Anthony Bourdain

BBQ APOCALYPSE

I’ve referred only half jokingly over the years to the early days of my television career when, after two seasons of making shows around the world for A COOK’S TOUR, I was advised that audiences just didn’t respond to all those foreign locations where people talked funny and sometimes (horror of horrors) even had to be subtitled. My cruel masters sat back in their chairs and with dreamy, wistful looks suggested how wonderful it would be if I could just confine my interests to shows about tailgate parties, pony rides and….barbecue. “Exotic” locations were problematic, they suggested. They didn’t fit in with their ” current business model.” 

Well, after 8 years of NO RESERVATIONS, in which I have been allowed to travel this world unfettered and largely without constraint, I found myself once again thinking, “What’s the most ****ed up thing I can do on the show?” The answer, it seemed, was to embrace the beast. Go right back and do what would have been unthinkable back then (or at any time since): make a show about a subject that every single travel and food show has done a million times, in a place that has been more than adequately covered (as least as relates to slowly smoked meats). Go right to the heart of core Americana—that uniquely All-American genre of cookery called Kansas City Barbecue. And while I was at it, I thought—why not go all the way—attend my very first tailgate party? What could be more unlike me? I’ve been to Saudi Arabia. Tribal Liberia. China. Why couldn’t I embrace this curious and much loved indigenous practice as I had this—just cause it’s American? The plan? To go to Kansas City—and challenge ourselves to making a single subject show—almost entirely about briskets, ribs, pulled pork, sticky sauce—and yet do it in a way that had never been done before. Meaning, I would challenge the fine ZPZ team of talented cinematographers to make Barbecue Porn so extreme, so hardcore, so enticing that we could bring life to even this tired subject.  And what would I say about all this? What would be my point of view?
It came to me over late night vodka shots in a Croatian parking lot: ZAMIR!

Who better to explore those most American of subjects than my always optimistic Russian friend? What better way to look at my first tailgate experience than through the fresh,  un-jaded eyes of my veteran sidekick for whom America is still a Wonderland of the unfamiliar, strange and fabulous?  Lured by possibly misleading promises that he would be trained and groomed to replace me as a television travel host, Zamir was flown to Kansas City where he would be (he was assured) instructed in the dark arts of hosting a food show.  On Monday night, you will see the results.

And we would need music. Good music. More importantly, we would need cheap good  music. Fortunately, I had recently become aware that the Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of THE BLACK KEYS were very fond of a good meal and were, after many years on the road, susceptible to offers of free food. In return for a lunch of chicken wings and ribs, they quickly agreed to drive their van from their hometown of Akron Ohio, to Kansas City and join me for an afternoon of bourbon and barbecue.
 
The tailgate party, by the way, turned out to be something of a mystical experience. The Kansas City Chiefs had not been having a good season when we arrived. Even the most enthusiastic KC fans that day, huddled in the cold parking lot outside the stadium, did not give them much chance against the phenomenally streaking Green Bay Packers. But they hadn’t accounted for the Magical Powers of Zamir. He arrived fully decked in Chiefs colors, waving his giant foam hand and screaming “Let’s Pack the Packers” (while consuming Godawful quantities of Jello shots and bourbon). His unbridled, child-like enthusiasm proved contagious, urging the team on to an unexpected upset. Local talk radio the next day suggested that my Russian friend might have in some way, actually been responsible for this victory. Had he given the Packers the “Evil Eye”? Was he some kind of Eastern European Good Luck Charm? Did he have…”Powers?”  The next day, local sports radio spoke in hushed and respectful tones of the bearded Russian who had appeared—supernaturally—in the parking lot prior to the game, spoken in what were described as “tongues” (or possibly gibberish), invoking through some ancient Dark Art, a force that swept across the gridiron that day, and crushed the sons of Lombardi under the Chief’s mighty hooves. 

There is a lot more to see—and to eat— in Kansas City than barbecue.  But that’s not what we were there for. We had other business: To go where many had gone before. Only do it better. And weirder. 

I think, I hope, we succeeded.

Hard 8

Eight seasons of NO RESERVATIONS.  Who would have guessed?  I sure as Hell wouldn’t have. How long could we get away with it? Not very long was the prevailing wisdom. And yet here we are.  Nearly 700,000 air miles later, about two thirds of the way through shooting—and it’s looking pretty good. Mozambique—airing tonight—looks SO good, in fact, that our Emmy Award winning cinematographer Zach Zamboni says it’s the finest work he’s ever done.  (Personally, I think the upcoming Penang episode is a close contender).

In following weeks, we attempt to take the much photographed world of Kansas City Barbecue waaay past 11 on the food porn dial, investigate the Croatian Coast,  visit Lisbon, Baja, Penang, Burgundy, Austin,  Finland—and take you deep inside the mysterious cult of the annual gathering of Cook It Raw (this year in Japan), where some of the world’s best chefs challenge each other to seek, forage—and then cook far, far out of the box. Soon to be shot are shows in Emilia Romagna, the Dominican Republic, Rio and Israel.

“Where have you not been that you’d like to—but haven’t been able to?” is a question I’m asked frequently these days. And the answer is Libya, the Congo, Iran, Myanmar. Difficult places all. Myanmar has been loosening up a lot lately so I’m hopeful that’s in our future. We’ve been trying to do a Libya show since the beginnings of the uprising there—but security concerns seem to foil us at the last minute every time we get close. It’s a major frustration. The Congo is another place I’d love to do a show. Its history has been a long personal obsession. Year after year, any hopes of shooting there have also been foiled. The people—and the food— of Iran have come highly recommended, year after year, by travelers who have been there. It’s actually a very young country demographically. But their government is way too loathsome and unpredictable at this point to reliably plan a shoot there—and there’s talk, of course of imminent airstrikes on their nuclear facilities. So, probably not this season. 

“Is it still fun?” is another question I’m asked often.

Answer: “Hell, yeah.” 

DARK PASSAGE

What do Norah Jones, Christopher Walken,  the band “ ****edUp”, Vegan Black Metal Chef,  Sam Brown, nightmare of Eastern European folklore Krampus, the Catalonian Pooping Log, Dave Arnold, chefs Lidia Bastianich,  April Bloomfield, Kurt Gutenbrunner, Eder Montero, Alexandra Raij, Carlos Llaguno Morales and the voices of Adam Richman and Andrew Zimmern have in common?

They all foolishly agreed to appear in our scandalous, dark, action-packed fever dream of a Holiday Show which airs this Monday, December 12th at 10PM—when, presumably, the kiddies will be asleep.

Frankly, I think it’s our finest (and most disturbing and deranged) hour yet, a holiday classic. The above artists were—all of them—heroically good humored and generous with their time. And I’d like to give particular thanks to Sam Brown—whose appearance is particularly fearless, frightening  and so far from her “brand” as to make us all look like wussies. Thank you Sam. Never shall I make another snarky remark. You ****in’ rule.  Now wash that mouth out with soap. Your language is appalling! Thanks Norah Jones for learning to sing scatological ditties in Catalan—and for all your work on the show.  Christopher Walken. Now I can scratch a major item off my bucket list. And the rest of you…I am forever grateful.

Do NOT miss this. Christmas has never been stranger.

OVER. AROUND. THROUGH.

Our late model SUV roars down the two lane highway between Nampula and Ilhe Mocambique. Two white guys in front: me (an American) and Fernando (Portuguese) and Carlos, our Mozambican fixer in the back. Fernando’s got the car pushing 80, blowing past mud hut villages with thatched roofs no power, no water, life inside largely unchanged in a hundred years but for the school children in their freshly washed uniforms returning from school in the baking heat. All along the route, families crouch in the sun, or under the shade of baobab trees, sorting cashews. Every few hundred yards, a young man in ragged clothes extends an arm with a plastic pail into the path of our oncoming vehicle, hoping we’ll slow down, stop, buy some nuts. 

We whip right by them. It seems, I am uncomfortably aware, a perfect metaphor for much of Africa.

We are back shooting new episodes of NO RESERVATIONS and immediately noticeable what a difference it is from the experience of making THE LAYOVER. Unlike the relatively languid pace of NoRes, we shot 10 episodes of The Layover in a month and half, a mostly experimental high speed crunch through three continents, my crew running backwards, pulling focus on their new Panavision lenses, verite style. The heat in Singapore and Hong Kong brutal, a week’s worth of meals in two days and unlike NoRes, the bastards were shooting every minute. No escape from the harsh, gaze of their cameras.

A “coffee shop” in Amsterdam. A mind boggling variety of insanely potent blends of hydro laid out before me. (Of course, as a responsible television host and role model for youth, I did NOT participate in anything so bestial as the use of mind altering substances—even in a city where their use is legal. That would be wrong. And no doubt contrary to network policy!) Strangely, and with no prior warning, I found myself….uncomfortable with the crowd in the smoky room. I began to withdraw into myself—one of those weird, mini-moments of paranoia where you think everybody’s looking at you. Only in my case, everybody WAS looking at me. Three cameras hung in the air a few feet from my nose, unblinking, waiting, waiting for me to come out of my shell. I sat stunned and cotton-mouthed, looking in vain for an escape. My host, a jovial, red-eyed weed barista said, “Dude! You okay?”

It’s nearing the end of another epically long, delicious and excessive meal at Montreal’s JOE BEEF. There’s been some wine consumed and we are now deep into the Calvados.  The conversation has drifted (as it tends to in such circumstances) away from matters at hand—like what to do on Layovers and how cool Montreal is and Fred and Dave, my hosts are catching up on chef gossip and the like.  Producer Tom Vitale (twitter handle @tvsuperstarr)  starts to get the concerned puppy look he gets when he’s not getting the on-camera “content” he needs and gently—if somewhat slurringly, interjects, putting to  Dave a TV friendly question, trying to get him back on topic.
“So, Dave…What do you LOVE about Montreal?” he inquires. 
The question lands with a dull thud at the table.  There is a moment of silence as Dave, a rather large—some say imposing— fellow festooned with much ink, smiles warmly and considers. In a low, sweetly benign tone, he says to me—without looking at Tom (but heard in his earpiece). 
“You know…I like him. I love him. I love him so much I’d like to make a skin suit out of him. I wonder what his pelvis will sound like when I break it?”

Tom barely spoke for two days.

San Francisco. Last day of the series shoot. Wrap party at the Fairmont Hotel’s magnificent Tonga Room.  After many (some might say too many) Mai Tai’s, two time  Emmy Award winning  cinematographer Zach Zamboni (twitter handle @zachzamboni) peels off his clothes and hurls himself into the un-chlorinated Tonga Lagoon. Not medically advisable we are informed by our waiter. Stone, the network line producer, on site to observe, follows suit. I have the photos.

No explanation other than awesomeness! 

SOUTHERN COMFORT

I just got back from family vacation, where, for ten days, I violated all my rules and everything I’ve ever preached about how to travel.  I stayed put. I rarely left the hotel grounds.  I ate in the same two restaurants for most of my trip—rarely deviating from pasta, pizza and gelato. Though there was a lake a few hundred yards walk down, I never put so much as a toe in it—spending the bulk of my days instead, splashing around in the shallow end of the pool with a Barbie pail , an inflatable porpoise, and a relentlessly energetic 4 year old girl. It was marvelous.

I missed—or was at least physically absent from—the monstrously overblown “controversy” about the dietary choices of  “regular people” and the larger question of whether I am  a cruel, horrible, snake-eating, Yankee liberal elitist—or just an occasionally obnoxious guy making a point.  Or a bit of both. Without revisiting a week where I found myself in the rare, worrying– and yet strangely  satisfying position of having both FOX News AND the New York Times drop a deuce on my head, I’ll let this Monday’s episode of NO RESERVATIONS make my argument for me.

The show begins in New Orleans, a city I feel very connected to—and continues deep into the heart of Cajun country and culture. The South—particularly (but not exclusively) Louisiana, is where “American” food comes from.  There are certainly other uniquely regional cuisines and specialties in this country—but creole and Cajun constitute uniquely American-born mutations. They could not have occurred anywhere else.  Like the birth of jazz—they were created  at bizarre yet magical intersections of cultures and circumstances—the end products of long journeys, much pain and simple pleasures.

One of the things I’m always looking at as I travel around the world is “where the cooks come from”.  And if there’s a regular feature, a common thread wherever you go in this world, it’s that the best cooks and often the best chefs come from the poorest or most challenging regions.  And it is without doubt that the greatest , most beloved and iconic dishes in the pantheon of gastronomy—in any of the world’s mother cuisines—French, Italian or Chinese–originated with poor, hard-pressed, hard working farmers and laborers with no time, little money and no refrigeration.

Pot au Feu , Coq au Vin, Sup Tulang, Cassoulet, pasta, polenta, confit, —all of them began with the urgent need to make something good and reasonably sustaining out of very little.  So many of the French classics began with the need to throw a bunch of stuff into a single pot over the coals, leave it simmering unattended all day while the family worked the fields, hopefully to return to something tasty and filling that would get them through the next day.  French cooking, we tend to forget now, was rarely (for the majority of Frenchmen) about the best or the priciest or even the freshest ingredients. It was about taking what little you had or could afford and turning it into something delicious without interfering with the grim necessities of work and survival.  The people I’m talking about here didn’t have money—or time to cook.  And yet along with similarly pressed Italians, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Indians and other hungry innovators around the world, they created many of the enduring great dishes of history.

So the notion that hard working, hard pressed families with little time and slim budgetshave to eat crappy, processed food –or that unspeakably, proudly unhealthy “novelty dishes” that come from nowhere but the fevered imaginations of marketing departments are—or should be—the lot of the working poor is nonsense.

The many Cajuns who were good enough to host us on this Monday’s episode make this case, I think, far better than I ever could.  Notice, when you watch the show, howeverybody cooks.  Men, women—even the kids seem to be helping out.  Many aren’t cooks, per se, but everybody we met , everybody, was really, really good at at least one dish.  Cajuns proudly trace their roots to a particularly harsh and brutal diaspora, followed by a steep learning curve as they adapted to an incredibly difficult new environment.  Their culinary traditions reflect that.

At the traditional “boucherie” I  attended, an  entire community swung into action within seconds of me putting two  bullets into the guest of honor.   And one and all– everyone, from musicians, mechanics, to the town mayor—set about demonstrating the real guiding principles of  gastronomy. Slow cooked, “smothered” and “stuffed” turkey wings, a stew made from the backbone of the pig,  delicious, hot boudin made from the blood or less expensive bits, head cheese, cracklins. None of this was expensive. None of the cooks were professionally trained. But what I ate that day—and on other days—in Lafayette, Breaux Bridge and Eunice was some of the most delicious food I’ve had anywhere.

And what about New Orleans? There’s nothing fancy or expensive about the wonderfully kooky Afro-Chinese hybrid street food, Yakkamein, or red beans and rice—or the fried chicken at Willie Mae’s.  A good muffaletta sandwich, an oyster Po’ Boy—these are not expensive luxuries, they’re birthrights—and no one who’s eaten them can ever say they are any less delicious than anything served in a Michelin starred dining room. Made well, by someone who knows what they’re doing, they are unimprovable by man or God.  They are also, one would assume, quite delicious and quite fattening enough without squeezing them between two Cinnabons.

For ****’s sake, the South pretty much taught us all to cook.  They know what good, affordable  food is—having pretty much written the book on the subject. All I’m saying is that Macaroni and cheese is a good and noble dish.  Deep fried macaroni and cheese is no better and certainly no more affordable.

This is the last episode of NO RESERVATIONS of this season.   We begin shooting a new season  in September, but in the interim period, while we’re out there travelling, I hope you’ll find amusement—and maybe even some useful information– in THE LAYOVER, a ten episode, high speed mini-series we just shot in an alternately thrilling and exhausting bounce  around the world, from New York, Singapore,  Hong Kong, Rome, San Francisco, Miami,  Montreal, Amsterdam, London, and Los Angeles.

And for the NOLA/Cajun episode, I want to thank Lolis Eric Elie, Wendell Pierce,  David Simon and everybody from the HBO series “TREME”, upon whose previous works and extensive research and experience we shamelessly piggybacked.

SAFETY FIRST

In the end, we were all fine—as untouched and untroubled as we’d been before Iraq.

If anything changed, if there was a single takeaway from what we saw in Kurdistan and what we learned during three days of “Hazardous Environment Training” in what our British instructors called “Virginiastan”, it was the absolutely jaw-dropping  realization of exactly how physically difficult it is for our military personnel on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.And  I’m not talking about  the fighting. I’m talking about just being there, moving about in regulation gear, training. the day-to-day.  Watching on TV and in films, perhaps you realize intellectually that the standard issue body armor, with the  ceramic plates weighs around 45 pounds, but until you actually wear the stuff, much less try and help carry the slippery dead weight of an unconscious man across broken ground, you have no idea. Add the additional burden of an M-16, ammunition, pack and gear, Kevlar helmut and you’re already humping about 95 pounds of additional weight through heat that, in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, reaches well over 110 degrees. The body armor doesn’t exactly breath. You’re running sweat within seconds—just standing still.  Presumably, you are being trained to—at moment’s notice, hoist a similarly attired buddy over your shoulder and carry his weight as well. It’s damn near superhuman. And that’s before you’ve ever had to fire a shot in anger. In the back of your mind too, I came to find out,  is the certain knowledge that none of this heavy armor—not the Kevlar vest, not the ceramic plates—-and not the helmut—will protect you in the slightest from an AK-47 round. Nor will a cinderblock wall. A bullet froman AK, the most widely used weapon on the planet, will cut through all of it like cheddar.

The vests we wore in training were decidedly lighter (except Tom, who got standard issue).  We were, at all times, properly hydrated.  Nobody was shooting real bullets at us—nor was anyone likely to in the wilds of Virginia.  While it was uncomfortable in our vests, being asked to treat realistic but still fake sucking chest wounds while being spoken to harshly by our trainers, we knew at all times that we’d be retiring at night to comfortable hotel beds and air conditioned rooms.  In the event,  our Virginiastan training ended up being a lot harder than Kurdistan in Iraq.  And Southeastern Turkey, which judging from recent events, was even more dangerous, couldn’t have been lovelier.

This show is complicated. The Kurds in Iraq are our greatest friends. We have used them (often badly) as our instrument many times-and if there has been any upside to our adventures in Iraq, it has been that the Kurdish people have, at long last, enjoyed a measure of security and autonomy unheard of in this century.  Iraqi Kurds are more   pro-American—and pro-Bush in particular than just about…anywhere else. And it should be pointed out that since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq, there have been exactly zero coalition deaths or injuries in Kurdish areas off the country.  Whatever your feelings about the rightness or wrongness or strategic value of invading Iraq, it is very hard to see present day Kurdistan and not be happy for them.

In Turkey, however, we see the same people as terrorists—and our policies reflect this.  Until recently, Kurds in Turkey were not allowed to even refer to themselves by their true ethnicity. They were officially called ” mountain Turks who have forgotten their language”.  To even use the word “Kurd” was to invite prison—or worse. Often much worse.  The Turkish government has been at various times despicably oppressive in their campaigns against Kurdish attempts at finding a political voice. And, to be fair, Kurdish groups, often armed and trained across the border, have attacked Turks and Kurds seen as too sympathetic to the Turkish authority with lunatic ferocity.  In Turkey, the Kurds don’t like us too much.  In Iraq, well, you’d hardly realize you’re IN Iraq.

Three British security experts with years of “on the job” experience in some of the nastier conflict zones on earth. Four heavily armed Peshmergas. Body armor. Training. And in the end, we were fine. A few tense moments, perhaps, a misunderstanding here and there. But fine. I’d recommend Iraqi Kurdistan to anyone looking for beautiful scenery and some off-beaten track adventure tourism.

And I have to say I’m pleased with my training. That will last a lifetime. Knowing that I can set a compound fracture, apply a tourniquet, stop a sucking chest wound,  tell how long somebody’s got before bleeding out, administer CPR,  identify my position and call in a Medevac or an airstrike, pick my way across a mine field, find cover, behave intelligently at hostile roadblocks—surely some of these skills might serve me well someday on location or at the supermarket. My “situational awareness” alone, is much improved. If you find yourself dismembered on the produce aisle at Whole Foods someday and I happen to be nearby? I’m your boy. 

A BEGINNING. AN END

It all began with Ferran Adria in more ways than one. It was because he reached out to me in 2001, invited me to come see him (in spite of the fact that I had written unflatteringly of him in Kitchen Confidential) that my partnership with zero point zero productionbegan. It was because he agreed to throw his life, his restaurant, his workshop and creative process open to our cameras that we began our first venture in independent television production. It was because of him–and Food Network’s lack of interest in an El Bulli show–that Chris Collins, Lydia Tenaglia and I went out on our own, reached into our pockets and funded that first bare bones trip to Spain to shoot what later became the film (and subsequent episode of No Reservations), “Decoding Ferran Adria”. It was Ferran, who, truth be told, became the impetus for our show, now in its 7th year. And it was Ferran who was responsible for my meeting Chef Jose Andres when he showed up at an early screening of the film as his US representative. I can well remember Jose standing up at the end of the film and announcing to the audience his approval. It was a very proud moment for me. In those days, when Jose’s mouth moved, it often seemed that Spain was speaking. That kind of generosity should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever known or worked with Ferran Adria or his brother, Albert. They have always shared, never clung jealously to their hard won creations. And once again, in spite of the world world banging at their door, looking to get one last meal, one last interview, one last meal at their legendary restaurant, once again, they opened their lives to me.

It peeves me beyond reason to read unknowing people describe El Bulli as “fancy”, or “pretentious” or ” snobby.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. For a third of my last meal there, we ate with our hands. There were no elaborate table settings. It was never a particularly expensive restaurant by European standards–especially three star Michelin ones. Best I can tell, they never even operated at a profit. Jackets and ties were never required. If it was ”exclusive”, that was only because millions more people wanted to eat there than their 50 odd seats could accommodate. Yet, somehow,tables were made available on a regular basis for fishmongers, bartenders and cooks from the neighboring town of Roses. If sous chefs from Chicago to Sydney seemed, magically, to receive the kind of treatment usually reserved for government ministers and oligarchs, it speaks all the better of them.

I don’t know if Monday’s episode is the best depiction of what the Adrias did at El Bulli–though I’m pretty damn sure it is. I do know that our producers and camera people and editors and post production people went all out–did their very best work. This show was a labor of love and much gratitude. We were determined to get it right.
We shot in Hospitalet, the town near Barcelona where the brothers grew up. We shot the staff meal at El Bulli. It was insisted I work the line a bit–to get a better idea of what’s really involved in getting those amazing creations to the table.
We shot the single greatest restaurant meal of my life–and one of the very last to be served there. We shot at Tickets, the more casual restaurant in Barcelona which, by the time you read this, will be the only place you can eat the food of an Adria brother.
We shot–and will show you–what’s next for El Bulli, which closes as a restaurant any minute now–forever. You will see the animations and blueprints of the entity to come–and hear Ferran describe his plans for the future.

And, to a great extent, you will see all of this through the eyes of Jose Andres, who began his career as a young cook at El Bulli, and who joined me for an unforgettable careen through Catalonia, eating and drinking and enjoying life as one can, it seems, only in his presence. I’m still recovering. Jose alone would be reason enough to watch this show. By the time you see the show, what you will be watching will be history.

CUBA, CUBA CUBA

Say what you want about Castro—(we CAN, after all, Cubans not so much)—he managed, through design or neglect, to keep Havana beautiful. Run down, crumbling, many buildings barely habitable—even the national baseball team has to play during the day because their stadium lights are broken and the country is too poor to fix them. Where things barely work, where time is arrested, where a failed ideology wheezes along on life support long after its inventors and sponsors abandoned it—at least, at least Havana is un-****ed by time. Where Moscow and St Petersburg brim with newly uglified buildings, malls, and the old cookie cutter concrete blocks leftover from the workers’ paradise, Havana looks like a shabbier but still gorgeous version of its older self. When it all changes, as it surely shall, I hope Havana’s waterfront, the malecon, the old hotels, the facades, the Nacional, the Tropicana, the cars—they remain—at least in appearance and design—the same. I’d hate to see fast food signs, the boutique hotels, bottle service, frat bars and canary yellow Lamborginis of the douche side of Miami. When everybody’s wired and connected and chatting freely, watching 500 channels of cable and voting their minds, I hope the mojitos don’t start coming in sno-cone form, the old neighborhoods dug up for golf courses or water parks.

It’s easy, I know, to over-romanticize the unspoiled. Especially when “unspoiled” means “poor”. But look. Look.

Whatever your politics, however you feel about Cuba—look at tonight’s show and admit, at least, that Havana is beautiful. It is the most beautiful city of Latin America or the Caribbean. Look at the Cuban people and admit that they are proud and big hearted and funny and kind—and strong as hell, having put up with every variety of bullshit over the years. On these things, I hope we can agree.

WHERE THE ROAD ENDS

Reportedly, there are about 4 million requests for reservations per year at EL BULLI,  inarguably, the world’s most innovative and exciting restaurant. Only a few thousand are accommodated.  There have been about as many words written on the subject, most of them focusing, understandably, on Ferran Adria, the chef,  and on the wildly creative and forward thinking techniques and presentations he has introduced each year to the world.  A snarky, sour grapesy, but not entirely untrue piece on slate.com recently described a writer’s syndrome called IAAEBAYD (or something like that): I Ate At El Bulli And You Didn’t; a common malady that infects most of the writers, myself included, who have been among the tiny minority lucky enough to have eaten at El Bulli—much less been given access to the people behind it.  Invariably, the author points out, every article about El Bulli has to contain a passage describing the twisting and treacherous road from the nearest town on Spain’s Costa Brava to the remote cove where the restaurant  is tucked away at one end of a mostly unpopulated beach.

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BOTH ENDS BURNING

Eight shows into production for our seventh season of No Reservations with a whole bunch more to come. That’s a lot of years of traveling around the world, stuffing food and liquor into my face. Eight shows shot already and ready to go—or still being tended to carefully in a nerdly warren of editing rooms. In between shoots, I’ve been bouncing around the country doing public speaking gigs, something that over time, becomes more like a stand-up routine than anything resembling a “talk”. Talk for two hours a night, forty or more times a year in front of a large audience, you quickly find yourself learning a skill set you never thought you’d want or need. You repeat yourself, like a comedian, working the same lines, adjusting the timing, changing a word here and there—altering delivery—and hopefully, slowly working out the old and trying out the new.

It’s been tough at times, up at five off to a plane, a car, Easton, Glenside, Coral Springs, Red Bank, Stamford, Hershey, Norfolk, Tallahassee. Started writing this in a delayed plane on the tarmac in Lauderdale, waiting for clearance from Atlanta, wrote some more on another plane, will probably finish it somewhere between Cerritos, Palm Desert and Modesto. Somewhere in the middle there, I had a few hours of date night with my wife and way too much sake . My daughter cried when she saw I was leaving again and I feel guilty and horribly hungover. End of this run of appearances, I’m ditching as much of everything and anything I’ve ever said before and concentrating on a new presentation. . And I’ll be cutting back significantly on the whole live in concert thing in general. Enough is enough. I don’t ever want to hear my daughter crying “Daddy, Daddy!…..” again as I walk down the hall to the elevator. The show is one thing. I go away, I come back, I stay for a while. But touring like this? One concrete suicide dressing room after another, another chain hotel room, trying to maintain the right balance between the Red Bull (for fatigue) and the beer (for stage jitters and nervousness) necessary to not “die” out there in front of 1,500-2000 people. Cause they let you know right away if they’re not enjoying you. And believe me, that’s somewhere you don’t want to be—twisting slowly in the wind, struggling for words, in front of an audience who are beginning to deeply regret having paid the egregious price of their tickets.

On a good day—and there are many, I get to see exactly who is reading my books—and watching my shows, and I hear from them directly. It’s amazing how intimately people are acquainted with the misadventures of Zamir, how they seem to cherish best my most painful and embarrassing moments. It’s inspiring, though, how many distinguished looking ladies and gentlemen of years enjoy a good felching joke. The weird swings of demographics is nice to see: One night, forty percent of the audience will be Filipino-Americans, the next mostly alienated, college age men, next, mostly women, many of whom appear to have dressed for the event. Mondays are usually restaurant people—you can smell the garlic and onions and salmon in the air—and they’re always a rowdy bunch. Next night—inexplicably—it’s golfers or drunks. You never know. An awful lot of people seem to be watching No Reservations—and most of them, it appears, by stumbling across re-runs, DVRing, downloading it legally or otherwise, renting from Netflix or iTunes. Which is all good by me.
The fine folks at Swiffer maybe not so much.

Nicaragua, the Ozarks, Hokkaido, Cambodia, Boston, Vienna, the Brazilian Amazon and Haiti are in the can . Haiti is airing first—as our season premier: Monday, February 28th. 9PM EST. It’s a ballsy choice for the network. As Haiti, having suffered ,only one year ago,a massive earthquake that killed nearly 300,000 people, more recent difficulties with cholera, and the all too regular afflictions of poverty, corruption and political turmoil is not a happy-go-lucky show. Our friends at eater.com will have difficulty finding a good dick joke for their regular “Quotable Bourdain” feature. But like our first Beirut show, it’s an episode I’m very proud of. And I’m grateful to the network for choosing this, above others, to lead off with. On the subject of gratitude, I can hardly give words to how important Sean Penn was to the show or how helpful. Above and beyond showing us around the tent city of 55,000 souls that he helped found and continues to help administer, and explaining to us articulately and with real passion the complex needs and problems of a country in desperate need of a break, he pointed us to the incredible artist’s colony in the middle of densely packed maze of crumbling, cobbled together shacks in an inner city shantytown. Here, in total obscurity—and with barely a hope in the world of ever selling a single work, amazing craftsmen are making art every day. They live in tiny sheds. A bed surrounded by stacks and stacks of their work, most covered in dust.
And for the helicopter shot that closes the show. That was Sean’s idea too—without realizing it. Talking about the situation, he described how he’d felt, the first time he’d seen Port au Prince from above— a suggestion we took— and his remarks resonated later in the editing room. As you’ll see, it ended up making a very powerful end to the show.

In addition to the kick-off to our seventh season, we are approaching another landmark: 1,000,000 Facebook “Likes” . I thought of this while watching David Fincher’s brilliant SOCIAL NETWORK recently; that scene where the offices of Facebook get all excited when they hit a million users. I saw that film and started paying attention to our numbers. And as of this writing, it’s getting mighty close. Feel free to help getting us over the hump. Having fully embraced the interactive world of Facebook, twitter, live streaming, tumblr et al, and hijacking my accounts, I find myself living in a strange and wonderful new world. One in which I talk to my wife, it seems, on twitter nearly as much as in person, bust Ripert’s balls while he’s skiing in Park City, hear from Batali while he’s chowing down on crab in Singapore—and communicate with my audience out front while I finish my last beer before showtime backstage. I have learned already the perils of drunk tweeting.

Any other news? Yes. Season two of the great HBO series TREME starts soon. Be sure to watch. I’m doing some writing and consulting on the show and can assure you, without violating any confidentiality agreement, that it’s going to be a very very foodie season. Hi-test shit.
Also be absolutely sure to pre-order chef Gabrielle Hamilton’s amazing memoir BLOOD, BONES AND BUTTER. A book I think mops up the floor with Kitchen Confidential. Shockingly good.
GET JIRO, the graphic novel I wrote with Joel Rose and illustrated by the incredible Langdon Foss, is looking really, really breathtakingly good. The art is…well…you’ll just have to see it to believe it. That’ll be coming out NEXT year, I’m told, so my dreams of ComiCon this year will have to be deferred till next.

An I’ll be appearing as “Biff” in the Coral Gables Dinner Theater Production of “Death of a Salesman” with Joe Piscopo and Frankie Munoz.
That last thing is NOT true.

Possible episodes: 

Hot and Spicy All Latin Action

Asian on Asian!

Smoky and Sticky (BBQ)

Ripe and Gooey!

Eat it Raw!!

The Hard Way

Nose to Tail. 

The professionals.