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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.

-Anthony Bourdain

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I’m A Big Believer

Anthony Bourdain

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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.

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

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.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

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 Can Unload My Opinion On Anybody At Anytime.

In America, There Might Be Better Gastronomic Destinations Than New Orleans, But There Is No Place More Uniquely Wonderful. ... With The Best Restaurants In New York, You'll Find Something Similar To It In Paris Or Copenhagen Or Chicago. But There Is No Place Like New Orleans. So It's A Must-see City Because There's No Explaining It, No Describing It. You Can't Compare It To Anything. So, Far And Away New Orleans.

Understand, When You Eat Meat, That Something Did Die. You Have An Obligation To Value It - Not Just The Sirloin But Also All Those Wonderful Tough Little Bits.

I'm Not Going Anywhere. I Hope. It's Been An Adventure. We Took Some Casualties Over The Years. Things Got Broken. Things Got Lost. But I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World.

I Was A Journeyman Chef Of Middling Abilities. Whatever Authority I Have As A Commenter On This World Comes From The Sheer Weight Of 28 Years In The Business. I Kicked Around For 28 Years And Came Out The Other End Alive And Able To Form A Sentence.

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.

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

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.

You Dropped A 500-seat Deuce On Times Square.

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.

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.

I Couldn't Imagine A More Unreliable, More Unprofitable Way To Make A Living Than Writing. My Advice? Show Up, Do The Best You Can. Keep Your Day Job. If You Get A Lucky Break, Don't F*** Up. It Was Helpful To Be Older Because I Had Made All The Really Stupid Mistakes Already.

I'd Like To Play Bass Like Bootsy Collins. I'm Serious. That Would Be My Dream.

In This Way, Writers Are Indeed, As Henry Miller Suggested, Traitors To The Human Race. We May Turn A Light On Inequity, Injustice, And Oppression From Time To Time, But We Regularly Kill What We Love In Insidious Fashion.

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

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.

'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.

When I Was Writing 'kitchen Confidential,' I Was In My 40s, I Had Never Paid Rent On Time, I Was 10 Years Behind On My Taxes, I Had Never Owned My Own Furniture Or A Car.

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

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

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.

In College, I Think I Probably Positioned Myself As An Aspiring Writer, Meaning I Dressed Sort Of Extravagantly And Adopted All The Semi-byronic Affectations, As If I Were Writing, Although I Wasn't Actually Doing Any Writing.

All Of These Concoctions That We Think Are Mexican, Are In No Way Reflective Of The Deep, Incredibly Old, Complex And Sophisticated Deep Regional Cuisine Of Mexico. Or The New Modern Mexican Cuisine, Which Has Really Been Exploding Over The Last Few Years. I Think We Just Have A Completely Misrepresented View Of How Good, How Complex These Flavors Are. I Think We Could Learn A Lot More. It's A Great Cuisine That's Really Moving Forward, Faster Than Any Other.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

When Do You Stop To De-douche?

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.

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 Think There's A Great Storytelling Tradition In The Restaurant Business That Tends To Attract People With An Oral Tradition Of Bulls - Ting And Bollocking. Creative People, People For Whom The 9-to-5 World Is Not Attractive Or Impossible. It Seems That Way. There Are A Lot Of Stories In The Business, And A Lot Of Characters - And It Seems To Attract Its Share Of Artists And Writers And People Who Hope To Do Something Creative In Their Lives.

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.

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.

I Would Like To See People More Aware Of Where Their Food Comes From. I Would Like To See Small Farmers Empowered. I Feed My Daughter Almost Exclusively Organic Food.

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 Eat Strategically. If I Know I'm Having A Big Chinese Banquet Tomorrow, I'm Not Eating A Big Dinner Tonight, And I'm Not Having Breakfast.

The Fact Of The Matter Is That, For Years, The Restaurant And Service Industry Has Been, To A Great Extent, Built On The Backs Of Often Underpaid Immigrants Of Often Dubious Legal Status.

I'm A Control Freak. If You're Going To Slap My Name On Something, I Would Like To Control It.

I, Personally, Think There Is A Really Danger Of Taking Food Too Seriously. Food Should Be Part Of The Bigger Picture.

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.

You Can Call Me The Bad Boy Chef All You Want. I'm Not Going To Freak Out About It. I'm Not That Bad. I'm Certainly Not A Boy, And It's Been A While Since I've Been A Chef.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

It's Very Rarely A Good Career Move To Have A Conscience.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Other Place On Earth Even Remotely Like New Orleans. Don't Even Try To Compare It To Anywhere Else.

What Is Left Of The Poor? Try To Buy A Fresh F**king Vegetable In West Baltimore. It Is A Not Completely Inconceivable Scenario In The Future, We'll All Look Like That... Waddling From Convenience Store To Fast Food Outlet, Chewing Mindlessly On 99 Cent Hamburgers.

I Don't Have To Agree With You To Like You Or Respect You.

Admiration And Respect

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If You Have A Good Experience In A Restaurant, You Tell 2 People. If You Have A Bad Experience, You Tell 10 People.

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

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We Know, For Instance, That There Is A Direct, Inverse Relationship Between Frequency Of Family Meals And Social Problems. Bluntly Stated, Members Of Families Who Eat Together Regularly Are Statistically Less Likely To Stick Up Liquor Stores, Blow Up Meth Labs, Give Birth To Crack Babies, Commit Suicide, Or Make Donkey Porn. If Little Timmy Had Just Had More Meatloaf, He Might Not Have Grown Up To Fill Chest Freezers With Cub Scout Parts.

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.

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.

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

Good Food And Good Eating Are About Risk.

I Admire Vegetarians Who Refuse To Eat Nothing But Vegetables In Their Homes, But I Also Admire Those Who Put Aside Those Principles Or Those Preferences When They Travel. Just To Be A Good Guest.

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

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.

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

Margarine? That's Not Food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I Can. If You're Planning On Using Margarine In Anything, You Can Stop Reading Now, Because I Won't Be Able To Help You.

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

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

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.

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.

Sometimes The Greatest Meals On Vacations Are The Ones You Find When Plan A Falls Through.

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Bible Of Cooking. The All-time Argument Ender. Early In My Cooking Career, I Wielded My Larousse Like A Weapon And It Never Let Me Down.

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.

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.

I'm Not Impressed By Any Cooks Who Can Brag About A Filet Mignon. A Guy Who Can Take The Neck Of A Shank Or Can Use Tripe To Make Into Something Delicious Is Really Interesting To Me; That's Impressive.

In Italy, Kids Are Taken To Restaurants Very Early, They're Welcome There, And They Learn How To Behave. You Don't See A Lot Of Screaming Crying Kids Acting Out In A Restaurant In Italy. They Don't Put Up With That.

No One Understands And Appreciates The American Dream Of Hard Work Leading To Material Rewards Better Than A Non-american.

Anyone Who's A Chef, Who Loves Food, Ultimately Knows That All That Matters Is: Is It Good? Does It Give Pleasure?

Food Is So Personal - I Mean Someone Is Talking To You When People Are Cooking For You. I Like To Hear An Identifiable Voice.

You'd Have A Hard Time Finding Anything Better Than Barcelona For Food, As Far As Being A Hub. Given A Choice Between Barcelona And San Sebastian To Die In, I'd Probably Want To Die In San Sebastian.

I Think We Should Increase The Minimum Wage And I Think $15 Is A Good Beginning.

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.

Where Once They Used To Say, 'cocaine Is God's Way Of Saying You Have Too Much Money' - Now, Maybe Edm Is. Come Ye Lords And Princelings Of Douchedom.

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.

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.

I Think Of [street Food] As The Antidote To Fast Food; It's The Clear Alternative To The King, The Clown And The Colonel.

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.

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

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I'm Excited By Any Food That's Prepared By Someone Who's Proud Of What They're Doing, Who Puts A Personal Imprint On Food.

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.

My House Is Run, Essentially, By An Adopted, Fully Clawed Cat With A Mean Nature.

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.

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

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

New Orleans Is A Glorious Mutation

There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind.

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

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.

One Of My Few Virtues - I Don't Have A Lot Of Them - Would Be A Deep Sense Of Curiosity. I'm Interested In How Other People Live In Other Places; I'm Interested In Other Cultures.

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

The Older I Get, And The More I Travel In Particular, The Less I Care About What Exactly Is In The Dish Than Who's Cooking It And Why.

If You Go To Working Class, And Working Poor Areas Of America, The Food Sources That Are Relegated To Them Are Generally Limited To Unhealthy Ones.

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.

Being On Television, Being Recognizable, This Is Unnatural.

To Me, Life Without Veal Stock, Pork Fat, Sausage, Organ Meat, Demi-glace, Or Even Stinky Cheese Is A Life Not Worth Living. Vegetarians Are The Enemy Of Everything Good And Decent In The Human Spirit, An Affront To All I Stand For, The Pure Enjoyment Of Food.

Having Been A Chef For Some Many Years, I Understand What It's Like To Work Really, Really Hard To Get Good At Something, Only To Have Someone Piss All Over It.

I Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

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

Open Your Mind, Get Up Off The Couch, Move.

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

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.

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

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.

I'd Love To Play Bass With Parliament Funkadelic, But I Can't Play Bass, So I Don't Think That's Going To Happen.

I Hated The Naked Chef. Fine, Yes, He Did Good Things For School Food Or Whatever, But, You Know, I Don't Want My Chefs To Be Cute And Adorable.

My Love Of Soft, Runny Cheese - It's Impossible To Resist.

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

When My Father Passed, I Was Still An Unsuccessful Cook With A Drug Problem. I Was In My Mid-thirties, Standing Behind An Oyster Bar, Cracking Clams For A Living When He Died. So, He Never Saw Me Complete A Book Or Achieve Anything Of Note. I Would Have Liked To Have Shared This With Him.

I Believe - To The Best Of My Recollection, Anyway - That I Soon Made The Classic Error Of Moving From Margaritas To Actual Shots Of Straight Tequila. It Does Make It Easier To Meet New People.

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.

Everything Important I Learned, I Learned As A Dishwasher.

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

Free Time Is My Enemy. I Recognized Early On I'm Not A Guy Who Should Have A Lot Of Time To Contemplate The Mysteries Of The Universe. I Need To Stay Busy... That's Just The Nature Of My Demons.

I Could Do Nothing But Brooklyn Shows For The Rest Of My Career, And I Could Die Ignorant.

I'm Really Happy To See Filipino Cuisine Starting To Really Take Hold Outside Of The Pinoy Community.

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

I'm Not Looking To Freak People Out - Eating Rodents Or Bugs. I Don't Do That Anymore.

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

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.

Always Was Morocco. And Recently The Country's Leadership Seems To Have Embraced It In All Its Ill-reputed Glory. The Days Of Predatory Poets In Search Of Literary Inspiration And Young Flesh Are Probably Over For Good. Hippies Can Just As Easily Get Their Bong Riffs In Portland Or Peoria. But The Good Stuff, The Real Good Stuff, The Sounds And Smells And The Look Of Tangier -- What You See And Hear When You Lean Out The Window And Take It All In -- That's Here To Stay.

Just Because I Like Sushi, Doesn't Mean I Can Make Sushi. I've Come To Well Understand How Many Years Just To Get Sushi Rice Correct. It's A Discipline That Takes Years And Years And Years. So, I Leave That To The Experts.

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 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.

Learn How To Cook A (effing) Omelet. I Mean, What Nicer Thing Can You Do For Somebody Than Make Them Breakfast? You Look Good Doing It, And It's A Nice Thing To Do For Somebody You Just Had Sex With.

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.

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

I'm Evangelical On The Subject Of Some Chefs And Writers.

Is It A Good Hot Dog? That’s All I Want To Know … I Don’t Think The Personal Health And Purity Of My Colon Is That Important Compared To Pleasure. As A Chef, I’m Not Your Dietitian Or Your Ethicist. I’m In The Pleasure Business …. My Responsibility Is To Give You The Most Delicious Tomato That I Can Afford, Given The Circumstances, And Maybe Increase The Likelihood That You Get Laid After Dinner.

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.

Travel Changes You. As You Move Through This Life And This World You Change Things Slightly, You Leave Marks Behind, However Small. And In Return, Life - And Travel - Leaves Marks On You. Most Of The Time, Those Marks - On Your Body Or On Your Heart - Are Beautiful. Often, Though, They Hurt.

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.

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

If I Were Trapped In One City And Had To Eat One Nation's Cuisine For The Rest Of My Life, I Would Not Mind Eating Japanese. I Adore Japanese Food. I Love It.

Silly Trends Don't Last Long. A Lot Of This Nonsense That Pops Up, I Don't Even Really Pay Attention Because It'll Be Gone In A Flash.

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.

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.

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

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I'm Never A Reliable Narrator, Unbiased Or Objective.

But I Do Think The Idea That Basic Cooking Skills Are A Virtue, That The Ability To Feed Yourself And A Few Others With Proficiency Should Be Taught To Every Young Man And Woman As A Fundamental Skill, Should Become As Vital To Growing Up As Learning To Wipe One’s Own Ass, Cross The Street By Oneself, Or Be Trusted With Money.

I'm Not Besotted With The Notion Of Being On Cnn To The Point That I'm Going To Suddenly Morph Into Anderson Cooper Or Christiane Amanpour. I'm Not A Foreign Correspondent.

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 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.

You Know, From Age 17 On, My Paycheck Was Coming From Cooking And Working In Kitchens.

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

Breakfast Being Important

It's Been About A Week Without Alcohol Of Any Kind. I'm Enjoying My New, Clean-living Lifestyle.

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.

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.

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.

When You're Shooting That Fast End To End, You Wake Up In A Hotel And You Don't Know Where You Are. You're Dreaming Of Singapore, You Wake Up In Hong Kong. Or You Just Lose Track. It's One Of The Reasons I'm Staying In Hotels That I Know I've Stayed In Before, And They Don't Look Like Other Hotels.

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

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."

Really Annoys Me Any Time I See Asian Fusion Too. Asia Is A Big Place; Which Asian Are You Talking About? You Notice It's Never Uzbek Or Tajik Food. It's Thai, And It's Generally Insulting.

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.

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.

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

The Way You Make An Omelet Reveals Your Character.

Cooking Is Work That Is Traditionally Done By Working-class People. The Work Itself Is Not Glamorous. It's Repetitive, And It's A Lot Closer To Factory Work Than Art, Whatever Level You're Doing It At. Certainly Chefs Are Used To Living Like Rock 'n' Rollers To Some Extent, Inasmuch As We Get A Lot Of Those Fringe Benefits Without Having To Learn How To Play Guitar.

As Americans, We Tend To Look At Mexican Food As Nachos, Which Is Not Mexican Food Really - They Don't Eat Them.

I Think We Should Be Honest About Who Is Working In Our Kitchens.

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.

Most Of The Time, I'm Fighting Guys Who Are 22 Years Old, Former College Wrestlers, Athletes, Kids Who Are In Much Better Shape Than Me. Often People Who Are Much Bigger And Wider Than Me. It Can Be Dispiriting At First.

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.

It’s An Irritating Reality That Many Places And Events Defy Description. Angkor Wat And Machu Picchu, For Instance, Seem To Demand Silence, Like A Love Affair You Can Never Talk About. For A While After, You Fumble For Words, Trying Vainly To Assemble A Private Narrative, An Explanation, A Comfortable Way To Frame Where You’ve Been And Whats Happened. In The End, You’re Just Happy You Were There - With Your Eyes Open - And Lived To See 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

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.

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.

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.

Is There A Sharper Commentary On American Culture And The World Than The Simpsons?

American Culture

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.

Cream Rises. Excellence Does Have Its Rewards.

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'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.

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.

I Can't Do Exercises Regularly Because My Schedule Changes From Day To Day. I'm Okay With Hurting Myself, Like I'll Lift Something Until It Hurts, But I Don't Want To Pass Out Or Vomit In Front Of People.

When Dealing With Complex Transportation Issues, The Best Thing To Do Is Pull Up With A Cold Beer And Let Somebody Else Figure It Out.

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?

It's That Show Friends. Ruined Coffee Forever.

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

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

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Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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