The Anthony Bourdain thread

I’m okay with people who are horrified by cruelty to animals. I understand that completely. Who isn’t? Well, a lot of people aren’t, but I am.

She wrinkled her nose & said "My husband loves him, I'm only here because of him. I just want to see if he's clean."

When I asked her what she meant she smiled in this deranged way and said primly "He looks so dirty on TV. I just came to see if he's clean in real life, or if he really is that dirty."

I swear, she's the single weirdest person I've ever encountered.

I can just picture her snapping on a white cotton glove & giving him the 'finger test' at the signing table....

No.

I like A.B., from what I'v read. And I totally support Nice Guys in the Military, but I support neither the gov't nor the "military."

Also, Dan's right -- I've spent some time in commercial kitchens, and he pretty much nails it.

When I first read Kitchen Confidential I loved it because it showed the Way It Really Is. Now I hate Bourdain because he is an example of The Way It Really Is. He is just the sort of macho, self-aggrandizing, control freak that plagues too many restaurant and makes life miserable for the rest of the staff including waiters, managers, cooks, runners, bussers, and even owners.

I think my breaking point was when I saw Bourdain on The Restaurant, dining at Rocco's in NY with another chef, talking some crap about "Chefs embody madmen, visionaries and artists, all in one body..." as the camera spun and zoomed giddily about them. Blarf.

That said, I have never tasted Bourdain's food, and from what I have heard he's a good, workmanlike chef but not a truly special one. He seems to know his French comfort food, which is still better than what most of America ever eats.

But whatever, he's not even a chef anymore, he's a full-time writer and TV personality. Fuck TV -- he's a professional personality. I happen to like this personality. Some will not.

So I like Bourdain, but only when he is eating durian.

The fish tip doesn't hold true right across the board though, where I work we sell out of stuff over the weekend, so a fresh fish delivery arrives on Monday.

maybe this is why Friday has always =ed "fish day"?

"is everybody happy? well i should say!"

At my former workplace (an upscale fish restaurant) deliveries came in fresh every day except Sunday. And they weren't frozen. And this was in Chicago.

Monday had very fresh fish since we ran out of a lot of stuff on Sunday.

So, suck, Bourdain.

No.

Evan, half the people on this thread also post on the Chicago thread. QED.

I wonder why Les Halles and Bourdain would order that way. If weekends are amateur nights, wouldn't you want to serve the amateurs the 2nd rate stuff and have fresh seafood for your more discerning patrons?

(I grant that this is complete speculation about a business that I am not running, but still.)

So did Steve Shasta upthread!

I think it's worth pointing out that in our kitchen we're all very polite to each other, and even to the floor staff for that matter. That said, I like Bourdain. He loves food, and that's what it's all about.

haha!

He's turning into a hippy with each new season/show though.

Any thoughts on The Nasty Bits, his newest book, a collection of magazine pieces? Enjoyed it, especially the endnotes where he cops to where he was wrong in each.

He rocks.

Well, his marriage fell apart because he was traveling all the time. He was not happy about that.

"I want a maple bacon doughnut."

OR

"I feel like I've been fisting Shamu the killer whale."

He did well in Chicago imo

Was watching this really good documentary about the Carlysle Hotel in NY last night and up he pops to my surprise, sounding/looking great and so centred and solid on screen, still hard to believe he's gone.

my god

https://youtu.be/RyUVNFBZ_X4

I miss this dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiZFH6_f0tg

don't now if Roadrunner got talked about elsewhere but seems like it should be discussed here. Finally watched this last night, it's very devastating. I know there was a hoo-haw about the use of AI on something that is spoken by him but it was, AFAICT, only in like two sentences in the middle of the doc; there was an email he sent to David Choe and asked him if he was happy, Choe reads it and it slowly morphs into Bourdain's voice, it's like, 20 seconds tops; the hoo-haw was over nothing, IMO.

There is clearly a feeling among his colleagues on the show that Argento played a huge role in things unraveling for him, I know the filmmaker said there was more but he didn't want to go over and over it. HIs brother does make it clear that he doesn't blame her but I def felt like some of the people from the show do. Argento has always struck me as a high-chaos type of individual, immensely charismatic, intelligent, sexy, who wouldn't get obsessed with her? I don't think anything is her fault. But it's sad to see how impactful this relationship became for him, he himself noted multiple times it was going to be bad.

the film was mostly good, but I think it was pretty unfair to make all these insinuations about Argento while not including her in the interviews

I thought it was interesting that they left out any mention of Argento having sex with a minor. I'm guessing they had to, for legal reasons

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/09/inside-anthony-bourdains-all-consuming-relationship

not interviewed: Argento

so? like I'm sure she was just waiting for the call

She's either going to confirm what many other people have said (unlikely) or deny it all and claim the others just don't understand or have the full picture (likely). Being that she denied having a sexual relationship with that teenager and then a pic came out of her topless in bed with him, and that nothing others have said about her seems out of character for her, I'm inclined to believe the others' version of things over hers.

Before this year I had only caught episodes of his shows here and there, but I watched every episode of Parts Unknown this year, ending with the finale today. seeing everything was pretty wonderful. He's just so good at picking character out of a place, and great at getting people to share their stories. I loved pretty much every episode where he traveled with a companion, the joy between them is infectious

There are a small handful of episodes where I don't think he uses the time well, like some of the self-indulgent interviews with his heroes, but hey I'd probably do the same thing if I had a show

The final season suffered a bit from his lack of involvement. Obv not much of his VO, and they spent way more time than I think he would have mocking backpackers in Bali. And he would have HATED the episode which is just people gushing about him. But as mentioned the West Texas episode was great, as was the Kenya one. Very sad to reach the end

anyway here's my POX:
Quebec
Libya
Jerusalem
Copenhagen
Detroit
Sichuan
Houston
Japan (season 8)
Lagos
Bhutan

Agree, i read the oral history bio recently published, and am now working through the series again. The book confirms your take on the final series, inasmuch as he was not as interested/engaged as he had been

that Quebec episode is my favorite for sure. something about watching him eat so many amazing meats in the freezing cold with cool people.

the Libya ep is so good. it also feels like its where the show really starts grow, exploring that somewhat journalistic niche for him.

the vietnam episode in s4 has always been a highlight for me, looking foward to revisiting

oh and i used to love the Vienna episode because he’s so sure he’ll hate it and he ends up having a lovely time

*final season, i meant, not series

Worst episode: the one with Joe Rogan

I love almost all of the rest of it but haven’t seen all of it yet. The Quebec episode was great, I liked the one in the Philippines a lot cause he obviously had such a personal connection there.

that Berlin episode with that numpt US rockband mate of his was pretty bad, though at least there was a bit of Ellen Alien in there as well to almost redeem it!

one of the production crew, i cant remember if it was an editor or a director, said that they would call “cut to wide” to mark the end of a scene, and that Tony would often invariably say something offhanded because he knew he was done - they used 100% of those, because he always said or did something great.

it was cool reading about how engaged he was with the show, even about what a pain in the ass he could be. as a crew they were very much “all-in” with him, and working towards the same goal because of his enthusiasm for the authentic experiences they were trying to capture. a lot of it kind of sounds like a stressful nightmare as you could well imagine, but the driving underlying determination to get it right really shows on screen remarkably consistently

Yeah the Berlin one a good example of his self-indulgence. Newcombe is entertaining enough, but c'mon, show me Berlin!

I'll have to check out that oral history book, I loved the behind-the-scenes ep in the last season and am eager to know more about how they made the show

it’s great - and a lot of varied feedback about him, not just a “he was a genius” circle jerk

watched road runner last night, and found the last 30 minutes or so completely repugnant. was enjoying the enneagram 7 energy before that tho