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'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.

-Anthony Bourdain

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'kitchen Confidential' Wasn't A

Anthony Bourdain

...

'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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

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

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.

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 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 Can Unload My Opinion On Anybody At Anytime.

The Roots Of Creativity Of Cooking Are Hungry People Trying To Figure Out How To Take Something That's Not Particularly Fresh Or Tender And Transform It Into It Something Delicious That Everyone Will Love.

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

I Managed To Reach A Depth Of Self-loathing That Usually Takes A Night Of Drinking To Achieve.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

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.

Very Few Restaurant Workers Could Even Dream Of Eating In The Restaurants They Work In. Many Do Not Make A Living Wage.

I've Been Very Careful About What I Say Yes To And What I Say No To. And I Think Seriously Always About... This May Be A Good Idea Right Now Or It May Be A Lot Of Money Right Now, But Will It Be Good For Me Five Years From Now? Will It Be Fun? Will It Make Me Hate Myself? I Think About All Of Those Things.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

It's That Show Friends. Ruined Coffee Forever.

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

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

I Have The Best Job In The World.

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.

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'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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Regret Is Something You’ve Got To Just Live With, You Can’t Drink It Away. You Can’t Run Away From It. You Can’t Trick Yourself Out Of It. You’ve Just Got To Own It.

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.

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

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

Restaurant Business

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

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.

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

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

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

I'm Very Proud Of The Rome Episode Of 'no Reservations' Because It Violated All The Conventional Wisdom About Making Television. You're Never, Ever Supposed To Do A Food Or Travel Show In Black And White.

Black And White

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.

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

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

Only Texans And Jews Understand Brisket

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

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.

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

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

Luck Is Not A Business Model.

Business Models

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 Wish I Could Play Bass Like Larry Graham Or Bootsy Collins. My God, I'd Give Up Just About Everything Else For That.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Without New Ideas Success Can Become Stale

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Nobody In Singapore Drinks Singapore Slings. It's One Of The First Things You Find Out There. What You Do In Singapore Is Eat. It's A Really Food-crazy Culture, Where All Of This Great Food Is Available In A Kind Of Hawker-stand Environment.

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.

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.

I Won't Eat In A Restaurant With Filthy Bathrooms. This Isn't A Hard Call. They Let You See The Bathrooms. If The Restaurant Can't Be Bothered To Replace The Puck In The Urinal Or Keep The Toilets And Floors Clean, Then Just Imagine What Their Refrigeration And Work Spaces Look Like.

There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind.

Kitchen Confidential

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

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'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 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.

Without Montreal, Canada Would Be Hopeless.

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 Am Very Much Enjoying The Fatherhood Phase Of My Life.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Don't Snack. I Don't Generally Eat Sweets Or Drink Soda. I Never Eat Between Meals Or Even Before Big Ones.

I, A Product Of The New Frontier And Great Society, Honestly Believed That The World Pretty Much Owed Me A Living--all I Had To Do Was Wait Around In Order To Live Better Than My Parents.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

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

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

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

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

Admiration And Respect

Kitchen Confidential

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everything Important I Learned, I Learned As A Dishwasher.

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.

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

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

Tough Situations

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.

Good Food And Good Eating Are About Risk.

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Kitchen Confidential

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.

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

The Biggest Empty Space, The Biggest Gap In What Should Be A Premier And Always Vibrant Food Scene In America Is That We Don't Have Hawker Centers Like They Do In Singapore, Basically Food Courts Where Mom And Pop Specialists Can Set Up Shop In Fairly Hygienic Little Stalls All Up To Health Code Making One Dish They've Been Doing Forever And Ever.

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.

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.

Whatever Everyone Else Has Asked You To Do Or Never Let You Do, And Let's Do That.

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.

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

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.

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.

You Dropped A 500-seat Deuce On Times Square.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

If People Are Eating Mostly Pickles After Many Generations, Where Did That Come From? It's Reflective Of History, Often A Painful History. It's Central To A Culture, To A History, To A Personal Story. It's Communication At Its Most Fundamental.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I'd Like To Make A Show With Keith Richards.

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.

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.

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 Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

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.

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.

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

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'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 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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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Thomas Haden Church

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