Bourdain's Eater interview

I found this to be a pretty interesting interview... not much about food in it, though.

http://www.eater.com/2016/12/21/1403833 ... -interview

Thanks mamagotcha,
just read the whole piece. I enjoyed the interview too.

There's a great profile of Tony, by Patrick Radden Keefe, posted at The New Yorker's website . . .

Over the past fifteen years, Bourdain has hosted increasingly sophisticated iterations of the same program. Initially, it was called “A Cook’s Tour,” and aired on the Food Network. After shifting to the Travel Channel, it was renamed “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” and it ran for nine seasons before moving to CNN, in 2013. All told, Bourdain has travelled to nearly a hundred countries and has filmed two hundred and forty-eight episodes, each a distinct exploration of the food and culture of a place. The secret ingredient of the show is the when-in-Rome avidity with which Bourdain partakes of indigenous custom and cuisine, whether he is pounding vodka before plunging into a frozen river outside St. Petersburg or spearing a fatted swine as the guest of honor at a jungle longhouse in Borneo. Like a great white shark, Bourdain tends to be photographed with his jaws wide open, on the verge of sinking his teeth into some tremulous delicacy. In Bourdain’s recollection, his original pitch for the series was, roughly, “I travel around the world, eat a lot of shit, and basically do whatever the fuck I want.” The formula has proved improbably successful.

Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast

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That was terrific, Ronnie! Thank you!

A really thorough and, IMHO, objective article on Bourdain is in this week's New Yorker. It's genuinely worth the read. I admire the guy immensely.

Geo

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/anthony-bourdains-moveable-feast

Geo wrote:A really thorough and, IMHO, objective article on Bourdain is in this week's New Yorker. It's genuinely worth the read. I admire the guy immensely.

Geo

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/anthony-bourdains-moveable-feast

Yes, that's the one to which I linked 2 posts above yours.

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Oops, sorry Ronnie I totally missed that... thought I'd checked carefully, but alas, not. Still a good article tho' !

: )

Geo

Geo wrote:Oops, sorry Ronnie I totally missed that... thought I'd checked carefully, but alas, not. Still a good article tho' !

: )

Geo

Yes, I appreciated it because even for someone like me who has known Tony for a long time (we first met in 2002), it was still really informative. The guy's been through a lot of shit but one thing remains true with him: what you see is what you get. I also thought it was a very well written piece but that's so often true with The New Yorker.

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Wow, what a well-written article. Took my entire lunch break to read the entire piece, but it was well worth the time. Makes me want to binge-watch any Bourdain show I have missed. Thanks for sharing Ronnie.

Anthony Bourdain dead at age 61: CNN

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... story.html

Not devastated, I knew he had issues...

...but his voice was my voice, more than any other food or travel writer for that matter. Prickly yet convivial and never condescending.

Once, in Taormina, Sicily, on a shoot for No Reservations, he went fishing with a local chef for octopus. What he didn't know is that the chef had rigged it so frozen, dead octopus were thrown into the water to be caught while Bourdain was scuba diving. He was visually hurt by the ruse, and unfriended that chef in the future. No loss--I had met the guy on our first trip to Italy, at his restaurant. He was a dick.

I really, really enjoyed the piece he did with Louisa Chu and Burt Katz. I don't think he loved the pizza but gave Burt props and loved the company, I think.

Although you never know, I thought Bourdain looked happiest during his years with his Sardinian wife and watching his little girl growing up.

A shame.

J

Devastating.
He had high praise for the Chicago food scene.
The hour-plus lines at Hot Doug's became a daily thing after his visit there.

"His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much.“

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/06/08/us/ant ... index.html

A sad loss for the food community. I so enjoyed his perspective on so many things. He never seemed like a happy person, but he certainly seemed alive.

I loved Louisa Chu's very personal perspective.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-food-anthony-bourdain-appreciation-20180608-story.html

Thank you for sharing this Al.
Beautiful tribute Louisa...

A friend sent a link to this article from the National Review: The Cult of Anthony Bourdain.

hard pass^

AlekH wrote:hard pass^

LOL - good call. Not surprisingly, that was some serious bullshit.

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Mark Caro also had a personal reflection that I really enjoyed.

https://www.facebook.com/markcaro1/posts/10155900829818227

Yep. Saw the words "National Review" and didn't even click.

An artifact I suspect you would not expect to glimpse here on LTHF, but which is relevant...

I will avoid the obvious ad hominem "Well, it's National Review what did you expect?" and make a few observations. First off, the guy obviously admires Bourdain's writing skills (who wouldn't??). Secondly, there are some personal characteristics of Bourdain that the author dislikes: AB doesn't hold much interest in beverages, which obviously galls the author. Also, our author really doesn't like tattoos, something which people of a certain age, or a certain political persuasion (or both) often likely share. So I suspect the author is letting this negative general disposition wash over AB. These personal characteristics shouldn't count against AB's performance, but our author certainly does so count. Finally, and this tells strikingly against the author: he claims, based upon (AFAICS) one specious piece of 'evidence' that AB not only has a cult following, but evidently encouraged it. The specious piece of evidence is the enshrined table in the noodle joint in Hanoi. How, mind you, is that evidence for a cult following? It's in Vietnam for gosh sakes, where it's highly implausible to claim a Bourdain cult exists; moreover, it is much more likely that the President of the United States is being enshrined there,rather than a tv chef/traveller, eh?

Anyway, it's always good to see a wide diversity of opinion, and this guy's opinion adds to the diversity.

Geo

pudgym29 wrote: An artifact I suspect you would not expect to glimpse here on LTHF, but which is relevant...

My wife and I saw Tony at the Genesee Theatre almost 10 years ago and it was a very enjoyable evening.

The National Review article was shallow at best.

What I'd like to know...

...is from those who were at Burt's that night with Bourdain and Louisa Chu. How was he? Did he know that the joint was stacked with those from the Chicago food scene? Did he care? My impression just from viewing the edited airing was that he wasn't a big fan of the pizza but was still complimentary and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself.

And I would've killed to have been there...

A heartfelt article from Daniel Vaughn:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/mourning-anthony-bourdain/

Geo wrote:Finally, and this tells strikingly against the author: he claims, based upon (AFAICS) one specious piece of 'evidence' that AB not only has a cult following, but evidently encouraged it. The specious piece of evidence is the enshrined table in the noodle joint in Hanoi. How, mind you, is that evidence for a cult following? It's in Vietnam for gosh sakes, where it's highly implausible to claim a Bourdain cult exists; moreover, it is much more likely that the President of the United States is being enshrined there, rather than a tv chef/traveller, eh?

Anyway, it's always good to see a wide diversity of opinion, and this guy's opinion adds to the diversity.

Geo

I agree with your assessment, Geo. Perhaps just as Marx said, "Moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste," Bourdain would say, "I'm not a Bourdainist."

jnm123 wrote:The National Review article was shallow at best.

What I'd like to know...

...is from those who were at Burt's that night with Bourdain and Louisa Chu. How was he? Did he know that the joint was stacked with those from the Chicago food scene? Did he care? My impression just from viewing the edited airing was that he wasn't a big fan of the pizza but was still complimentary and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself.

And I would've killed to have been there...

All of us who were there were invited. Tony knew this and I'm pretty sure he also knew most everyone there. My part of the group was comprised of about 20 people from both here and eGullet.com. For me, the highlight was when Toby Maloney caught a pitcher full of barf (jettisoned spontaneously by someone who was clearly so sick she had no business being there) without missing one drop. As much time as I've spent on bar stools, it is still the most professional move I've ever seen.

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Re: the National Review piece, I'm fine with varying viewpoints but when those viewpoints are formed around statements like these:

"In a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, of course, the greatest food in human history is found at McDonald’s."

"The judgments were beside the point; if he’d told people organ meat was vile and veganism was edgy, they would have happily switched sides and chided the tasteless losers who disagreed."

you know the viewpoint in question is uninformed at best. The piece reeked of cowardly, egregious and gratuitous after-the-fact agenda-ism. The writer started with an entirely predictable point of view and then did his best to fabricate arguments support it, though they failed woefully. We get it. You didn't like Bourdain or his politics. Now, shut the fuck up.

And in response to the latter of the 2 statements I quoted above, I'll just leave it at this: If my uncle had tits, he'd be my aunt.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:For me, the highlight was when Toby Maloney caught a pitcher full of barf (jettisoned spontaneously by someone who was clearly so sick she had no business being there) without missing one drop. As much time as I've spent on bar stools, it is still the most professional move I've ever seen.

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Unfortunately this person sat near me and groaned all evening. I kept waiting for her to erupt, which happened fortunately without my witnessing it. I remember her more vividly than anything else from that evening.

Regards,
Cathy2