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

-Anthony Bourdain

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To The Extent I

Anthony Bourdain

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

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Have The Best Job In The World.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Luck Is Not A Business Model.

Business Models

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 Make Friends Faster And Easier Than Journalists.

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.

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.

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.

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

I'm 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.

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.

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.

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.

Being On Television, Being Recognizable, This Is Unnatural.

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.

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

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.

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'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.

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

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.

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

Breakfast Being Important

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

My 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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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'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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

You Dropped A 500-seat Deuce On Times Square.

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.

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

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

I Would Frankly Be Shocked If Donald Trump Even Knows How To Use Chopsticks Or Is Even Able To Manipulate Them With Those Tiny Little Fingers.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Tough Situations

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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'm Never A Reliable Narrator, Unbiased Or Objective.

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

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.

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.

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

I Do The Meatball Recipe A Lot. I Think The Army Stew Probably Too. It's The Most Useful Dish Because It Was Born Out Of Necessity And Poverty And Any Idiot Can Make It In 20 Minutes On A Hot Plate. It's Cheap And Uses Readily Available Commercial Ingredients. And It's Delicious. It Should Be The Great American Dish - Perfect Late-night Stoner Dorm Food For College Kids On A Budget.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'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.

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

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.

Cream Rises. Excellence Does Have Its Rewards.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

Kitchen Confidential

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

I Try To Very Hard To Avoid A Situation Where I Would Be Eating Cat Or Dog; I've Managed To Gracefully Avoid That. It's Hypocritical Of Me And An Arbitrary Line, But One That I Have Managed To Avoid Crossing.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

When Do You Stop To De-douche?

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.

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.

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

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

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

I 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Admiration And Respect

Kitchen Confidential

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I, 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.

I Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

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.

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.

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

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