for you! The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine.

Maine episode

Haiti episode was solid

saw sean penn on the preview & decided to skip it

recent naples episode was awesome

I dunno, I heard the Haiti episode wasn't that good. Bourdain got in a taxi and the guy didn't even really speak English or French and they ended up in fucking Rosemont.

i liked the el bulli send off episode.

I didn't like the naples episode. :/

I liked the Cuba episode, as well as the El Bulli episode. Made me want to go spend a paycheck (or more) on dinner. I had leftovers instead, and am able to pay my mortgage. Yay!

Recent Bourdain quotes:
http://eater.com/archives/2011/08/29/anthony-bourdain-on-leonard-lopate-the-ten-best-quotes.php

http://eater.com/archives/2011/08/30/bourdain-louisiana.php

I liked the Louisiana episode--humor and music (cajun group Red Stick Ramblers were playing fiddles and singing when not cooking)too. Yep, the killing of the pig was pretty graphic. David Simon (Wire, Treme) was there.

that party looked like lots of fun imo- wkiw