Anthony Bourdain | Talks at Google

Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming. I am so excited to welcome Anthony bourdain here today. Mr. Bourdain is the host of the popular Travel Channel television show no Reservations and the author of the recently published book by the same name. He'll be interviewed by our very own Nate Keller of no Name fame. There'll be time for questions at the end, so please use this mic, which will be over there so the cameras can get the noise. And there'll be time for book signing also, so please give it a round of applause.

So, as a quick little intro, Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City in 1956. Studied at Vassar College, as well as the Culinary Institute of America before winning Kitchens at New York's Supper Club, 1 Fifth Avenue and Sullivan's. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times, the Observer, Scotland on Sunday, the Face Limb by Lim Black Book, and the Independent. He's a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine, and he is currently the executive chef at Brasserie Lehal and lives in Manhattan. Welcome to Google.

Thank you.

So besides being the executive chef at the Brasserie Mahal in New York and being an accomplished author of eight books, you're considered by many to be one of the most wry and witty personalities in the world of cooking. Once described as a guy who has more cojones and talent than good sense. How do you describe yourself?

I describe myself as just a very lucky cook. I mean, this celebrity chef scam is really working out. I wrote an obnoxious over testosterone memoir about my life thinking that honestly believing that a few people in New York within the restaurant industry would read it, I hoped very much that they would find it true and familiar. So it came as a real surprise to me that that anyone west of Philadelphia read the thing or got it, much less that it's in all these languages. I mean, you know, I started getting. After the book came out, I started getting calls. I was still in the kitchen because I figured, you know, okay, the book's doing well now, but I'm going to need my day job soon. I better hang on to it. I started getting these calls from, like, Japan and Australia, basically from other kitchens. And I'd hear, you know, the drunken clatter of pots and pans and other cooks in the background with some guy saying, dude, I just want to say you wrote my life, man. Alternately, I would get calls from those same places, like Japan saying, what is the matter with the fish on Monday? To which my answer was, I have no idea. I've written A very New York centric book. I don't know. I've been pretty much just taking advantage of my opportunities as they arise. Right after the book turned out to do really well, you know, some really credulous people from the television network came in and actually said they wanted to, you know, help subsidize my, you know, my traveling around the world. I mean, I was no dummy. I'd done well with one book for my publisher. So I figured, you know, I've got a great idea for you. I go anywhere I want in the world and do pretty much whatever I want, and you pay. So a publisher went for that and then even work Federalist Network. And that's pretty much. I've been milking that angle since, you know, what can I tell you?

So you wrote two crime novels as well, Bone and Throat and Gone Bamboo. What inspired you to write those?

Well, that's kind of personal therapy. I spent a lot of time writing about me, me, me, and what happens to me, me, me and can make a television about me. And here I am talking about me. So it's nice to escape into an awful alternate universe, you know, that create other characters, create an alternate universe where complex problems can be solved with guns and blunt objects. Unfortunately, you know, you can't do that in the kitchen. That would be, you know, wrong. It's funny, though. Fiction, you know, I write a lot of nonfiction. I write about myself a lot. But in a sense, you can say things about yourself. You could talk about things in fiction that you wouldn't dare in nonfiction. There's that as well.

What's your inspiration to cook and be in the kitchen?

My inspiration, I mean, I started as a dishwasher. The restaurant business, particularly back when I started and for, in fact, hundreds, if not thousands of years, has been a refuge for misfits and for the losers, for the people who can't make it in other enterprises who either feel uncomfortable, you know, they feel uncomfortable. People who are uncomfortable with their communication skills, or they have. They've made unusual lifestyle choices, strange personal habits. You know, you see a lot of. It's always been a welcome refuge, you know, from the very beginning for immigrants of varying legality, you know, and for that it has been a magnet for a really interesting group of people. There is a common thread in all chef's natures. I think of, you know, your sensualist. You know, you like stuff that feels good. You have appetites beyond food. You like pretty colors and things that smell good and taste good. Less comfortable with having to deal with you know, civilians, you know, people out in the dining room. I think that's changed over the years now that cooking, rather inexplicably, has become a glamour profession. But, I mean, I fell into the business because it would have me and because it was a way of kind of joining up with a rock and roll band without ever having to learn how to play guitar. I mean, you got all the bennies of being in Motley Crue without having to play guitar, even as a loser, you know, had no money, couldn't play guitar. But if you were a cook, there was a lot of sex and drugs and food was free and all the liquor you could steal, you could live pretty well. And this was long before cooking was glamorous. So it's pretty much only gotten better. The truth is, I don't cook anymore. Now I spend most of my time traveling around, around the world making a show or, you know, I spend most of my time eating and drinking now. And I don't, you know, give it a choice. People, you know, ask me, do you miss cooking? Well, you know, I had 28 years of standing in a crowded New York kitchen, seeing nothing of the world. You know, even my dining public, you know, the people in the, you know, people who didn't do what I did were an abstraction to me. You know, I knew cooks, I knew restaurant culture. You know, I worked while, you know, you civilians played. That meant holidays, weekends, you know, all dinner hours. I got out at midnight, one o'. Clock. And who was there to hang out with at that hour? Other cooks and restaurant people. So I spent most of my time standing around in a submarine sized space talking about dick for most of my adult life. You know, that was pretty much the level of conversation. You know, it gets a little tiring. You know, now I'm bitching about the thread count at the Four Seasons in Singapore. So what are those red MMs doing there? God damn it, I told you to pick them out. So, you know, do I miss it? No.

So how do you think your book Kitchen Confidential sort of helped that along? You know, you became one of the sort of original rock star chefs. In the beginning, when I was graduating culinary school, that led to people coming and getting into the business, not just falling into the business, but wanting to be in the business.

It's funny, a lot of people come up to me, you know, young kids who were. I hear one of two things. You know, I was on the fence about going to culinary school. I was really thinking about, you know, getting into the business, and I read Your book and, and it really convinced me to, you know, to pursue my dream. And I also hear, you know, I was thinking about getting into the restaurant business. I thought it was going to be really cool and glamorous. And then I read your book and I realized, no way, you know, so it's funny though, I don't know how I've changed, whether I've made it more glamorous or less. And I don't really kind of care, you know, I still, if I'm thinking about who's reading my book or even who's watching this show, I, I'm still kind of uncertain about how normal people behave. I'm learning. I think I'm trying. I'm always thinking about will the cooks at my restaurant think it's bullshit or not? Will they like it? You mentioned about the kind of glamorization though, the rock and roll aspect of chefs. You had a guest here a few weeks back, Marco Pierre White. Who? That was my hero. Okay. When, I mean, I vividly remember the day that we were, all of us and this is a measure of the times, you know, me and all my friends and everybody I knew were cooking. And we saw, we got a copy of Marco Pierre White's cookbook, White Heat. This was the first time that you saw first these incredible gorgeous color photographs of classically beautiful, meticulously crafted French food. And then these amazing black and white photographs of the chef himself. And here's this guy, gaunt, drawn, haunted looking, long, curly, nasty hair, with a cigarette in his mouth in the kitchen. And we thought this is just the coolest thing we've ever seen. It was an electric charger. Because up until this point, the message to chefs was stay in the kitchen. The public likes to think that you were all fat French guys and that you're adorable. And we knew we weren't. And here was the first guy who kind of looked like we, we did. And we thought, wow, it's possible to be a Michelin star chef and be yourself. He really just in that, with that book, by being himself and by you know, having his personality, he really introduced single handedly, without meaning to, I'm sure the whole concept of the kind of the rock and roll angle to chef, that you could listen to rock and roll and be a chef. I mean, up to that point it was Paul Bakuze was pretty much the model. And you know, I can't imagine what he listens to, you know, Yanni or some shit.

So you mentioned Marco Pierre White's personality and reading your books, your Personality comes through definitely on the forefront in all your books. So what inspires you to write like that?

I just write like I talk. I mean, you know, I'm a storyteller, and I write in a very conversational style. I like. I'm very much a product of the kitchen in that, you know, my language tends towards the hyperbolic, you know, to me, you know, I'm learning to discern gray areas now that I travel. I mean, travel has changed me in that respect, in that a lot of the absolutism that, you know, you are either the worst person in the world, the most miserable rat bastard waiter who's ruined my life. I hate you. I want to kill you. I want to go to the funeral. I want to kill the mourners, or you're the best waiter who ever lived. You know, I love you. You sold through all my specials. You saved my ass. You've been bringing me drinks all night. I love you. I want to bear your children. There was no middle ground. That's kind of. And I think my language reflects that kind of, everything's going really great, or we are totally, totally in the weeds. It's disaster of the kitchen. So I wrote very deliberately, Kitchen Confidential in exactly the same language that I would use speaking to my cooks during the dinner rush. And I tend, when looking at the world, to be passionate and hyperbolic about things that I really love or which just piss me off no end.

So nowadays, when you're not cooking, writing about cooking, or traveling to make documentaries about cooking, what do you like to do?

I'm having a pretty good time. You know, I just have. I have the best job in the world. I like hanging out with chefs around the world. I like. I mean, I'm most passionate about Southeast Asia. For me, perfect, perfect happiness. You know, the line between work and play is a very sort of permeable one. I mean, I essentially get paid to, you know, travel with my friends, a small crew of camera people who are very close with. And, you know, you know, I'm drunk a lot on the show. You know, it doesn't suck. You know, we go to Singapore, have a few drinks, you know, eat everything in sight, hang out with all the local chefs. I love that. I love, you know, eating my way around Singapore or Tokyo. I love going to Vietnam, Indonesia, you know, that satisfied not just my need for kind of sensation and flavors and colors and extremes, but it also fits very much into, you know, remember, I'd seen so little of the world till I was, like, 44. I hadn't been anywhere really. So to, you know, after all that time, to find yourself so fortunate as to see this, to have your head just your mind expand that much to, you know, to learn that much, to see that much and also to have it fit in with your little boy dreams of what an exotic and big world was going to be like, you know, seven, eight years ago. I didn't think I was ever going to, you know, see, you know, Los Angeles. You know, I thought, this is it. I'm dying next to this. Fry a layer, you know, it's okay. I've had a good life. So to find myself in, you know, Sarawak, Borneo, in a longhouse, you know, eating pork, freshly killed pork, and drinking home brewed rice whiskey under a bouquet of human skulls with a bunch of ex headhunters who were tattooed from nose from chin to ankle, you know, that's pretty cool. It's just like the movies, man, only better. And I have a lot of those moments and I like it in my relaxation time, I like, you know, I would like to, you know, no shoes. Definitely. I would like to be sitting under a palm tree with a stack of books and a beer.

You're also a huge music fan.

I am.

What's your favorite music experience that you've ever had?

Well, you know, my burning Bush, you know, the religious experience was seeing the Ramones for the first time. Music sucks so bad before and it's so bad, you know, imagine a nightmare universe of nothing but like Loggins and Messina, you know, three hour Mellotron solos, you know, Rick Wakeman. Everyone's writing a rock opera, you know, just long, self indulgent, you know, really tasteful solos. Just awful, awful, awful. And then suddenly rock and roll. I mean, overnight was, you know, three chords, submoronic lyrics and a beat and, you know, all good again. And things started again. That was a really good. It was a good time for music. And in fact, when we were picking the theme music for the, for the, for the show, we sat down with John Spencer and Blues Explosion and just talked about music of that era. And you know, we all sat around and talked about Richard, Helen, the Void Oids and their guitarist Robert Quine in particular, and Tom Verlaine and television and that sound. And they totally got that. And you know, it was one of those. Oh yeah, I love them too. I love them too. And we basically said, I just. That's the sound we want. You know, I think Funhouse by the Stooges is the single greatest album ever made. And perhaps sonic Reducer by the Dead Boys, the single greatest song.

All right, what's your worst musical experience?

Worst musical experience. Billy Joel called me up and said he wanted to come to dinner, that he was a big fan, which was. Which was a real crisis for me. As I famously said, you know, if I hear you listening to his music in my kitchen, you are fired right now. You know, I cannot. I just can't work with someone who visibly enjoys Billy Joel. And if you're a Grateful Dead fan, I have concerns about your work habits. Let's put it up. So he shows up, first thing out of his mouth, he says, you know, I guess, you know, we don't have the same musical taste. You know, we ate and drank like a champion. But now he fucks with me all the time, you know, because every time I'm talking about, you know, Billy Joel is not allowed in my kitchen. He sneaks into my restaurant, has his picture taken in my kitchen with my cooks, and sends me photographs, like. So I guess you do let Billy Joel in your kitchen. So that kind of sucks.

In.

In the show, it's like, you know, Rachel Ray slipping into my apartment at night, moving, you know, moving my food around in the refrigerator, substituting product. I feel so violated, you know.

In the show, no reservations. Every once in a while, you seem a little bit wary about what you're about to put in your mouth. Is there anything that you just absolutely won't eat?

No. Live monkey brain. Okay? You have to draw a line somewhere. Is it food? You know, is it food? Is the cruelty? Is the cruelty involved? Is there any possibility that something this cruelty and that goes against my deeply held principles about, like, what is food and what is a pet, for instance? Is there any possibility that it could actually be good? And also the social situation, very, very, very important to me. I mean, I would rather violate my own deeply held principles about, you know, living things that offend my host. You know, often a very poor host. I'm very grateful to be where I am. I may not, you know, I may not think, you know, a snake wrapped around a bird sitting in plumage in my whiskey is such a great idea. But I'm certainly not going to go, ooh, you know, I'm not touching that. You know, it's. It's. I'm very, very lucky to have these experiences. I wouldn't have them were I to suddenly say, oh, no, that's ooky. That's deeply offensive to people. You know, I'm. Food is the purest expression of a culture, of a personal Identity. People are offering you what gives them pleasure in these places that I go, and they're just not going to get it. If you say, I'm a vegetarian, that is not something that is going to be understood in the spirit in which you might understand it. Here the iron doors will come down behind their eyes and saying, you know, what do you mean, you don't want my chicken? Fuck you. That's the only chicken my family has. I just cooked it for you and you're not going to eat it. You know, that chicken's a big deal in a rice farmer's family and, you know, Mekong Delta. And so, you know, I try not to turn my nose up at anything. This has led to tragicomedy at times.

Yeah. Was there in a situation like that, was there ever a time when you ate something and meal went not such a good idea?

Well, I mean, I knew in Namibia with the bushmen, you know, here was a situation I knew I wasn't getting out of. You know, it's a hunter gatherer society. They had been fortunate enough to get a warthog, you know, drag it across the, you know, roaring heat of the Kalahari, hack it into chunks, throw, you know, by hand, throw a big, you know, scoop the crap onto the ground. They throw this thing in the fire and the chief in front of the whole tribe. You know, here in a society where your personal worth is judged by, you know, he who brings meat and she who distributes meat, you know, that's what makes him the chief. You know, the last foot of unwashed poop, shoot onto the fire. The very special part for the very special guest, You know, I mean, I knew, you know, I had a pretty good idea what was going to be happening in week, but I, you know, I took one for the team. Have you ever.

Have you ever been truly surprised in a situation like that where you thought, not a good idea? And it turned out to be one of the greatest durian.

Durian's the most obvious answer. Durian. The stench of durian is room clearing. You know, it's been described as like eating custard in a laboratory. But I love it. I think it's a good. Really, really. It's one of those truly, for us, for us in the west, it is a truly new flavor and a really exciting one. If you like stinky cheese, and I do, you know, it's not that far elite to durian, but it is, you know, it looks like a stegosaurus. It causes fatalities when it falls from trees. The week is just Indescribable. It's illegal in hotels, public spaces, public transportation. Transportation in all of Asia. There are signs on the wall, a picture of a durian with a red line, red circle at it, and a line. They will stop a plane on takeoff if they smell durian, you know, and unload it. But that's, you know, one of those pleasant surprises. You didn't think you were going to like it, but. But wow. Thank you for introducing it to me. Happens, you know, all the time. I tell you, I was really happy they had these beetles that they. That they roasted in the tribe of Bushmen in the Kalahari. And, you know, next to the warthog was delicious.

You mentioned Southeast Asia. Is there any specific town, village that was your absolute favorite place to eat?

Well, I love being in Vietnam because, you know, it's not just the food. You know, a perfect meal is a perfect confluence of other forces. It's the right sound in the background. It's the right smells in the air. It's who you're eating with. It's the colors. It's. It's everything. It's. It's the particular needs and feelings you might have brought to that particular time and place. I find myself most often in that zone in Vietnam. You know, everybody has a kind of place, not their own that they instinctively, you know, love. I love that spectrum of flavors and colors. I love the. I love the Vietnamese for their generosity, their passion about food, about cooking and eating. So that's my happy place. But if you're looking for sheer. The center of food pornography, where the real main vein, most great food per square foot, you could make a really good case with either Hong Kong or Singapore. I shy towards Singapore because you get all of this great Chinese food, incredible Malay and Indian food, and these wonderful mutations of Chinese food that have occurred over hundreds, if not thousands of years as Chinese cultures move down the China straits. And all in very affordable food. Stall one chef, one dish joint. You know, where the guy making the chicken rice or the bakute or the roast goose, that's all he's been doing his whole life. And maybe his parents did it and his grandparents. So, you know, you can bet that it's pretty damn good at making goose. And so that's a foodie wonderland.

So you appear in the new book My Last Supper.

Yes.

What is your last meal request?

And why roasted bone marrow? There's a restaurant in London, really very simple, Spartan, and they specialize, oddly enough, in respectfully prepared, impeccably sourced, traditional English countryside food. And they do a very simple dish of roasted Deauville bone marrow in the bone, you know, a little toasted baguette and some sea salt. And it's, you know, it just. If God made butter, that's what it would taste like. It's just real, real good.

So you also have a portrait in that book as well. Can you tell?

Yes, I'm. I'm naked. I'm naked.

How that came about and whose idea.

He told me it was going to be like art, man, I don't know. Next thing you know, I'm on a dirty shag carpet getting rearmounted by Ron. Jerem. Don't make major career decisions on tequila. I think we can agree on that.

So in the 1950s, America's food industry turned towards prepackaged pre processed foods, which led giant industries to lead the way for America's almost now defunct food culture. There's a new movement, sort of about not new really. It's been going around for a couple decades now, but local food, eating local, local. Do you think that will have a major impact on how the country's food culture will evolve?

I mean, I think you can see it already. I mean, you know, you go to Whole Foods in New York now, there's like 50 cash registers ringing away. You know, it's like, it's like JFK airport. You know, you're up, you know, move it along, move it along. I think there's a real appetite for organic, for artisanally produced, for local and regional. I love the whole. I think those are really, really valuable alternatives. Anything that raises expectations of how good your produce can be or supports local farmers or creates a boutique pig rather than a battery raised, a factory raised pig. I want chefs from strictly a greedy point of view, self interested point of view. I want a pig that's led a happy life and fed good stuff. He's much tastier. I want foie gras that is raised in an atmosphere where they're happy and run around and are fed by hand for a few seconds a day by the same feeder that makes stress free, happy, delicious, unctuous, oh so good foie gras. But by the same token, I mean, you need only go to a zombie. A Ferry street market is called, right? I mean, you know, rich people go there. You know, this is food for wealthy people. You know, I like spending a dollar for a lime. It's a really good lime. I'm glad I can afford it. I'm glad I can afford to eat it. I'm glad I can afford to serve it to my customers. But let's not kid ourselves. This is not the wave of the future. Because most people can't afford to grow that stuff, and the great majority of the world can't afford to buy it. Don't try taking, you know, fertilizer away from a Vietnamese farmer or pesticide. You know, they need to squeeze out every little bit of food they can out of the ground and maybe raise shrimp in between seasons in order to feed their families. And it's just not an option for much of the world. You know, it's nice that we can all get into our SUVs and, you know, drive, you know, burn up a lot of gas. Getting over to Whole Foods to pay four times the going rate. I think it's wonderful. And anything that raises awareness and makes us aspire to better and kinder and gentler and more sustainable is also a good thing. But for better or worse, these are, you know, it's nice to be financially secure. It is just not an option. You need only look at the, you know, the ethnic and socioeconomic democratic graphic at those places, those markets to see, you know, so as a. As a food alternative and as a movement, those are incredibly valuable. They've changed. You know, the slow food movement has changed menus in a very positive way. But as a, as, you know, a brave new world and way to live for all of us, you know, we're all going to return to an agrarian wonderland where we all go out and farm for six months out of the year without fertile. I think the Khmer Rouge had that idea. Okay. So I think, you know, I'd say a reality check is needed. Also, I come from a background where I don't really care if your tomato causes the occasional tumor in lab rats, okay, as long as it's the best goddamn tomato there is. I'm in the pleasure business as when I'm a chef. Okay, My response, I'm not your dietician, your ethicist, your priest. You know, I'm in. My responsibility is to give you as much pleasure. Pleasure during the meal period to serve you the best tasting and enjoyable to eat meal possibly. I don't think you need to be advised on a running basis of the calorie count, for instance, you know, or the ingredients. Just. My responsibility is, do you have as much pleasure as possible at the table? I would marginally like it if you have a better chance of getting laid after dinner. Beyond that, you're on your own. You know.

You mentioned an upcoming Christmas special you're doing Tell us.

Yes. We were shooting in Berlin and we got a call from Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, who invited me to a concert. And I went. And at the end of the day, he had agreed to bring the entire band to shoot at a house in Connecticut. A utterly deranged and in bad taste and dysfunctional Christmas holiday special. And they composed original music for like every scene. They dressed up in the most God awful ugly Christmas sweaters that they bought off qfc. They did like Christmas carols, original music, gave us total access to their recorded music. And then took part in a family meal with my family at the end where I cooked this kind of Martha Stewart, you know, turkey instructional scene where I make turkey for the family and lay out tablescapes and the whole bit and, you know, even got showered with stage blood at the end. I mean, it's pretty. They were amazing. And I'm really looking forward to seeing how this show goes over. Cause it's the part where my niece and nephew get like blood sprayed in their face. There's a knife fight scene during the turkey dinner. And I'm, you know, I like keeping the network in a state of constant fear and confusion. But we might have crossed the line here.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

You know, turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, you know, on someone else's cooking. No, I want. It's all about the leftovers. You know, the next day, cold turkey, you know, sit in front of the tv, smoke a joint, watch some Simpsons reruns, eat leftover turkey. It's the best part of the holidays. Well, I think we'd like to open.

It up to some question and answer from the large crowd that we have here today.

So please.

So, hi. I'm probably the closest thing you can call to a fan of yours. So I've had a lot of questions and I like narrowed them down to two.

So. Excuse me.

First is I really liked your book, A Cookstore. I think it perfectly got what you just described, which is that a meal is not just the food, it's the culture and it's the environment and everything like that. And I really like the show as well. I haven't read the new book, but I watched the show, no Reservations. And I think it kind of lost that understanding I think you had of food is tied with culture. It kind of skewered towards more being a travel show, maybe because it was on Discovery instead of Food Network. So any chance that in the future you might do more things about food? Because we have enough cooking shows and we have enough travel shows. We don't need any more of those. I think this is the only thing that we had closest to being about.

Food and people rather than it's always going to be a really food centric show. I mean, there's been no pressure on. I mean, I have as close to Final Cut as anyone in the history of television has had. So, you know, whatever tendency you think you're seeing with the show, you, you know, can't blame it on the network or producers or anything like that. Some shows we try, you know, television networks have, you know, like to like to be formulaic. They like to figure out what worked last week and do that again and again and again. And I try very hard to do, you know, keep them guessing. You know, I don't want them to figure out even what worked last week because I don't know that they do. We're moving on. Some shows are much more food, as I'm sure you've noticed, are much more food centric than others. I mean, the fact is, Uzbekistan, once you've had, you know, kebab, plov. And did I mention kebab, you know, there's not much else in the food department. So some shows, you know, which, you know, leads to extended painful massage scenes, Romania, you know, not a wonderland of food, you know, so some shows, you know, they're not an overview, you know, we're not doing the best of the. This is the definitive what you need to know about. It's very first person. This is what my experience trying to make a food centric travel show was like on this given week in whatever place. Sometimes we mess up. Sometimes that's just not the chief focus of my. Of my interest. You know, Cleveland, there was a lot of good food there, but I really wanted to play around with Harvey Pekar and do the whole American splendor thing with his illustrators, you know. But on the other hand, I mean, I think you're going to be very happy with the Hong Kong show, for instance. There's food in every. Absolutely every scene. But that's kind of like life in Hong Kong. It's food, food, food. Singapore, it's food in every single scene. But, you know, I think I'm wary of the fact that writing about food and talking about food is a lot like doing porn. There are only so many adjectives when describing the tale of the lonely housewife and the horny pizza boy. You know, how many ways are there to describe a salad? And you might notice it in the shows, you know, we kind of set the scene and hope that you figure it out. I'm not saying, you know, there's really a metallic taste to this and strangely minerally quality. I'm sort of. I say that's awesome, man, that's really good. So it just, I hope there is no trend. Some shows are going to have not a lot of food. Some are going to have nothing but doing the best we can. You had another follow up?

Yes, the second one is actually a more personal bone that I have to pick with you. You have been very notorious about scoffing at vegetarians and denouncing the vegetarian thing, which I actually agree with because most of food hasn't developed over the millennia has not been with vegetarianism. These recipes were invented with me. The only exception, I personally think is Indian food.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I'm going to cut you off right now. I totally would not disagree with that. You know, if you grew up, if it's your cultural or religious tradition to be vegetarian, I get that completely. And I've been to India and I've eaten, in fact eaten very well vegetarian for weeks at a time. My complaint, my instinctive rage is based on, you know, if you come from, I don't know, some wealthy, you know, upper middle class community where, you know, everybody's privileged and everybody has car, Berkeley, someplace like that, you know, and you're lucky enough to travel this world to go to Thailand, to go to Vietnam, to go to China. My God, these cults is so much older with so. With incredible variety in their cooking cultures and distinct regional cuisines, much of, in fact, most of which is based on meat. It just seems, you know, rude, as I mentioned earlier, to turn down anything that comes your way, any offer of food. It seems culturally, you know, insensitive and incurious. You know, if I have one virtue, it's curiosity. And I think, you know, my health and any concerns I might have about, you know, Fluffy or Quacky or whoever they are secondary to my almost obligation to experience as much as I can of this incredibly diverse world in the limited time, you know, that I have. It is like walking into a museum. You know, finally once in your life, getting to go to the Louvre and deciding before you walk in the door, you know, I'm only gonna look at paintings in the color red and blue. The others I don't need to see. You know, that pisses me off. But I take your point completely on traditional vegetarian cultures and, you know, that's fine with me. And you tend to have good Tasting ones as well. You know, the imitation meat products, you know, that's not food, man. That's building material. Let's give ourselves.

Hi. I loved Kitchen Confidential. I cooked to relax. So it was really funny for me to read a book that was so much about freneticism. My question is actually if you could talk about your creative process at. As a chef versus your creative process as a writer.

Well, you know, creative process as a chef, understand. I come from a really classical tradition of recreating bistro brasserie classics. I was never an innovator. The times in my life when I thought I was an innovator and creating, pushing the envelope of bold new culinary combinations, people got hurt. You know, people went bankrupt. So I'm very, you know, I was best later in my career when I settled into, you know, honoring classic authentic French recipes. So, you know, they're not really analogous writing. I don't take it seriously, okay? I see it like anything else. It's a job. You wake up. Your first rule of writing is a first rule of working in a kitchen or anyway, you show up on time, you do the best you can. I show up on time. I write as much as I can. I do not read. If I have one tip for aspiring writers, do not read your own work immediately. You know, I would tend to self edit myself right into oblivion if I read my stuff fresh after I'd written it. So I'll write, stick it in a drawer. Maybe two months later, I've got a stack this big. I know full well by the time I finish reading it the first time, it's only going to be this big. But that's still a pretty good stack. I'm. Hey, I'm a writer after all. You know, I don't. You're not constantly kind of looping around editing yourself. And I just, you know, I don't know. Honestly, it comes easy for me. Writing is not hard. I've used language for a long time to, you know, manipulate events to my liking or to my advantage, you know, to get into trouble, to get out of trouble. You know, to me, honest work is standing in a kitchen. Writing is, you know, I'm lucky to do it. So I really don't have much to tell you about the. I'm not a product of writing classes or, you know, years of struggling away with an unfinished manuscript. I just given the opportunity to tell the story and actually get paid for it too. You know, I'm grateful for the opportunity and I do the best I can.

Thank you.

Sure. Hi.

Two Quick questions. The first being in Tuscany, did they really hate that first meal that you prepared?

No, it was deliberately bad. That first meal in Tuscany was designed to be, you know, you don't mess with a classic like fettuccine carbonara. Okay. First of all, with an Italian, you know, you don't add meatballs. In fact, meatballs, there's no. In Italy, spaghetti and meatballs are two separate dishes. You never put meatballs in with the pasta, so. No. It was a pretty ballistically designed menu to be wrong. First of all, it's Tuscany, and I'm cooking a couple of Sicilian dishes that already, you know, my wife is from the north of Italy, and in the descending order of evil. Okay. You know, the only thing worse than Americans are people from the south. Then there's Satan, and then there are people from Naples.

It was really fun to watch you cook those.

Yeah. By the way, my wife played one of the disgruntled Italians.

My second question is about the process used to develop the narration. Do you kind of write that while you're out there, or do you come back home and then review the tape?

Yeah, totally depends. We shoot about 60 to 80 hours of footage between three digital cameras on the road. Now, sometimes I know pretty much exactly what we're going to do when we go to Singapore to do a show. I've been there many times before. I know exactly which places I want to go to, who we're going with. I could storyboard the whole episode in comic book form. I could do a little writing while I'm there. Other times, I'll write on the road with an eye to incorporating it later. Sometimes we'll have an overarching idea, often based on what favorite director we're going to rip off. You know, we're looking like certain locations are just perfect to rip off films that we adore. Other times, I have no idea what's going to come out of this. We know it's good. We shoot a hell of a lot in mainland China. In the Shanghai show, for instance, we hand it over to one of three really talented editors. And then I get a rough cut back. It's like an hour and 15 minute long, very roughly assembled cut with scratch narration, meaning it's the editor's voice, supposedly me, talk about what's going on on camera so that it's clear to me, you know, and I'll rewrite that along the lines of, you know, and next we go to do this, next we go to do that. It's a very fluid system. It's a lot like since we're all so close, it's like a lot like being in a band. You know, some songs, the lead guitarist kind of starts off working his way through. Other times it's a drummer. Sometimes you have lyrics, sometimes you only have music. It's exactly like that. I think if there's one single unifying thing, it's what film do we want to rip off? What, what, what look we do in Robert Rodriguez this week? Are we doing, you know, early Antonioni? You know, we're thinking a lot about soundtrack and music. You know, Germany, definitely going craft work all the way. You know, Hong Kong, we're looking to rip off new Asian cinema and a very jumpy look. So. So that's the fun part and the challenge. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey, thanks for coming out here to visit us. One of the things that I respect about you is that you actually kind of highlight and respect the cultures that you visit. And as you mentioned earlier, you never say no to your hosts. And I'm kind of wondering if it's pseudo related to that. I'm just kind of curious. You eat so many things that most of us here may not think about eating. And I'm wondering how often and do you get sick when you're filming? How long of that portion of time that you're visiting somewhere? Are you kind of in bed with a stomach ache? By eating what locals eat, I generally manage to avoid getting sick. I mean, a crowded place serving you don't know what in any country is a good sign if it's crowded with locals. I mean, if it's crowded with Americans, you're in trouble. You know, you're eating in Indonesia, you know, you know, the Hard Rock Cafe is probably not the place you want to go. You know, we have a pool on the show. Who's going to get sick first? And it's always the ones on the crew who are most concerned about sanitation, who are wiping themselves down with Purell every time they go to the bathroom. And they always get sick from like the hotel, you know, club sandwich by the pool. It's, you know, they gave in and they're tired of eating local and they go for the club sandwich at the breakfast buffet. You know, I do spend the occasional few hours in a fetal position on a cold tile floor, but usually that's alcohol related. You know, Russia, there is no escape. You know, what do you do? You know, I'm afraid of Russia. You know, a country where even every 90 year old grandmother can drink me under the table and Carry me home afterwards. Because, again, you know, it's personal. You know, you're not making. The Russians are not the most friendly people in the world initially. And it's really only around halfway down the bottle that you start getting all kind of morose. And I love you, man, and, you know, but I mean, a standard day for me in Russia. The first time we shot, there was three shots of breakfast, seven shots of for lunch, 17 shots for dinner. You know, no way out. Nothing else is hitting the table. You get a bottle of warm vodka and a little pitcher of cranberry juice, which you never mix together. That would be horrifying. And of course, every drink is personal. You know, what do you say your host is. Your waiter is doing it to you. You know, this is to the spirit of international cooperation. Oh, okay, sure. This is to the Great War, the Great Patriotic War, and the sacrifice of Russian and American soldiers and overthrowing the fascist imperialism. Okay. You know, this is to our mothers.

What are you going to do?

Fuck your mother. You know, thank you very much. You're just hoping that you get out of the restaurant in a state of verticality before you throw up all over yourself, you know? Yeah. My fiance love you and I love your show. And actually that guy asked my question so specifically. How were you after. After eating the lower intestine from the pig. Two weeks of cpro. You know, antibiotics are a great thing when you need them. It's good to know they're there. That's another random question. Where are the next couple places in the world that you'd like to go? Well, we're headed to Laos and where I've never been and back to Tokyo. And we've never done a. We did a show there for the old series on Food Network, but I'm really, really looking forward to that. And Papua New Guinea, Colombia. We're hoping to get into Tehran to shoot Spain. It's a big world, you know, and I could just keep going back to China, so. And will, you know, at every opportunity. So those are in the very near future. Thank you. Hi.

Thanks for being here. So you're off to. Obviously influenced by really good music. I mean, you grew up in the right city for it. Richard Howell, Tom Berlane you mentioned. But I was wondering in particular about your writing, if there's any authors that have influenced you writing style wise.

Well, I mean, I think it's really obvious that, you know, when I read Hunter Thompson for the first time at age 12, I was 12 years old and he was being serialized in Rolling Stone, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And it was just the top of my head lifted off. I just said, oh, my God, this is so powerful, this language. It's so heartfelt, it's so passionate, it's so hyperbolic, it's so true. And it's saying things that just no one else was saying. You know, maybe not the best role model for a 12 year old, you know, but obviously a big, big influence on me. William Burroughs was a big influence. The crime writing of George V. Higgins, who nails dialogue, you know, that's the benchmark for realistic dialogue. You know, those are writers who, I think Graham Greene, for his content and his sort of spoiled romanticism and, you know, his failed Catholicism, his failed communism, his failed romanticism. You know, I love that stuff. You know, to me, the Quiet American, I read it every year. To me, it's a happy story. You know, dying of a broken heart, unloved in Vietnam. Sounds pretty good. So those are, those are big, big influences on me. And I think if you're an aspiring writer and when I get writer's block, I read, you know, I read old Elmore Leonard, you know, that is a professional writer, you know, really useful to see how he gets in and out of stuff and without taking himself too seriously. Thank you. Sure. You were famously filming in Beirut in 2006 when the war broke out. You wrote about it in Salon and told a bunch of stories about the evacuation. Were there any stories you didn't get to tell? Any images that you wish you could share again? I guess. Was that the worst thing on a global scale that you saw while traveling so far? It was the most heartbreaking thing, you know, it was the most deeply, deeply discouraging, heartbreaking thing I've ever. I've ever seen. You know, we showed you. We didn't shoot much. We didn't think we were shooting an episode when we were there. We were just trying to not go crazy. And then we were convinced when we got back to New York, our partner said, listen, sit down for an interview and then see what we do with the footage. And let's, let's see whether they can make something, you know, respectful out of this. It was a really, really poisoned my attitude in a lot of ways. I'd. I'd become very naive in a sense. I lost a lot of cynicism that I collected or gotten over the years in kitchens. You know, I'd become a lot more hopeful about the world being the recipient of so much random, so many random acts of kindness from strangers. Around the world, I begun to get a little starry eyed about the possibility of, you know, wow, we seem to get along with everybody. You know, if you just sit down at the table, everything's going to be okay. And then to realize that it really doesn't matter how nice you are, how forward thinking, how tolerant, how hip, how good your food is, how pro American, you know, how much of a Rumsfeldian dream of a Middle East Beirut was. You know, everybody will just stand back and watch you bomb back 20 years for no good reason at all. That was a very nasty lesson to learn. And it took a long time to kind of gather up enough optimism to go out on the road and make snarky travel food tv. I'm still really bitter about it, and I want very, very badly to go back to Beirut and have the opportunity to show people how good the food is and how great, how uniquely wonderful that city is. I think we all look forward to the Tehran episode then. Thanks. On a much lighter note, I'm curious, given your background in food and television, to see what you think of the whole Iron Chef America. Do you laugh at it? Do you think it's total bullshit? Do you think it actually contributes at all to public understanding of what chef's do? You know, I'm really good friends with Mario Batali, and he loves doing that show. I mean, he really enjoys doing the show because he. Well, because he wins all the time. It is a real competition. They have a half an hour to consider their secret ingredient. It is something of a carnival in a freak show. And maybe it does. I mean, should we be taking cooking, professional cooking that seriously? I don't know. So I'm okay with it. I mean, okay, Chairman Kaga is, you know, a, you know, an actor. I can live with that. You know, your waiter at the restaurant doesn't really like you, you know, so, you know, a certain amount of pretend is okay with me. I. I'm a little concerned. Like, who is Cat Cora?

I just.

I'm just asking. I mean, I know Bobby. Bobby Flay had a lot of restaurants, you know, and has been around a long time, you know, been in, you know, Mario certainly a lot of rest. I know who he is. Morimoto. I know just a Kat Kora person. Did they grow her in a petri dish at Food Network? Is this. It's kind of like the in sync or, you know, of chefs, you know, I think industry creation. I'm a little concerned. I understand she has a SAG card, which is kind of problematic for Me, you know, Chef, should you be in the Screen Actors Guild? I'm thinking no, but I like it. I love those cooking competition shows. You know, I watch them all. I watch next, Iron Chef America. I watch. I watch all of them. But Hell's Kitchen, that was just. That was like the most cruel carnival freak show ever. I mean, I like Gordon Ramsay. He's a friend. But did you ever believe for a second, would you hire any of those. Those guys? I mean, they were clearly, all of them, the technical ability of mollusks. I mean, they just stood there like lonely, hopeless, talentless, helpless freaks, waiting for the axe to fall. And it just seemed pointlessly cruel. It was immediately obvious that none of them could hold down a job for two hours at a, you know, Dunkin Fries in a clam shack. So it just seemed pointlessly cruel. And this is me talking, so. And of course, I love Top Chef. Love it. Love. Love. Hung totally deserved to win. So I just want to. Let's. Let's. Let's. Let's set. Let's set the record straight there right away. He totally deserved to win. And, you know, oh, he was so mean. You know, he spilled the truffle oil and didn't clean up afterwards. You. You want a nice chef or a good chef, you know? Hi.

Well, thanks for all the questions, everyone. That's all we have time for. But Mr. Bourdain will sign books if you want to line up.

Thank you all for coming. I really appreciate it. Thank you.