Posts tagged 'chef'

The following posts are associated with the tag you have selected. You may subscribe to the RSS feed for this tag to receive future updates relevant to the topic(s) of your interest.

Envy

By Anthony Bourdain on August 19, 2008 12:02 AM | Permalink | 154 Comments

An interesting visual, phenomonen occurred during the editing of the Spain show. Though Albert Adria had graciously agreed to appear in a scene in the El Bulli "taller" (workshop), and another (since edited out) at a restaurant in Barcelona, like some kind of ghostly optical illusion, or a "Where's Waldo" book, he kept popping up.

The hapless, ZPZ tape-loggers, caffeine-jacked myrmidons who toil away in the filthy sub-cellar of our corporate headquarters, reviewing hour after hour of mind-numbingly repetitive and boring video tape, noticing this spectral apparition, began to lose their already tentative grips on reality. One scene after another, a glimpse here, a face in the crowd there, lurking suspiciously in the background in another scene, down the bar a few positions, pretending he doesn't know me in another -- or front and center; there he is.

It's Albert's very ubiquitousness in the raw footage, his omnipresence -- even in the scenes where the viewer won't see him, that tells you all you need to know about Spain -- and how damn good it is.

Continue Reading Envy.

Envy

Strictly Hardcore

By Anthony Bourdain on August 11, 2008 9:30 AM | Permalink | 162 Comments

Tonight and next Monday night, two episodes in a row of some of the purest, hardest, straight-to-the-action, food porn we've ever done on NO RESERVATIONS. And there are no better places on earth to get right to the heart of the good stuff than Japan and Spain.

There are, on reflection, some similarities between the two destinations: in both cultures, the very best ingredients, presented in all their unadorned, un-fussed with, pristine simplicity, are celebrated and enjoyed with great enthusiasm. The cult of jamon in Spain, for instance, bears some resemblance to the Japanese obsession with the very best tuna. Neither culture requires additional ingredients or garnish to get the point. I love seeing what happens to Western chefs after visiting Japan for the first time. A very fine Italian chef friend of mine returned typically traumatized by what he'd seen and experienced. Weeks later, he still had that uniquely blissed out, confused, sort of hangdog look on his face -- an expression I can only compare to what happens after you've had the first really, really good sex of your life. It's a look that says, "I thought I knew a few things. But apparently I don't." It's devastating.

Continue Reading Strictly Hardcore.

Strictly Hardcore

Notes From the Road ... The Home Edition

By Anthony Bourdain on January 11, 2008 1:49 PM | Permalink | 318 Comments

It's possible to hurt my feelings. For instance:
I admit I'm genuinely annoyed by the occasional internet poster who suggests that whatever I might have to say about food, about travel--about anything--is somehow gravely diminished by the fact that I'm no longer working in a professional kitchen. That proximity to the line, the actual job of cooking dinner for the public enhances one's powers of perception, focuses the mind and builds vocabulary and that "keeping it real" necessitates dying behind the stove, a broken, broken kneed and broke-ass geezer in his mid-fifties, long past it as a cook - finally succumbed to stroke or liver disease. It's a point of view popular among internet nerds and cubicle geeks who've never done a minute's physical labor in their lives, the same people who take photographs of every course at their favorite restaurants, convinced that it's Jean Georges himself in there, personally boning out their squab.

My instinctive reaction to this kind of inverse snobbery is normally a raised middle finger and a "I had twenty-eight years of standing behind a stove - while you were arguing over bundt cake recipes in a chat room, motherfucker! Now, kiss my ass!!"

But the fact is, there's a little voice in my head that completely agrees with their point of view.

Continue Reading Notes From the Road ... The Home Edition.

Notes From the Road ... The Home Edition