The more Anthony Bourdain I see, the more I love.
6 years ago I picked up a copy of Kitchen Confidential (mainly because I was on a big David Fincher kick, and he was supposed to be directing the film adaptation – with Benicio del Torro in the starring role I might add, too bad it never happened) and didn’t put it down until it was finished. It is simultaneously informative, frightening, and funny as hell.
Last year, I bought his Les Halles Cookbook and it has quickly become one of our favorite go-to place for recipes and stories. He loves food. And he loves food culture. And any chef who uses the f-word so much when describing food has got to be doing something right.
This week, however, I saw two things that surpass all of this.
- Anthony Bourdain eats a still-beating Cobra heart in Vietnam
and
- Anthony Bourdain’s opinion on the current Food Network chefs
Rachel Ray: Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So…what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could–if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better–teach us–and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion–you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….”
Oh, Anthony. You sweet sweet man. You never cease to amaze me.
