A cool article in the NYT Dining & Wine on Anthony Bourdain — Forget Star Chef; Think Professional Eater — talks about how the chef has mostly left the kitchen behind for traveling and eating:
At a time when celebrity chefs - a term he loathes - are as ubiquitous as cable channels, he has become the chef du jour. ‘Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,’ his frenetic series on the Travel Channel, is in midseason, which finds him now somewhere between Vietnam and Peru. ‘Kitchen Confidential,’ a situation comedy based on his book, will make its debut on Fox on Monday. His books - which also include ‘A Cook’s Tour’ (Bloomsbury, 2001), based on the television series of the same name, produced by New York Times Television and the Food Network; a number of thrillers; and a cookbook of Les Halles recipes - continue to sell. And when he is not traveling for his show, he is writing for Gourmet magazine, posting on the eGullet Web site, speaking before adoring crowds, even occasionally making an appearance at Les Halles, which he did last Tuesday, all 6 foot 4 inches of him, skinny as a spring asparagus despite all his eating….
I gained a newfound interest in Anthony Bourdain after the story related below, and it has been expanded after watching his new Travel Channel series (which I would link to, but frankly you should stay away from the devil-spawn Flash-ad nightmare that is the travel.discovery.com website) “No Reservations”, in which he explores culture and cuisine in various countries. As of this writing I’ve seen the Paris, Viet Nam, Iceland, and Malaysia shows, and while these hour-long (minus adverts) tours are necessarily cursory, not to mention overly staged or comedic at times, you still get a sense of the place and of his definite love for what he is doing. Plus his little digs at Food Network are hilarious.
Survival Kit
So I hop in the car to head to work one morning, and the radio comes on in the middle of an interview with somebody talking about punk rock, the Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols. Then suddenly the two guys veer into talking about Nabokov’s Pale Fire. A bit later they mention the interviewee is a chef, and then I realize his voice sounds familiar. After that, they mention the guy has also written some crime novels, and loves British gangster movies.
I’m thinking, okay, punk rock, Nabokov, chef, writer, British gangster movie fan — who the hell is this guy?!
Turns out it was Anthony Bourdain, a “celebrity chef” from NYC who had this cool show on Food Network traveling around the world sampling different cuisines. I remember thinking when I first watched one of his shows that he was an asshole, but funny — in other words, the New Yorker chef archetype. :)
Anyway, the interview was from “Survival Kit” (on WNYC), where they bring on celebrities to talk about their “desert island” items. Bourdain’s were:
- One crate of cigarettes
- One case of yellow legal pads
- Record: Elvis Costello Get Happy
- Record: The Clash London Calling
- Videotape: Get Carter, the original
- Book: The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins
- Book: Pale Fire by Nabokov
- Book: Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcuu
The interview was from 2002, apparently, and it’s available here.
