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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.

-Anthony Bourdain

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If You’re Twenty-two, Physically

Anthony Bourdain

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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.

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More From Anthony Bourdain

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

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

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.

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.

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 Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

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'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.

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.

Good Food And Good Eating Are About Risk.

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.

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

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.

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.

What You're Going To Be Eating In The Next Year Is Decided By Chefs. If The Consensus Is That Pot-bellies Are In Next Season, That's What's On Your Plate. And I Think That's A Good Thing, Because We Know, Obviously, About Food.

Vegetarians, And Their Hezbollah-like Splinter Faction, The Vegans ... Are The Enemy Of Everything Good And Decent In The Human Spirit.

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

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

Tough Situations

Without Montreal, Canada Would Be Hopeless.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

It's As If Japanese Men, All To Aware That Deep Inside They'd Like To Stomp Tokyo Flat, Breathe Fire, And Do Truly Terrible And Disgusting Things To Women, Have Built Themselves The Most Beautiful Of Prisons For Their Rampaging Ids. Instead Of Indulging Their Fantasies, They Focus On Food, Or Landscaping, Or The Perfect Cup Of Tea -- Or A Single Slab Of O-toro Tuna -- Letting Themselves Go Only At Baseball Games And Office Parties.

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

When Do You Stop To De-douche?

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.

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 To Agree With You To Like You Or Respect You.

Admiration And Respect

Kitchen Confidential

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Write Quickly With A Sense Of Urgency. I Don't Edit Myself Out Of Existence, Meaning I'll Try To Write 50 Or 60 Pages Before I Start Rereading, Revising And Editing. That Just Helps With My Confidence.

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.

There's Always This Assumption That You're Going To Get Everything Right Immediately. And Any Professional Understands That That's Just Not So.

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.

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.

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

There Are People With Otherwise Chaotic And Disorganized Lives, A Certain Type Of Person That's Always Found A Home In The Restaurant Business In Much The Same Way That A Lot Of People Find A Home In The Military.

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.

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.

For A Dinner Date, I Eat Light All Day To Save Room, Then I Go All In: I Choose This Meal And This Order, And I Choose You, The Person Across From Me, To Share It With. There's A Beautiful Intimacy In A Meal Like That.

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

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.

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.

Skills Can Be Taught. Character You Either Have Or You Don't Have.

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.

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

Luck Is Not A Business Model.

Business Models

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

If I'm Training I'm Cutting Weight For A Competition. I'm Hard. I'm Pretty Much Eating Animal Protein And That's It. No Rice, No Beans, Certainly No Sweets.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm Definitely Looking Forward To The Day When I Stop Working - If I Ever Stop Working. I Like The Idea Of Keeling Over In My Tomato Vines In Sardinia Or Northern Italy.

Good Food Is Very Often, Even Most Often, Simple Food.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

In America, There Might Be Better Gastronomic Destinations Than New Orleans, But There Is No Place More Uniquely Wonderful.

Without New Ideas Success Can Become Stale

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

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.

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.

You Have An Impeccable Argument If You Said That Singapore, Hong Kong, And Tokyo Are Food Capitals. They Have A Maximum Amount Of Great Stuff To Eat In The Smallest Areas.

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

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

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

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."

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

I Make Friends Faster And Easier Than Journalists.

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.

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

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.

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

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

When Your Signature Dish Is Hamburger In Between A Doughnut, And You've Been Cheerfully Selling This Stuff Knowing All Along That You've Got Type 2 Diabetes... It's In Bad Taste If Nothing Else.

Type 2 Diabetes

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

If You're Training In A Combat Sport, Deliciousness Takes A Backseat.

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.

Cream Rises. Excellence Does Have Its Rewards.

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

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

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

Kitchen Confidential

To Me, Life Without Veal Stock, Pork Fat, Sausage, Organ Meat, Demi-glace, Or Even Stinky Cheese Is A Life Not Worth Living.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

Kitchen Confidential

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.

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

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.

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

Restaurant Business

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

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

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.

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.

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

Cooking Breakfast And Brunch Professionally Really Kind Of Ruined Breakfast Service For Me For A Long Time.

There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind.

Kitchen Confidential

I Think There's A Tendency To Over-jack And Over-umami Food These Days.

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

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

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.

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

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.

We Learn As Professionals By Repetition, By Getting It Wrong, Getting Yelled At And Doing It Again.

On One Hand We Encourage And Allow Major Pharmaceutical Companies To Openly Hook Vast Sectors Of Our Population On Narcotics, And Then We Cut Them Off And Throw Them In Jail, And Moralize About It. It Is Clearly A Huge, Huge, And Growing Problem. It's Devastating. We Need To Treat It As A Health Crisis, Which It Is, And Stop Moralizing.

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.

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

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.

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

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

'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.

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.

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

Everything Important I Learned, I Learned As A Dishwasher.

Hong Kong Is A Wonderful, Mixed-up Town Where You've Got Great Food And Adventure. First And Foremost, It's A Great Place To Experience China In A Relatively Accessible Way.

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.

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.

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.

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

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'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.

When I'm Back In New York - And This Is A Terrible Thing To Complain About - I Eat A Lot More Really, Really Good Food Than Perhaps I'd Like To. So Many Of My Friends Are Really Good Chefs. It's Kind Of Like Being In The Mafia.

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.

Southeast Asia Has A Real Grip On Me. From The Very First Time I Went There, It Was A Fulfillment Of My Childhood Fantasies Of The Way Travel Should Be.

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.

People Everywhere Have Been Very, Very Good To Me, Whether I'm With Or Without Cameras.

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

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

Kitchen Confidential

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.

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.

I Love Bacon, But I Don't Think We Need It On Everything.

A Good, Stinky French Cheese Or A Good Stilton. These Are Things I Really, Really Love. Dessert I Can Obviously Live Without.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

The Way You Make An Omelet Reveals Your Character.

Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

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

American Culture

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.

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

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

The Mishandling Of Food And Equipment With Panache Was Always Admired; To Some Extent, This Remains True To This Day. Butchers Still Slap Down Prime Cuts With Just A Little More Force And Noise Than Necessary. Line Cooks Can't Help Putting A Little English On Outgoing Plates, Spinning Them Into The Pass-through With Reverse Motion So They Curl Back Just Short Of The Edge. Oven Doors In Most Kitchens Have To Be Constantly Tightened Because Of Repeatedly Being Kicked Closed By Clog-shod Feet. And All Of Us Dearly Love To Play With Knives.

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

[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.

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

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.

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