Background Image

...

As Incisively Pointed Out In The Documentary Food Inc.," An Overwhelmingly Large Percentage Of "new," Healthy," And "organic" Alternative Food Products Are Actually Owned By The Same Parent Companies That Scared Us Into The Organic Aisle In The First Place. "they Got You Comin' And Goin'" Has Never Been Truer.

-Anthony Bourdain

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

As Incisively Pointed Out

Anthony Bourdain

...

As Incisively Pointed Out In The Documentary Food Inc.," An Overwhelmingly Large Percentage Of "new," Healthy," And "organic" Alternative Food Products Are Actually Owned By The Same Parent Companies That Scared Us Into The Organic Aisle In The First Place. "they Got You Comin' And Goin'" Has Never Been Truer.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Anthony Bourdain

I Guess My Whole Life, As Much As I Might Have Wanted A Child For The Reason That Everybody Wants One, I Always Recognized That At No Point Until I Was 50 Was I Old Enough Or Up To The Job. I Thought, You Know What, I Not Only Really Want A Child, But At This Point, Finally In My Life, I Think I'm Up To The Job And I'm The Type Of Person Who Could Do The Job Well And I'm Financially Prepared To Look After A Child.

It Seems That The More Places I See And Experience, The Bigger I Realize The World To Be. The More I Become Aware Of, The More I Realize How Relatively Little I Know Of It, How Many Places I Have Still To Go, How Much More There Is To Learn. Maybe That's Enlightenment Enough - To Know That There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind, No Moment Of Smug Clarity. Perhaps Wisdom, At Least For Me, Means Realizing How Small I Am, And Unwise, And How Far I Have Yet To Go.

I'm Of A Generation That Romanticizes And Maybe Even Over-romanticized Things That Were Painful, That Hurt Others. I Feel That. But I Don't Know If I Have Any Regrets.

Those Places I Don't Understand, Just Doing Bad Food. It Takes Some Doing. Making Good Pasta Is So Much Easier Than Making Bad Stuff. It Actually Takes Quite An Effort To Make Poor Linguine Pomodora.

Good Food And Good Eating Are About Risk.

My Daughter Always Behaved In Restaurants. And If She Didn't, She's Going Out. I Mean, One Of The Parents Is Going To Take Her Outside. Immediately.

I'm Sure One Of The Frustrations Of Being A Western Enthusiast Of Japanese Food And Culture Is You're Confronted Every Day With The Absolute Certainty That You Will Die Ignorant.

I'm At My Most Productive Before I Even Have My First Cup Of Coffee. I Only Get Slower And Stupider As The Day Progresses.

The Fact That Over 50 Per Cent Of The Residents Of Toronto Are Not From Canada, That Is Always A Good Thing, Creatively, And For Food Especially. That Is Easily A City's Biggest Strength, And It Is Toronto's Unique Strength.

There Are Very Sophisticated, Very Time-consuming Dishes To Prepare; Always From Scratch, And Always In Excess Of What You Could Possibly Need. You Tend To Kill Your Guests With Kindness Around Here.

[george] Orwell's Essays. It's Got It All. Great Writing, A Worldview That I Find Interesting And Useful, And Most Of It Timelessly True.

In Fairness, You Know, I'm A Big Believer In If Your Kid Makes Noise In The Restaurant You Should Remove The Child Immediately.

We Now Have A Generation Of People Who In Many Cases Feel That If They Become Chefs, They'll Get A Tv Show. They Have A Signature Haircut, A Year Into The Business, Or A Branding Arrangement With A Shoe Company. I Don't Really Relate To That. I Guess This Is The World We Live In Now.

Chefs Are Fond Of Hyperbole, So They Can Certainly Talk That Way. But On The Whole, I Think They Probably Have A More Open Mind Than Most People.

Avoid At All Costs That Vile Spew You See Rotting In Oil In Screwtop Jars. Too Lazy To Peel Fresh? You Don't Deserve To Eat Garlic.

I Could Eat Bloody Elvis - If You Put Enough Vinegar On Him.

If Somebody Crafts An Interesting Tweet That’ll Lead Me To Their Blog, I’m Going To Their Blog.

Always Entertain The Possibility That Something, No Matter How Squiggly And Scary Looking, Might Just Be Good.

I Just Do The Best I Can And Write Something Interesting, To Tell Stories In An Interesting Way And Move Forward From There.

A Proper Saute Pan Should Cause Serious Head Injury If Brought Down Hard Against Someone Else's Skull. If You Have Any Doubts About Which Will Dent, The Victim's Head Or Your Pan, Then Throw That Pan Right In The Trash.

I Go Anywhere I Want, Do Whatever I Want When I Get There, They Let Me Make Self-indulgent Tv About That Experience, And Give Me About As Much Creative Freedom As Anyone's Ever Had In The History Of Television.

Your Body Is Not A Temple, It's An Amusement Park. Enjoy The Ride.

This Is The Dream Of All The World. The Dream Is To Live In Granada. You Know, Work In The Morning, Have A One-hour In The Afternoon, At Night Go Out And Have That Life. You Know. Go Out And See Your Friends And Eat Tapa And Drink Red Wine And Be In A Beautiful Place.

Naturally, I'm Misanthropic. But The Negronis Are Helping Considerably.

I Am Very Much Enjoying The Fatherhood Phase Of My Life.

I'm A Decent Cook; I'm A Decent Chef. None Of My Friends Would Ever Have Hired Me At Any Point In My Career. Period.

If Anything Is Good For Pounding Humility Into You Permanently, It's The Restaurant Business.

Restaurant Business

Norman Mailer Described The Desire To Be Cool As A "decision To Encourage The Psychopath In Oneself, To Explore That Domain Of Experience Where Security Is Boredom And Therefore Sickness And One Exists In The Present, In That Enormous Present Which Is Without Past Or Future, Memory Or Planned Intention.

Just Because We Are Not Italian, Does Not Mean We Cannot Appreciate Michelangelo, It Is The Same With Cuisine.

The World They Live In Now Is In No Way The World The Michelin System Was Set Up To Evaluate Back In France, Which Was All About Motorists And Seeing If It Was Worth Driving An Extra 50 Miles For A Restaurant. It's A Silly Thing. Why Do You Want To Help A Tire Company? You Don't Owe Them Nothing.

I Can Unload My Opinion On Anybody At Anytime.

What Nicer Thing Can You Do For Somebody Than Make Them Breakfast?

Breakfast Being Important

People's Choice To Become Vegan, From People I've Spoken To, Seems Motivated By Fear.

I'm Really Happy To See The Explosion Of Interest In Korean Food, And This Hybrid Korean-american Food.

I've Long Believed That Good Food, Good Eating, Is All About Risk. Whether We're Talking About Unpasteurized Stilton, Raw Oysters Or Working For Organized Crime 'associates,' Food, For Me, Has Always Been An Adventure

Do You Really Want To Make Risotto To Order When You Have Eight Guests Sitting There? No. It Won't Work. Most Cookbooks Won't Tell You That. They Will Say Make It And It Will Come Out Perfectly. They Should Tell You You're Probably Going To Screw It Up The First 10 Times You Make It.

Context And Memory Play Powerful Roles In All The Truly Great Meals In One's Life.

I’ve Been Really Fortunate In That I Guess I Was Hired To Do A Cook’s Tour, I Was Already A Known Quantity, Meaning I Had Written A Really Obnoxious Book And Nobody Expected Me To Be Anyone That I Wasn’t Already.

I Am Not A Fan Of People Who Abuse Service Staff. In Fact, I Find It Intolerable. It’s An Unpardonable Sin As Far As I’m Concerned, Taking Out Personal Business Or Some Other Kind Of Dissatisfaction On A Waiter Or Busboy.

I Was A Serious Comic Collector And Fanboy As A Kid. I Wanted Very Badly To Draw Comic Books For A Lot Of My Childhood And Early Adolescence. So When You Have An Unfulfilled Dream Like That, When Years Later You Find Yourself In A Position To Make A Graphic Novel - Hell Yeah, I'm Going To Do That.

I Think Fine Dining Is Dying Out Everywhere... But I Think There Will Be - And There Has To Always Be - Room For At Least A Small Number Of Really Fine, Old-school Fine-dining Restaurants.

I Did Go Into The Amazonian Region Of Brazil. They Have Prehistoric River Fish That Weigh In At Around 600 Pounds, Which You Don’t See Anywhere Else. And Foods That Cannot Be Exported Or Even Found In Other Parts Of Brazil.

Do We Really Want To Travel In Hermetically Sealed Popemobiles Through The Rural Provinces Of France, Mexico And The Far East, Eating Only In Hard Rock Cafes And Mcdonalds? Or Do We Want To Eat Without Fear, Tearing Into The Local Stew, The Humble Taqueria's Mystery Meat, The Sincerely Offered Gift Of A Lightly Grilled Fish Head? I Know What I Want. I Want It All. I Want To Try Everything Once.

Being On Television, Being Recognizable, This Is Unnatural.

Recognise Excellence. Celebrate Weirdness And Innovation. Oddballs Should Be Cherished, If They Can Do Something Other People Can't Do.

Don't Touch My D**k, Don't Touch My Knife.

In That Sense, What A Great Way To Live, If You Could Always Do Things That Interest You, And Do Them With People Who Interest You.

I Don't Like To See Animals In Pain. That Was Very Uncomfortable To Me. I Don't Like Factory Farming. I'm Not An Advocate For The Meat Industry.

Peta Doesn't Want Stressed Animals To Be Cruelly Crowded Into Sheds, Ankle-deep In Their Own Crap, Because They Don't Want Any Animals To Die Ever And Basically Think Chickens Should, In Time, Gain The Right To Vote. I Don't Want Animals Stressed Or Crowded Or Treated Cruelly Or Inhumanely Because That Makes Them Probably Less Delicious.

I Think It's Important If You're Going To Write A Cookbook, It Should Sound Like You Talking - It Should Be Things You Actually Believe, Otherwise I'm Not Interested.

I Travel 250 Days A Year. There Are Chef Friends Who I Only See Every Couple Of Years. By Conventional Standards I'm A Bad Friend. I'm Not There To Remember Your Birthday Or To Offer You Words Of Support Through Twitter. I'm Not Up On What You're Doing In New York Because I'm Not In New York. I'm Not What People Call In Parenting Circles "present."

I'm Certainly Dismayed By What I'm Seeing Now. There's A Lot Of Ugliness Of A Kind I've Never Seen In My Lifetime, Or Heard In My Lifetime. But, Look, I'm A Romantic. I'm Hopeful.

My Wife Was Easy Because She Trains [jiu-jitsu] All The Time. She's Pretty Much On A Completely Different Diet. I Always Just Threw Meat At Her And She's Happy On A 100 Percent Protein Diet, So We Seldom Ate Together.

I Wouldn't Want To Compare Myself To David Byrne Whom I Consider A Genius, But What I Think What We Have In Common Is That He's Also A Guy Who Is Very Interested In The World And Who Has A Lot Of Passions Beyond Singing And Playing Guitar.

I Urge You To Travel - As Far And As Widely As Possible. Sleep On Floors If You Have To.

Kitchen Confidential

America's Most Dangerous Export Was, Is And Always Will Be Our Fast-food Outlets.

I Look At Guy Fieri And I Just Think, 'jesus, I'm Glad That's Not Me.'

These Pharmaceutical Company Executives Are Dope Dealers And They Should Be Treated Worse, And More Roughly Than Dope Dealers. When You're Talking About Millionaire And Billionaire Executives At Pharmaceutical Companies, These Are People With Something To Lose If Threatened With Jail. Frog-march Them Out Of Their Door In Suburbia, Handcuffed And Surrounded By Dea Officers, With Their Children And Neighbours Watching.

If You've Ever Hauled A 28-pound Two-year-old Around New York, You'll Find That Men Fold At The Knees A Lot Quicker Than Women.

Food Is Everything We Are. It's An Extension Of Nationalist Feeling, Ethnic Feeling, Your Personal History, Your Province, Your Region, Your Tribe, Your Grandma. It's Inseparable From Those From The Get-go.

Turning Your Nose Up At A Genuine And Sincere Gesture Of Hospitality Is No Way To Travel Or To Make Friends Around The World.

When I Cook, I Generally Stick With What I Know, What I'm Comfortable With, And What I Feel I've Paid My Dues Learning, And Am Good At.

Big Stuff And Little: Learning How To Order Breakfast In A Country Where I Don't Speak The Language And Haven't Been Before - That's Really Satisfying To Me. I Like That.

Don't Lie About It. You Made A Mistake. Admit It And Move On. Just Don't Do It Again. Ever

You Have To Love A Town Where You Can Both Smoke And Gamble In A Pharmacy.

Being A Vegan Is A First-world Phenomenon, Completely Self-indulgent.

I Wanted To Write In Kitchenese, The Secret Language Of Cooks, Instantly Recognizable To Anyone Who Has Ever Dunked French Fries For A Summer Job Or Suffered Under The Despotic Rule Of A Tyrannical Chef Or Boobish Owner.

Italy Is Hard To Beat. It's A Family-friendly Experience, They Like To See Kids In Restaurants, And At Dinner You See All The Adults At The Table And All The Kids At The Other End Of The Table. Maybe They Run Off And Go Play.

What's The Opposite Of Suck? Un-suck?

If I'm An Advocate For Anything, It's To Move. As Far As You Can, As Much As You Can. Across The Ocean, Or Simply Across The River. The Extent To Which You Can Walk In Someone Else's Shoes Or At Least Eat Their Food, It's A Plus For Everybody. Open Your Mind, Get Up Off The Couch, Move.

That Without Experimentation, A Willingness To Ask Questions And Try New Things, We Shall Surely Become Static, Repetitive, Moribund.

I'm Not Going To Get Off The Pony As Long As They Let Me Ride It.

Maybe That’s Enlightenment Enough: To Know That There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind; No Moment Of Smug Clarity. Perhaps Wisdom...is Realizing How Small I Am, And Unwise, And How Far I Have Yet To Go. -anthony Bourdain

Anything That Improves People's Expectations Of A Meal Is Good For The World. Anything That Weans Even One Kid Or One Adult Away From Chili's Or T.g.i. Friday's Is Definitely A Win For The Good Guys.

I Wanted It To Look Like Real Cooking In Someone's Real Home Or Just So Out-of-there Bizarre That It Would Be Fun.

I Like The Fact That Melbourne Always Seems To Support Their Chefs And Promote Them In Ways I Find Really Admirable.

If People Are Working Only Rice And Beans For Much Of Their Diet, It Says Something.

I Don't Think People Should Be Encouraged To Look Like Kate Moss; I Think That's Unreasonable. I Think The Normal Human Body Should Be Glorified. By The Same Token, If You Need A Stick To Wash Yourself, You're Not Healthy.

I Didn't Want Food That Looked Unapproachable Or Ridiculously Beautiful.

Street Food, I Believe, Is The Salvation Of The Human Race.

I'm Not Ted Nugent. My House Is Run, Essentially, By An Adopted, Fully Clawed Cat With A Mean Nature. I Would Never Hunt. I Would Never Wear Fur. I Would Never Go To A Bullfight. I'm Not Really A Meat And Potatoes Guy.

The Journey Is Part Of The Experience - An Expression Of The Seriousness Of One's Intent. One Doesn't Take The A Train To Mecca.

If I'm In Rome For Only 48 Hours, I Would Consider It A Sin Against God To Not Eat Cacio E Pepe, The Most Uniquely Roman Of Pastas, In Some Crummy Little Joint Where Romans Eat. I'd Much Rather Do That Than Go To The Vatican. That's Rome To Me.

Anyone Who Doesn't Have A Great Time In San Francisco Is Pretty Much Dead To Me.

Bad Food Is Made Without Pride, By Cooks Who Have No Pride, And No Love. Bad Food Is Made By Chefs Who Are Indifferent, Or Who Are Trying To Be Everything To Everybody, Who Are Trying To Please Everyone. Bad Food Is Fake Food, Food That Shows Fear And Lack Of Confidence In People's Ability To Discern Or To Make Decisions About Their Lives.

I’m Always Secretly The Most Pleased When A Show Just Really, Really Looks Good And When My Camera Guys Are Really Happy With The Images They Got.

I Love New York. I'm A Guy For Whom A New York Accent Is A Comforting Thing.

There's Something Wonderful About Drinking In The Afternoon. A Not-too-cold Pint, Absolutely Alone At The Bar - Even In This Fake-ass Irish Pub.

I Feel That If Jacques Pepin Shows You How To Make An Omelet, The Matter Is Pretty Much Settled. That's God Talking.

When I'm Doing A Book Tour In The States, I'll Wake Up In The Room Sometimes In An Anonymous Chain Hotel, And I Don't Know Where I Am Right Away. I'll Go To The Window, And It Doesn't Help There Either, Especially If You're In An Anonymous Strip And It's The Usual Victoria's Secret, Gap, Chili's, Applebee's.

Never Try To Get Your Kid To Eat Anything She Doesn't Already Want To Eat. Just Eat Interesting Stuff In Front Of Her While Completely Ignoring Her. Never, Ever Suggest "try It." Never Say Those Dreaded Words "try It, It's Good." Or Worse, "it's Good For You." That'll Poison The Well.

Get Up Early And Go To The Local Produce Markets. In Latin America And Asia, Those Are Usually Great Places To Find Delicious Food Stalls Serving Cheap, Authentic And Fresh Specialties.

On The Plane, I Like To Read Fiction Set In The Location I'm Going To. Fiction Is In Many Ways More Useful Than A Guidebook, Because It Gives You Those Little Details, A Sense Of The Way A Place Smells, An Emotional Sense Of The Place. So, I'll Bring Graham Greene's The Quiet American If I'm Going To Vietnam. It's Good To Feel Romantic About A Destination Before You Arrive.

Venezuela Is Another Place I'd Like Very Much To Go, Which Is Proving Very Difficult. I Have Not Been There To Make A Show And I'd Like To, Very Much.

I Think It's A Universal Truth That Most Chefs I Know Are Happiest Eating Simple, Unadorned Good Things.

At The End Of A Dinner At My House, My Kitchen Sink Is Filled With Dishes And There's Nothing Pretty About The Garbage.

I Lurched Away From The Table After A Few Hours Feeling Like Elvis In Vegas - Fat, Drugged, And Completely Out Of It.

Assume The Worst. About Everybody. But Don't Let This Poisoned Outlook Affect Your Job Performance. Let It All Roll Off Your Back. Ignore It. Be Amused By What You See And Suspect. Just Because Someone You Work With Is A Miserable, Treacherous, Self-serving, Capricious And Corrupt Asshole Shouldn't Prevent You From Enjoying Their Company, Working With Them Or Finding Them Entertaining.

The Italians And Spanish, The Chinese And Vietnamese See Food As Part Of A Larger, More Essential And Pleasurable Part Of Daily Life. Not As An Experience To Be Collected Or Bragged About - Or As A Ritual Like Filling Up A Car - But As Something Else That Gives Pleasure, Like Sex Or Music, Or A Good Nap In The Afternoon.

Even On The Serengeti, It Ain't A Barbecue If There Ain't Some Kind Of Beer.

Travel Isn’t Always Pretty. It Isn’t Always Comfortable. Sometimes It Hurts, It Even Breaks Your Heart. But That’s Okay. The Journey Changes You; It Should Change You. It Leaves Marks On Your Memory, On Your Consciousness, On Your Heart, And On Your Body. You Take Something With You. Hopefully, You Leave Something Good Behind.

As A Chef I’m Not Your Dietitian Or Your Ethicist, I’m In The Pleasure Business.

One Of Life's Terrible Truths Is That Women Like Guys Who Seem To Know What They're Doing.

Every Chef I Know, Their Cholesterol Is Through The Roof. And Mine's Not So Great.

Few Things Are More Beautiful To Me Than A Bunch Of Thuggish, Heavily Tattooed Line Cooks Moving Around Each Other Like Ballerinas On A Busy Saturday Night. Seeing Two Guys Who'd Just As Soon Cut Each Other's Throats In Their Off Hours Moving In Unison With Grace And Ease Can Be As Uplifting As Any Chemical Stimulant Or Organized Religion.

An Employer Of Mine Back In The '80s Was Kind Enough To Take Me On After A Rough Patch, And It Made A Big Difference In My Life That I Knew I Was The Sort Of Person Who Showed Up On Time. It's A Basic Tell Of Character.

I'm Not Searching For Hard News; I'm Not A Journalist, But I'm Interested In Pushing To Boundaries Of Where We Can Do The Kind Of Stories That We Want To Do. I Mean, It's A Big World And Cnn Has Made It A Lot Bigger And They Haven't Flinched.

As You Move Through This Life...you Leave Marks Behind, However Small. And In Return, Life - And Travel - Leaves Marks On You.

I Have The Best Job In The World.

For A Moment, Or A Second, The Pinched Expressions Of The Cynical, World-weary, Throat-cutting, Miserable Bastards We've All Had To Become Disappears, When We're Confronted With Something As Simple As A Plate Of Food.

The Cookbooks I Value The Most In My Collection Are The Ones Where You Hear The Author's Voice And Point-of-view In Every Recipe.

A Burger Is Something Anyone Can Do, Just Follow The Rules.

One Of The Things Is Challenging Yourself To Do A Rome Show When Everybody's Done A Rome Show. To Find Some Aspect Of Food Culture Or Chef Culture That People Can Look At In A New Way.

I'd Never Done Anything Useful As Far As My Writing.

I Like Telling Stories, And I Tell Stories That Interest Me. It Would Be Boring To Have To Go To Nothing But The Best Restaurants. That Would Be A Misery To Me.

I'm A Pretty Decent Writer. It Comes Easy To Me. I Don't Agonize Over Sentences. I Write Like I Talk. I Try To Make Them Good Books.

The Worst, Most Dangerous Person To America Is Clearly Paula Deen. She Revels In Unholy Connections With Evil Corporations And She's Proud Of The Fact That Her Food Is F---ing Bad For You. If I Were On At Seven At Night And Loved By Millions Of People At Every Age, I Would Think Twice Before Telling An Already Obese Nation That It's Ok To Eat Food That Is Killing Us. Plus, Her Food Sucks.

My French Definitely Improves The More I Drink, As I Worry Less And Less About Absolutely Perfect Grammar. I Do Speak And Understand The Language, Just Not Particularly Well.

If You’re Twenty-two, Physically Fit, Hungry To Learn And Be Better, I Urge You To Travel – As Far And As Widely As Possible. Sleep On Floors If You Have To. Find Out How Other People Live And Eat And Cook. Learn From Them – Wherever You Go.

You Have To Be A Romantic To Invest Yourself, Your Money, And Your Time In Cheese.

Kitchen Confidential

I Make Friends Faster And Easier Than Journalists.

I’m A Big Believer In Winging It. I’m A Big Believer That You’re Never Going To Find Perfect City Travel Experience Or The Perfect Meal Without A Constant Willingness To Experience A Bad One. Letting The Happy Accident Happen Is What A Lot Of Vacation Itineraries Miss, I Think, And I’m Always Trying To Push People To Allow Those Things To Happen Rather Than Stick To Some Rigid Itinerary.

For Their Own Good, Vegetarians Should Never Be Allowed Near Fine Beers And Ales. It Will Only Make Them Loud And Belligerent, And They Lack The Physical Strength And Aggressive Nature To Back Up Any Drunken Assertions.

[when I Die], I Will Decidedly Not Be Regretting Missed Opportunities For A Good Time. My Regrets Will Be More Along The Lines Of A Sad List Of People Hurt, People Let Down, Assets Wasted And Advantages Squandered.

I'm In No Position To Try To Tell People How To Live Their Family Life.

In My House, Neither My Wife Nor My Daughter Are Impressed That I'm On Television, And They Remind Me Of That Frequently.

You Learn A Lot About Someone When You Share A Meal Together.

I Don't Have Much Patience For People Who Are Self-conscious About The Act Of Eating, And It Irritates Me When Someone Denies Themselves The Pleasure Of A Bloody Hunk Of Steak Or A Pungent French Cheese Because Of Some Outdated Nonsense About What's Appropriate Or Attractive.

My Tastes In What I Eat At Home Would Be Very Familiar To Most People Who Cook For Families. I Just Organize Those Things A Little Bit Differently.

The Cooking Profession, While It's A Noble Craft And A Noble Calling, 'cause You're Doing Something Useful - You're Feeding People, You're Nurturing Them, You're Providing Sustenance - It Was Never Pure.

Only Desperation Can Account For What The Chinese Do In The Name Of 'medicine.' That's Something You Might Remind Your New Age Friends Who've Gone Gaga Over 'holistic Medicine' And 'alternative Chinese Cures.

Let's At Least Acknowledge Who Is Working In America Right Now And What Our Needs Are, As Well As The Moral Question Of Somebody Who's Been Here 20 Years, Paying Taxes To Which They Probably Do Not Receive A Refund, And Not Committing Any Crimes, Working Hard, And Supporting An Industry. Shouldn't There Be Some Middle Ground Here? Shouldn't There Be A Way For Them To Be Welcome In This Country?

They're Professionals At This In Russia, So No Matter How Many Jell-o Shots Or Jager Shooters You Might Have Downed At College Mixers, No Matter How Good A Drinker You Might Think You Are, Don't Forget That The Russians - Any Russian - Can Drink You Under The Table.

I'm Not Afraid To Look Like An Idiot On Tv.

I Need The Anesthetic Qualities Of The Local Fire Water.

It's Not Normal, What I Do. Just Being On Television Isn't.

It Would Be An Egregious Mistake To Ever Refer To Me In The Same Breath As Most Of The People I Write About.

Garlic Is Divine. Few Food Items Can Taste So Many Distinct Ways, Handled Correctly. Misuse Of Garlic Is A Crime...please, Treat Your Garlic With Respect...avoid At All Costs That Vile Spew You See Rotting In Oil In Screwtop Jars. Too Lazy To Peel Fresh? You Don't Deserve To Eat Garlic.

Don't Dunk Your Nigiri In The Soy Sauce. Don't Mix Your Wasabi In The Soy Sauce. If The Rice Is Good, Complement Your Sushi Chef On The Rice.

For Me, The Cooking Life Has Been A Long Love Affair, With Moments Both Sublime And Ridiculous.

I’m A Twitter Addict. Jose Andres Is A Serial Tweeter. It’s Funny To See Which Chefs Have Embraced It, And The Different Paths They Take.

I'm Really Good At Sleeping On Planes. I Mean, I Smell Jet Fuel And I'm Out; I'm Asleep For Takeoff.

When You Have A Child You're No Longer The Star Of The Movie.

I'm A Comic Nerd. I'm A Former Serious Collector For Much Of My Childhood And Early Teen Years I Wanted To Draw Underground Comics.

Thinking Of Getting Into The Leg-breaking Business, So I Can Profitably Sell Crutches Later.

I Think As A Moral Question, Restaurant Workers Should Get Paid More.

The Kobe Craze Really Annoyed Me. Most Of The Practitioners Had No Real Understanding Of The Product And Were Abusing It And Exploiting It In Terrible And Ridiculous Ways. Kobe Beef Should Not Be Used In A Hamburger. It's Completely Pointless.

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

My Daughter Takes Pride In Showing Up With Stuff That Other Kids Envy Or Are Freaked Out By, So I Send Her To School With Grilled Octopus.

There Are Chefs Who Are Spectacular Technicians, And Often Their Food Is Worth Eating Once Or Twice, But If There's No Heart In It, If There's No Personality In It, It's Not Something You Want To Go Back For. But Heart Without Any Skill At All? All The Heart In The World Ain't Gonna Help You If You Can't Peel An Onion, Or If You Don't Understand How To Apply Heat Properly. A Well-done Steak Is A Well-done Steak.

When You're Training For Jiu-jitsu, Particularly If You're Training For A Competition, You Have To Be Pretty Prescribed In The Variety Of What You Eat.

Meals Make The Society, Hold The Fabric Together In Lots Of Ways That Were Charming And Interesting And Intoxicating To Me. The Perfect Meal, Or The Best Meals, Occur In A Context That Frequently Has Very Little To Do With The Food Itself.

I Always Entertain The Notion That I'm Wrong, Or That I'll Have To Revise My Opinion. Most Of The Time That Feels Good; Sometimes It Really Hurts And Is Embarrassing.

I Learned A Long Time Ago That Trying To Micromanage The Perfect Vacation Is Always A Disaster. That Leads To Terrible Times.

I'm Not Trying To Explain Other Cultures, Or To Give A Fair And Balanced Account Of A Country, Or The Top Ten Things You Need To Know. I'm Not Trying To Spread World Peace And Understanding. I'm Not An Advocate Or An Activist Or An Educator Or A Journalist. I'm Out There Trying To Tell Stories The Best I Can.

I'm A Guy Who Should Not Have A Lot Of Free Time. But When It Comes To Vacation, I Like To Pull The Plug Completely. It's All About My Daughter - I'm No Longer The Star Of My Own Movie.

If You Get An Opportunity To Work With David Simon, Anybody With Good Taste Would.

As I See It, Fast Food Outfits Have Targeted Small Children With Their Advertising In A Very Effective Way. You Know, It's Clowns And Kid's Toys And Bright Colors And Things Like That.

Good Food Does Lead To Sex. As It Should. And In A Perfect World, Good Music Does Too.

Oh Yes, There's Lots Of Great Food In America. But The Fast Food Is About As Destructive And Evil As It Gets. It Celebrates A Mentality Of Sloth, Convenience, And A Cheerful Embrace Of Food We Know Is Hurting Us.

I Wasn't That Great A Chef, And I Don't Think I'm That Great A Writer.

At The End Of The Day, The Tv Show Is The Best Job In The World. I Get To Go Anywhere I Want, Eat And Drink Whatever I Want. As Long As I Just Babble At The Camera, Other People Will Pay For It. It's A Gift.

I Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

Doing Graphic Novels Is Cool! It's Fun! You Get To Write Something, And Then See It Visually Page By Page, Panel By Panel, Working With The Artist, You Get To See It Fleshed Out.

Going To Southeast Asia For The First Time And Tasting That Spectrum Of Flavors - That Certainly Changed My Whole Palate, The Kind Of Foods I Crave. A Lot Of The Dishes I Used To Love Became Boring To Me.

Cooking Professionally Is A Dominant Act, At All Times About Control. Eating Well, On The Other Hand, Is About Submission. It's About Giving Up All Vestiges Of Control, About Entrusting Your Fate Entirely To Someone Else. It's About Turning Off The Mean, Manipulative, Calculating, And Shrewd Person Inside You, And Slipping Heedlessly Into A New Experience As If It Were A Warm Bath. It's About Shutting Down The Radar And Letting Good Things Happen. Let It Happen To You.

It's Wrong I Think, Morally And Annoying In General, To Try To Get A Kid To Be A Foodie, So I Never Even Suggested, "hey Baby It's Good, Maybe You Should Try It." That Never Worked For Me.

Wholesome Food Is Wholesome Food Anywhere. I May Not Like Something But, Generally Speaking, If It's A Busy, Street Food Stall Serving Mystery Meat In India, They're In The Business Of Serving Their Neighbors. They're Not Targeted Toward A Transient Crowd Of Tourists That Won't Be Around Tomorrow. They're Not In The Business Of Poisoning Their Neighbors.

The Italians Seem To Have A Better Attitude With Kids And The Food Is Great!

I Often Look Ridiculous In Japan. There's Really No Way To Eat In Japan, Particularly Kaiseki In A Traditional Ryokan, Without Offending The Japanese Horribly. Every Gesture, Every Movement Is Just So Atrociously Wrong, And The More I Try, The More Hilarious It Is.

And Now To Sleep, To Dream...perchance To Fart.

I've Seen Zero Evidence Of Any Nation On Earth Other Than Mexico Even Remotely Having The Slightest Clue What Mexican Food Is About Or Even Come Close To Reproducing It. It Is Perhaps The Most Misunderstood Country And Cuisine On Earth.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

People Are Generally Proud Of Their Food. A Willingness To Eat And Drink With People Without Fear And Prejudice... They Open Up To You In Ways That Somebody Visiting Who Is Driven By A Story May Not Get.

To The Extent I Am Known, I Think I Am Known As A Person Who Expresses His Opinion Freely About Things - And I Was Sensitive To The Possibility That If I Was Seen Taking Money For Saying Nice Things About A Product, My Comments And Choices And Opinions Would Become, Understandably, Suspect.

As Incisively Pointed Out In The Documentary Food Inc.," An Overwhelmingly Large Percentage Of "new," Healthy," And "organic" Alternative Food Products Are Actually Owned By The Same Parent Companies That Scared Us Into The Organic Aisle In The First Place. "they Got You Comin' And Goin'" Has Never Been Truer.

I Do Not Have A Merchandise Line. I Don't Sell Knives Or Apparel. Though I Have Been Approached To Endorse Various Products From Liquor To Airlines To Automobiles To Pharmaceuticals Dozens Of Times, I Have Managed To Resist The Temptation.

Only Texans And Jews Understand Brisket

Theres No Hope, None, Of Ever Talking About It Without Pissing Somebody, If Not Everybody, Off...by The End Of This Hour I Will Be Seen By Many As A Terrorist Sympathizer, A Zionist Tool. A Self-hating Jew, An Apologist For American Imperialism, An Orientalist, Socialist, Fascist, Cia Agent, And Worse.

Unlicensed Hooch From A Stranger In A Parking Lot. Good Idea? Yes, Of Course It Is.

Thinking That Your Story Is So Interesting That Other People Will Want To Listen To It Or Read It Or Pay To Hear It, That's - What Kind Of Person Thinks That? A Monster Of Self-regard. It's Not Normal Thinking.

'kitchen Confidential' Wasn't A Cautionary Or An Expose. I Wrote It As An Entertainment For New York Tri-state Area Line Cooks And Restaurant Lifers, Basically; I Had No Expectation That It Would Move As Far West As Philadelphia.

There's Something Not Normal About You If You're Writing A Book About Yourself, Or About Anything. And If You're The Kind Of Person Who Can Deal With Being Recognized By Strangers And If That's Tolerable Or Pleasing To You, And Not Immediately Terrifying, That's Not Normal Either.

Cream Rises. Excellence Does Have Its Rewards.

Italy Is Good In The Sense That When You Bring A Child To A Restaurant In Italy, They're Happy To See It. The Waiters Will Say "complimenti" And Welcome You And Dote After The Kid. They Don't Treat You Like You Just Brought In This Horrible Probably Soon-to-be-squealing Creature Who's Going To Be Difficult.

I Am A Delightfully Evangelical Guy About Things I Love. I Am That Annoying Guy Who Sits Everyone Down And Forces Them To Read Some Book I Like. I'm Looking Across The Full Spectrum Of Genres.

I'm Away 250 Days A Year. It's A Tough Situation.

Tough Situations

My Mom Had Julia Child And 'the Fannie Farmer Cookbook' On Top Of The Refrigerator, And She Had A Small Repertoire Of French Dishes.

The Notion That Before You Even Set Out To Go To Thailand, You Say, 'i'm Not Interested,' Or You're Unwilling To Try Things That People Take So Personally And Are So Proud Of And So Generous With, I Don't Understand That, And I Think It's Rude. You're At Grandma's House, You Eat What Grandma Serves You.

I'd Learned Something... Food Had Power. It Could Inspire, Astonish, Shock, Excite, Delight And Impress. It Had The Power To Please Me... And Others. This Was Valuable Information.

I Listen A Lot To How People Speak. I've Read A Great Many Good Books In My Life. I Had Some Excellent English Teachers. Surely, Those Things Were Helpful.

Tokyo Would Probably Be The Foreign City If I Had To Eat One City's Food For The Rest Of My Life, Every Day. It Would Have To Be Tokyo, And I Think The Majority Of Chefs You Ask That Question Would Answer The Same Way.

If You Go To Chefs All Across America And Ask Them, 'what's Your Biggest Problem Right Now?,' It Is Finding People To Cook In Their Restaurants. They're Having An Enormous, Countrywide Problem Here Staffing Their Operations.

I've Sat In Sushi Bars, Really Fine Ones, And I Know How Hard This Guy Worked, How Proud He Is. I Know You Don't Need Sauce. I Know He Doesn't Even Want You To Pour Sauce. And I've Seen Customers Come In And Do That, And I've Seen Him, As Stoic As He Tries To Remain, I've Seen Him Die A Little Inside.

Jiro Ono Serves Edo-style Traditional Sushi, The Same 20 Or 30 Pieces He's Been Making His Whole Life, And He's Still Unsatisfied With The Quality And Every Day Wakes Up And Trains To Make The Best. And That Is As Close To A Religious Experience In Food As One Is Likely To Get.

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

You Know, It's Not The World I Would Have Wanted, For Sure.

The Ingredients Of A Hamburger Seldom Vary. It's A Percentage Of Fat To Lean Meat, Add Salt And Prepare And That's It. It Shouldn't Need A Recipe.

Trying To Micromanage The Perfect Vacation Is Always A Disaster. That Leads To Terrible Times. If You Get Lost And You Just End Up Eating Just Anywhere, You Know, You See A Bunch Of Venetians Sitting Around Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Something Unrecognizable In A Dark Alley Somewhere, Chances Are It's Interesting.

I Am In No Way Supportive Of Hunting For Trophies Or Sport - Would Never Do It And Don't Like It That Others Do. But If You Kill It, Then Eat It, It's Fine.

Trending Author

John Ralston Saul

Candace Cameron

Kevin Pietersen

Category