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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.

-Anthony Bourdain

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The World They Live

Anthony Bourdain

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 Admire People Who Do Things That Are Interesting To Them, Who Don't Have A Strategy Or A Master Plan Or Have A Brand - I Don't Care About Any Of Those Things.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I've Been Cooking For A Nine-year-old And Her Friends For The Better Part Of Seven Or Eight Years. It's How I Cook Today, It's What Makes Me Happy. I Tend To Overcompensate For My Long Absences When I'm Home By Cooking And It's Therapeutic To Me - It's How I Express Love For My Daughter. It Felt Good To Do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’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'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.

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.

New Orleans Is A Glorious Mutation

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.

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

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.

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

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

Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

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'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.

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

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

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.

Only Texans And Jews Understand Brisket

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

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

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

I 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'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.

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.

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

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

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

I Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

Kitchen Confidential

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Luck Is Not A Business Model.

Business Models

You Dropped A 500-seat Deuce On Times Square.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Need The Anesthetic Qualities Of The Local Fire Water.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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'm Never A Reliable Narrator, Unbiased Or Objective.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Can Unload My Opinion On Anybody At Anytime.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

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

[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 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.

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

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.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

You Realize After You Travel Enough That There's Some Things That, No Matter How Good You Are At Making Television, No Matter How Good Your Cameras Are, How Well It's Edited, There's No Way The Lenses Could Have Captured The Moment, And There's No Way You Will Ever Be Able To Write About It And Do It Justice.

The Way You Make An Omelet Reveals Your Character.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Make Friends Faster And Easier Than Journalists.

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

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

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 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.

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

American Culture

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Restaurant Business

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

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

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.

'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.

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.

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

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

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