The Anthony Bourdain thread

Bourdain comes across as a likable doofus whose in on his own joke so I'm able to forgive a lot of his excesses.

My favorite episode is the Catalonian one where he visits El Bulli and Arzak. If I ever get the urge to spend several hundred dollars on a meal (seems completely frivolous I know) I'd definitely give El Bulli a shot. Plus, the restaurant looks like someplace that could have been designed by Peter Saville. http://www.elbulli.com/

Bourdain comes across as a likable doofus whose in on his own joke so I'm able to forgive a lot of his excesses.

OTM... He says over and over again throughout his later books and his TV shows that he basically hit a big score and has been riding the wave ever since. Whether he's a good chef or cool or whatever, I think that kind of honesty comes across in his writing and most of the presentation of his shows.

I have to wonder where he's going to go in Detroit... I'm guessing Coney Dogs, maybe Middle Eastern food in Dearborn, and the requisite compare/contrast of the new developments downtown with the destitute rest of the inner city.

Seems like he'd have to hit Eastern Market too. I hope he ends up at one of the random hole-in-the-wall soul food or ham sandwich places I used to drive by but regretfully never stopped at.

he basically hit a big score and has been riding the wave ever since

Exactly - he knows that he lucked into this second unexpected career and digs that he gets to do what he does now and gets paid for it. There seems to be real happiness about it that you can't fake and I enjoy watching.

he's not cool because of the leather jacket and heroin history, he's cool in spite of it.

I think he's genuine because of it, because you get the sense that he's not the guy going "I served food to my favorite bands and slept on the beach because I'm a cool guy," you get the sense that he's the grown-up version of the kid who's drawing band logos on his school notebooks so hard that the covers fall off because it just thrills him to do it.

Maybe I'm trying to get at the idea that he's not really at all pretentious, he's just really honest about what he's about and isn't doing it to prove anything. Or at least he comes off reasonably well like that.

The DC episode was great. This season has been fantastic.

nice!got that on the tivo.

Recent interview

Would you want to do a country-specific exploration show, like the Spain - On the Road show featuring Chef Mario Batali, cookbook writer Mark Bittman and Gwyneth Paltrow?

I would love to do something with Mario. It's been an unrealized ambition to produce a show for Mario, honestly. He's so smart. The guy knows so much. He's easily the funniest and smartest celebrity chef out there. The Spain show. I'm disappointed. After seeing the Spain show, I see room for improvement. Life is good for Mario, he's got life by the tail. It was probably a lot of fun for him to make that show and not too demanding of his time. But I would very much like to produce a show where he tells us everything he knows about Italy. I think that would be good and informative television. I just don't know if he wants to put in the time commitment given all the businesses he has.

Okay, I'll just say it. I think the Spain show is f***ing awful. Mark Bittman comes off unsympathetic to say the least. Bringing someone who cannot or will not eat jamon [Gwyneth Paltrow] to Spain is a misjudgment. My crew grinds their teeth with rage looking at the crummy production values. Bad camera work, bad sound, bad direction. The whole thing sucks. It's unfortunate. It's mesmerizingly awful.

Does traveling make you appreciate being an American more?

I think traveling HAS made me appreciate America a lot more. Not because the rest of the world is deprived or so awful that we should appreciate what we have in America. To the contrary, I've been having a really great time. A lot of the world has a lot to hold over us in a lot of respects. I think it makes me more appreciative, more open to people, more appreciative of what it's like to live in a place like Detroit. I'm just more tolerant and open-minded about different cultures. Buffalo is a different culture. I look at Buffalo and Buffalonians as a different culture now. Ten years ago, I would have looked at them as those poor guys who live upstate, and I'm lucky enough to live in Manhattan. That's the way I would have seen it 10 years ago. Now I see it as a very distinct personality, a very distinct culture with its own architecture, its own kinda feel. It's, actually, a weirdly wonderful place. Even in winter. I think it took me traveling around the world to get to that point.

The inauguration is tomorrow. Do you have any advice for our soon-to-be president?

I would not presume to advise him on anything. By virtue of being elected, he has made my life as a traveler much much easier. I've felt the impact abroad already. I get congratulated by complete strangers walking up to me in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. It's been a tough eight years to be a traveling American. I don't think people hated Americans, but there was a look that people gave you. Just by virtue of being an American you were like some well-intentioned, but rabid golden retriever. A look of curiosity, disbelief and horror. And this was in England and Australia. I'm particularly proud and happy about our new president. There will be a tangible difference in the way Americans are treated abroad. It just feels better. Above and beyond all the policy.

Any advice about food?

I'll tell you. Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits. I'm suspicious of orthodoxy, the kind of orthodoxy when it comes to what you put in your mouth. I'm a little reluctant to admit that maybe Americans are too stupid to figure out that the food we're eating is killing us. But I don't know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's. My libertarian side is at odds with my revulsion at what we as a country have done to ourselves physically with what we've chosen to eat and our fast food culture. I'm really divided on that issue. It'd be great if he served better food at the White House than what I suspect the Bushies were serving. It's gotta be better than Nixon. He liked starting up a roaring fire, turning up the air conditioning, and eating a bowl of cottage cheese with ketchup. Anything above that is a good thing. He's from Chicago, so he knows what good food is.

Well that last paragraph is a blast and a half.

What a maroon.

He's from Chicago, so he knows what good food is.

This is something I've never heard before, and I'm not sure how it's supposed to work. (I'm not disagreeing with it, just not sure what the thrust is!)

i'm with him, Alice Waters annoys the shit out of me as well

It'd be great if he served better food at the White House than what I suspect the Bushies were serving.

wow, so something he and Alice Waters have in common are misconceptions about the food served at the White House.

Alice Waters and Walter Scheib, a former White House chef, have been nattering at one another for several months over who could or should cook for the new first family. The two reached a détente Sunday night, at the same party where Tom Colicchio performed the Heimlich maneuver on Joan Nathan.

They met during a dinner honoring a dozen chefs from around the country who came to Washington to cook a series of dinners. Held in private homes on Monday night, the dinners raised money for two local soup kitchens and helped promote Ms. Waters’s desire to make federal policy more welcoming to local, organic and sustainable food.

Mr. Scheib and Ms. Waters made their way to an upstairs room and closed the door. His first words were: “I’m 100 percent behind your agenda. The only dilemma I had is over what you said about Cris, who is my friend,” a reference to Cristeta Comerford, who was hired by Mr. Scheib and was promoted to executive chef after he left, in 2005. “She can’t talk publicly so I became her surrogate. I defend my friends.”

Ms. Waters and others had suggested the Obamas replace her with a chef who would cook locally and sustainably. Mr. Scheib took offense, he said, not only because Ms. Comerford is a talented cook, but because the White House kitchen already does many of the things Ms. Waters has suggested.

During the Clinton Administration, in response to a suggestion from Ms. Waters for a big vegetable garden on the White House lawn, a small garden was planted on the roof . It provided enough tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and herbs for the first family, but not their guests.

At about the same time, Mr. Scheib said, the White House began buying from about 40 different local farmers and co-ops, although for security reasons this was not widely discussed. If word leaked out that a purveyor was supplying food to the President, it was immediately dropped from the list, a Secret Service requirement.

Laura Bush took things a step further. “To her credit, Mrs. Bush was adamant about organic foods,” he said. “It goes counter to her perceived personality, but it was never important to her that the information to be released.”

xpost - Basically I dunno it it means "he's from an urban center with a diverse food culture, so he knows what good food is" or if it's actually saying "hey, Chicagoans know their food"

I love how people are annoyed by Alice Waters now... and she hasn't changed her local/organic-gourmet philosophy in almost 40 years.

"i'm with him, Alice Waters annoys the shit out of me as well"

She annoys the shit out of me too, but the line "I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits" reveals that he has even less of a fucking clue than she does.

I think it's supposed to say "hey, Chicagoans know their food", but it's like saying "he's from Hawaii so he knows his surfing."

I honestly don't think I've ever heard anyone say "wow, those Chicagoans, they really know their food" -- the city usually gets those Wisconsin/German-style jokes about loads of sausage, beer, and cheese. But I don't think it's at all wrong, mostly for those major-urban-center / diverse-food-culture reasons; I mean, it's a big old thriving city, obviously lots of its residents are going to be relatively sophisticated about food.

"I honestly don't think I've ever heard anyone say "wow, those Chicagoans, they really know their food""

Really? I've always heard Chicago was a great food town.

yeah i mean i am not saying AB knows any better

chicagoans know their food, i saw it on SNL when i was a kid. the skit about those guys that had heart attacks while discussing their local football team. . .??

i've never had larger portions than i had in Chicago. that is for sure. i once got a salad (for under $10 w/ tax+tip) that could have fed a family of four for an entire day. and i'm a big eater too.

"I honestly don't think I've ever heard anyone say "wow, those Chicagoans, they really know their food""

Really? I've always heard Chicago was a great food town.

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, January 21, 2009 4:47 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

Same here. Plus Bourdain is on record as being a proponent of a meat-centric diet, so I am not surprised he thinks highly of Chicago.

I feel like this was a running theme of Top Chef in Chicago, where certain contestants kept going "oh, these people are midwestern, they're not going to understand anything but fried meat" and certain judges kept going "you realize this is traditionally thought of as the third major urban center of the country and not some grand collection of rubes, right?"

It is a great food town -- it'd be hard for it not to be -- but I guess I rarely get to see people say it outright, since there are common assumptions to the contrary. But I guess if you're Bourdain you are used to talking in food circles where it's perfectly understood that Chicago's a good food city and doesn't have to be explained defensively.

Maybe he was referring to this:

Haha is he really on Check Please! What restaurant did he pick?

http://blogs.kqed.org/food/2009/01/06/check-please-barak-obama/

Nice, Dixie Kitchen! (Once upon a time there were three cold winter weeks in Evanston during which my girlfriend ordered Dixie Kitchen daily, compulsively and weirdly, and I think it says something good about Dixie Kitchen that it wasn't until the third week that I seriously got sick of it.)

chicago episode was pretty cool. L2O looked crazy!

The US Southwest episode sucked. Too much quirky shit, not enough food.

I thought Bourdain was going to move to Chicago after that episode.

I kind of liked Bourdain's visit to Ted Nugent's ranch. I call bullshit on Ted that that was his second beer ever. He's always said shit like that, but i guarantee he used to get high.

I can't stand Ted Nugent so I couldn't watch that episode. Chicago OTOH was pretty good.

The Ted Nugent part is at the end, so if you want, you can watch the boring first 45 minutes and then turn it off.

I had it on the background while I did dishes.

nugent has always been a dickhead sXe guy. always.

I was horrified to find out that Mancow and I have the same favorite movie.

I think among chefs and foodies, Chicago's reputation as a superior food town was sealed by guys like Charlie Trotter, Rick Bayless, and now Grant Achatz. Plus, the restaurant that Barack and Michelle go to for their anniversary -- Spiaggia -- was nominated for a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant a couple years ago.

I think the two favorite meals that I've had in Chicago were at Avec and Hot Doug's so it was cool to see both of them there.

I was surprised there wasn't really anything about Mexican food at all, other than the sketchy tamale hotdog atrocities.

"I think the two favorite meals that I've had in Chicago were at Avec and Hot Doug's so it was cool to see both of them there."

Those were my two best Chicago meals too!

The mexican food here sucks. I know, I was surprised, too.

Haha Kenan I think that opinion says more about your lucky lack of exposure to sucky Mexican food than it says about Chicago

I grew up in a solid hard-shell tacos / Old El Paso seasoning packet / packaged shredded cheddar / canned black olives kind of Mexican food place so Chicago seems pretty decent Mexican-wise to me.

Could be. All I know is, the mexican food in Texas is fan-freakin'-tastic, and here it ranges from stomach-churning to meh.

Just out of curiosity, have you been to any of the upscale places (Frontera/Topolobampo, Salpicon, De Cero, Adobo), or are you basing that just on neighborhood taquerias?

I grew up in a solid hard-shell tacos / Old El Paso seasoning packet / packaged shredded cheddar / canned black olives kind of Mexican food place so Chicago seems pretty decent Mexican-wise to me.

You forgot the shredded iceberg lettuce.

http://www.aintnosurfintexas.com/zz%20top%20tres%20hombres%20mexican%20feast3%20copy.jpg

On my other favorite show, Diners Drive-ins and Dives, they went to a mexican place in Chicago that looked AWESOME called Puebla Cemita or something.

I like the actual diners, drive-ins & dives, but I cannot watch the pink fuckface on that show for more than a few minutes.

I've been to De Cero and Frontera and thought they were both decent but kind of disappointing. De Cero seemed to be taking itself to seriously and didn't live up to what they thought of themselves. Frontera was good and maybe was really innovative like 15 years ago when everyone thought Mexican food was hard shell tacos with iceberg lettuce but didn't seem all that interesting to me now. I also thought whichever of the three Pasaditas I went to wasn't anything all that great.

But I've really liked Taqueria Moran every time I've been there - which admittedly I was either starving or hung over or with lots of friends so that may cloud it.

Frontera/Topolobampo

Oh man, Rick Bayless's places are amazing. Really killer stuff. I guess that's not what I meant by Mexican food -- I took my Dad to Frontera once while he was in town, promising great Mexican food, and I could see the puzzlement on his face as he looked at the menu. "Where's the giant bowl of queso?" So I guess I put that in another category, even though maybe I shouldn't.

jinky: best. gatefold. ever.