Kate Zimmerman Chef Interviews - Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain by Kate Zimmerman for the Weekend Post, Table Talk Anthony Bourdain, executive chef at New York’s Les Halles restaurant, became a superstar after his gonzo bestseller, Kitchen Confidential, exposed chefs and their co-workers as rock stars manqué. His next food-related book was written in synch with a Food Network TV show called A Cook’s Tour, in which the lapsed junkie travelled the world looking for extreme eating experiences. Bourdain is currently promoting Les Halles Cookbook (Bloomsbury USA, $49.95). He’ll be in Toronto at the Yonge & Eglinton Indigo Books store on Saturday, Dec. 4 from 12 noon to 2 p.m. Saturday Post snagged a few minutes with him recently. When licking caviar off a nipple, as mentioned in A Cook’s Tour, is it okay to use lumpfish if you don’t like the person that much? (Laughs.) No …. When licking caviar off a nipple, I think beluga preferred, sevruga at least. I mean, it would be disrespectful, any less a grade. What is the crucial gadget in the kitchen? A properly maintained knife.

I use the Japanese Global knives, as do a lot of my cook and chef friends. They’re light, one-piece, so there’s no wood handle to fall off or rivets that are likely to come undone. They hold an edge well, they’re thin but strong. Do they get thrown in the dishwasher with everything else? My knife never goes into the dishwasher, ever, ever, ever. That would be a sin. I’m constantly washing my knife. Like a Samurai’s sword — after he slices someone in half, the hero always gives it a good wipe before putting it back in the scabbard. What three things can’t you do without in a day? Cigarettes, hope, stimulation. Now that you’re famous, do people send you their underwear through the mail? I haven’t received any underwear yet. I’ve received some rather disturbing naked pictures, and offers of sexual services. But their hopes were sadly misplaced. What is your most inspiring cookbook? Inspiring? Certainly Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating. Also published in the States and Canada as The Whole Beast. He’s the chef of (London’s) St. John restaurant.

It’s beautifully written, it’s his voice on every page, the pictures are unpretentious, and his general world view as far as what’s good and what every part of food can be is really inspiring to me. What’s the most offensive TV cooking show? There’s one (in the U.S.) by Sandra Lee … She seems to constantly suggest that you can make good food easily, in minutes, using, like, Cheez Whiz and chopped-up Pringles and packaged chili mix. It inspires people to have low expectations and to settle for less and I think that’s not doing God’s work. Being a chef is God’s work? Oh, yeah. What better profession? We feed people. We nurture them. We provide a real service. We’re the salt of the earth. We may be the backstairs help but we do something useful and good and, every once in a while, transcendent and inspiring. Now and again, we can even make magic -- any of us. Do you get to do that very much any more, now that you’re writing and being on TV? No.

On the other hand, I do get to hang out with chefs and cooks all over the world and eat really well and live vicariously through them …. So the camaraderie’s still there. It’s an international tribe, people who cook. That provides some satisfaction. What phrase do you think you overuse when telling other people how to cook? Don’t be a snob. Don’t be squeamish. Don’t be contemptuous or afraid. Eat without fear. What do you think your underlings call you behind your back? They say it to my face. Estrella, which means star, or famoso, or famosa. They mock you for being famous. Yes, they bust my balls relentlessly. What food do you deplore? I deplore this new “raw food.” I find it evil, absolutely evil. It’s anti-human, it’s anti-food, and any time you get a bunch of knuckleheads using words like purity, hygienic, clean and healthful with such zeal and with a rigid philosophy overlaying it, generally the sound of jackboots follows. The word purity, I don’t like the sound of that. Do you? Which spice would you say you overuse?

Crushed black pepper and sea salt. I dearly love both of those things …. Which cut and kind of meat could you eat daily for the rest of your life, and why? If I had to eat one food every day for the rest of my life, I think I’d pick sushi. Which food would you say is better than heroin? Perfect otoro tuna. A nice $200/lb. wholesale toro tuna in season comes pretty close. I would prefer it raw, prepared by a master sushi chef. Last meal: what would you choose? The roasted bone marrow at St. John restaurant in London. It’s a few pieces of roasted bone marrow in the bone with sea salt, a little bit of toasted baguette and some parsley salad. Kitchen Confidential Quotes by Anthony Bourdain Like “So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base.

The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. ” Like “Whachoo want, white boy? Burn cream? A Band-Aid? Then he raised his own enormous palms to me, brought them up real close so I could see them properly; the hideous constellation of water-filled blisters, angry red welts from grill marks, the old scars, the raw flesh where steam or hot fat had made the skin simply roll off. They looked like the claws of some monstrous science-fiction crustacean, knobby and calloused under wounds old and new. I watched, transfixed, as Tyrone - his eyes never leaving mine - reached slowly under the broiler and, with one naked hand, picked up a glowing-hot sizzle-platter, moved it over to the cutting board, and set it down in front of me.

He never flinched.” Anthony Bourdain On Why The Best Celebrity Chefs Just ‘Don’t Give A F*ck’ | Mediaite Anthony Bourdain On Why The Best Celebrity Chefs Just ‘Don’t Give A F*ck’ by Verena von Pfetten | 11:31 pm, May 13th, 2012 We would have been remiss to launch a site about chefs without getting some input from some of the biggest names in the biz. And who better to sit down with first than the ever-opinionated Anthony Bourdain, who spoke to us about the rise of the food celebrity, Rocco DiSpirito’s inability to run a successful restaurant, and why, against all odds, Emeril Lagasse found success on the Food Network. We’ve got part one of our interview below. Tune in tomorrow to read the rest. The Braiser: What do you think of the celebrity chef phenomenon? What do you think has spurred it? Anthony Bourdain: Well, I think to a great extent, it’s a personality driven phenomenon.

But I think the underlying engine is that we’re a new country growing up and catching up with those great parts of Europe, Latin America, and Asia, where food always was, you know, the social experience. We may seem food-obsessed now — possibly because there’s so much silliness associated with this rapid explosion of interest, and you know all of the seven deadly sins are all too apparent in this phenomenon — but what we’re really doing is that, in a very short period of time, we’ve gone from a country where we really didn’t think much about food, didn’t care where it came from, and didn’t care much about chefs, and now we think about it more and more — the way your average Vietnamese, Spaniard, and Italian has looked at food for a very long time. Like any culture new to something, it’s a little awkward, a little dysfunctional. It’s a little out of proportion at times, but beneath it all, there’s never been a better time to eat in America. So overall, you’d say it’s a good thing? Overall, yes. Even at its silliest, most hypocritical, most pretentious, or even at its worst, it’s still a good thing.

I mean, pick anybody — just about anybody — on the Food Network doing really terrible work. Just the fact that people care about a cook or somebody cooking on TV is probably one for the “win” column. Do you think it’s still possible for a chef to become a celebrity based solely on their food, or does it have to come hand in hand with press, with tv appearances, with a book deal, etc.? I think it’s certainly true that a chef who is able to talk about themselves and what they do in a compelling way, who has some sort of presence on camera, and who can deal with the press, is at an advantage. But honestly, that was always the case. I mean, it was true of [Marie Antoine] Careme, who was a hustler, it was true of [François] Vatel, who was a super hustler, and [Georges Auguste] Escoffier — hustler. All of them were brands in their own right, all of whom probably had an advantage over their contemporaries. But I think there are probably great chefs out there who achieved a lot of fame without a lot of skill on camera.

Well, look at Emeril [Lagasse] — he’s the perfect example. Emeril was never really good on TV, it was the fact that he was so bad, that he was so kind of clumsy and endearing and awkward and I think that people like that about him. It is ironic that of all of the professions, that chefs should be suddenly required or expected to speak on camera or [to] the press because most of them got into the business because they sensed in themselves an unfamiliarity, or an inadequacy, or that they were uncomfortable with communicating. It’s always been a business for misfits, but I think it probably attracted a lot of people who have always been pretty bad at communicating. So, yes, I think it’s possible to become a celebrity chef without [press]. There are plenty of examples that have terrible communication skills: the surly, profane, and the semi-literate. There’s a spectacularly high number of chefs with reading disorders. I mean, Jamie Oliver, I believe, is dyslexic. I believe Marco Pierre White had problems in that area.

A lot of chefs right now, you know, are just — they gravitated towards a field, a tactile profession, where they could do things with their hands and their senses because they didn’t feel comfortable talking. So I think it’s possible. I also think that, for all of the delusional people who roll out of culinary school thinking that they’re gonna get into the business so that they can end up on TV, proportionately the same number of them will be washed out of the business by the heat, the pressure, and the actual requirements of the job. They won’t last. Let’s say we use the term “celebrity chef” as sort of honorably as possible. If that was the ideal, who do you think most deserves the title? Deserves? I mean, the first celebrity chef, the first true rockstar of celebrity chefs, was Marco Pierre White. There’s no doubt in my mind. You saw food and you saw Marco, and it was a game-changing moment of clarity. You realized, “Wow.

I’m interested in this person, not just their food.” You think, “They’re cool, I want to be like them.” As far as a role model or an example for other chefs to aspire to, he was the first. He wasn’t a fat frenchman or an italian with a waxed ‘stache. All of that went out the window when you saw Marco. In an ideal world, that’s what all celebrity chefs would be. And obviously in the world of the Food Network or the Cooking Channel, it’s not. Is there someone out there who least deserves that title? I don’t know. It’s not like an honorary thing. It’s a pretty low threshold to be called a celebrity chef these days. Anyone who washed out of Top Chef after two episodes is a “celebrity chef” these days. To answer your question, if I could design the perfect celebrity chef, it would be Gabrielle Hamilton [of NYC’s Prune ]. Because she doesn’t give a fuck. Her food is great. She delivers the goods.

She has something to say, she doesn’t give a fuck, she really doesn’t give a fuck, she’s modest, her food is personal, and she’s saying something — I think she’s got it all. And she goes right against the grain of what you would think, looking at Food Network, one would expect of a celebrity chef. If Gabrielle Hamilton is a celebrity chef, then it gives hope to all of us that it is not a bad word. Unless they’re on something like Top Chef or a competition show, a TV chef’s food doesn’t actually have to taste good. It’s about their presentation and what sort of character they are on television. I don’t even think it has anything to do with that. I think its abundantly clear that presentation has nothing to do with it. I think it’s almost a coincidence that Emeril runs really good restaurants and that he was really good chef before he became a celebrity chef and that he remains one, with a number of very good restaurants. But if you look at Food Network, most of their presentation is pretty hideous. Would you call Rachael Ray a celebrity chef? I guess so, why not.

But I would say this, I think she’s an example of, and I mean this in a flattering way, of someone who’s presentation doesn’t matter. People like Rachael, they want to spend time with her and if there’s food involved, great. I think there are certain people on Food Network that they’re people who you want to spend time with. I think with Emeril, when he was actually on the air, I’d be curious to know how many people actually cooked his food at home, or tried. Or did they just like hanging out with Emeril? I don’t know. I think you make good food and well-presented food and give out knowledge on Food Network at your peril, as I think Mario [Batali] found out. On the flip side, what about someone like Rocco [DiSpirito] who is known to be a really good chef and came out of the gate with great reviews and a really strong restaurant, and in transitioning to becoming a celebrity, hasn’t been able to find any success in restaurants anymore? There appears to be a dichotomy between being a chef with a successful restaurant and being a chef who is a celebrity. I can only guess that that’s not what Rocco wanted.

Rocco wants to be famous. He wants to be a beloved public figure and television personality. And good luck to him. He clearly did not want to stay in the restaurant business. It’s clear. He didn’t want to stay in the kitchen. Fine. I think what I had a hard time getting past is that it’s too bad that such a great cook didn’t want for himself what I guess many of us who ate his food early on wanted for him. But I guess it’s as he said, “You shouldn’t hold it against him that he used to cook really well.” What do you say? Top Chef is a great example. If you look at Harold Dieterle from Season One. Man, that guy rolled out of Top Chef and started opening really good restaurants. He didn’t swan around in the dining room, he tucked his head in, and used his post-Top Chef fame strategically but not obnoxiously. He opened up really good restaurants and he’s still working them. He’s not out there doing the circuit as a sort of ubiquitous personality D-lister, he’s a working chef who has got a lot of respect independent of the fact that he was on Top Chef.

Whereas a lot of the other guys — are they even working? Do they even have restaurants? Or are they just floating around from demo to demo? I think that separates the chefs from the television personalities. So, something like The Next Food Network Star, which revolves around literally creating a made-for-TV-chef, skills or no skills- Right. That’s a petri dish. I mean, these people aren’t chefs. They’re just trying to grow these little brands in a petri dish. They create them, keep a percentage of the merchandise, their speaking gigs, their book deals, like, “Hey, we made you from a little spoor.” It’s clear. They don’t even bother to tell ‘em, “You gotta cook.” That’s pretty grotesque. I don’t think that’s a positive show. It’s an illuminating show. It’s a fascinating [look] into human and corporate behavior, not a flattering one. They’re not making chefs there. To me, [the word] “chef” means nothing more than a cook who leads other cooks. So I think it’s worth defining the term.

“Celebrity chef” to my way of thinking — and maybe it’s old school — presumes that you’re either currently running a kitchen, like a working, commercial kitchen, or you did recently, or at least for many years at some point in your life. If you’re a private cook, you are not a chef. Just ‘cause you make food on TV, you are not a chef. My threshold for use of that term, I think, is pretty low. I’m not saying you have to be a good cook to be a chef, it just means you’re a person who has or had a job leading cooks in a professional situation. That’s a pretty low threshold. But it’s apparently a lot to ask if you look at the Food Network. And if you’re a member of the Screen Actors Guild, I think you pretty much gotta stop using the term chef. In the second half of this interview , Bourdain shares more of his thoughts on the power of the Food Network, the allure of the “shit sandwich”, and whether the Golden Clog awards will ever make a comeback. Check it out here . Have a tip we should know?

tips@mediaite.com Follow Mediaite Anthony Bourdain wife, net worth, divorce, twitter, wiki, height, gay, married Date of Birth : July 25, 1956 Nationality : American Profession : Chef, TV personality, Author Ethnicity : White Married to : Nancy Putkoski (1980s–2000s) Ottavia Busia (April 20, 2007–present) Education at : Vassar College and Culinary Institute of America Net Worth(s) : $9 million Name on Birth : Anthony Michael Bourdain Place of Birth : New York City Famous personality known for the book called “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”, Anthony Bourdain is an American chef, author and television personality having net worth of $9 million. He is the man with medium height and was married at his high school. After the divorce recently he is living with his second wife and a daughter Ariane. He is a happy with his second wife and any statement about him being a gay is just a rumor. Wiki and other sites has described his entire life in well detailed form but still the curious readers can join him via twitter.

Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City on July 25, 1956. He belongs to white ethnicity and holds American nationality by birth. His father was an executive for Columbia Records in the classical music recording industry. He was raised without religion although his ancestor belonged to Catholic and Jewish correspondingly. After his birth he was raised in Leona. New Jersey, there he got graduation from the Dwight Englewood School in 1973. Later he attended Vassar College but decided to drop out after 2 years. After that he got his graduation degree completed in 1978 from Cullinary Institute of America. Very interesting part of his high school life is he had got married to his first wife when he was just a high school kid. He and his girlfriend had decided to tie knot in 1980s and remained together for two decades before they finally got separated. How the high school decided to get married in such a early age and what circumstances they had to face is still out of grip of public. Anyhow it’s a matter of surprise that high school kids getting determined to solve problem of one another’s life being together with one another.

Talking about his career startup, he had a great love towards food and was always eager to try something new while cooking. He was in France when he had tried his first oyster. Later while attending Vassar College, he had worked in the seafood restaurants of Provincetown, Massachusetts which was the main key point of his career. It was the time when he finally figured out his career has great success if he chooses to become a chef. Apart from his cooking, he has earned immediate popularity from his 2000 New York Times bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Till the date he has successfully written more than two bestselling books. Additionally his article and essays are very famous as well and also have appeared many places, including The New Yorker, The New York Times and many more. Till today he is one of the most successful chefs who have earned fame and money at equal rate. He was named as Food Writer of the year in 2001 and his several books are also considered to be best books of the year. Now turning back to his personal life, he is also known for consuming exotic local specialty dishes. He is also known for being un unrepentant drinker and smoker.

He used to finish two packs per day. He was also a former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD. But he decided to stop his addiction of cigarettes due to birth of his daughter. He has also written about his addiction in several books till now where he has explained all the experiences he gathered from smoking. Anthony Bourdain is a very successful author and TV personality who has gained wider fame with the help of his unique culinary worldwide. Anyone more curious about him can go through wiki which has an explicable detail of his life till today. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations : Shows : TravelChannel.com Vietnam Vietnam "I'm happy with all our Vietnam shows -- probably because I’m always so ludicrously happy to be there. I could just watch the B-roll from those shows all day. It’s a good place to work, a good place to eat. A good place to be." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "I'm happy with all our Vietnam shows -- probably because I’m always so ludicrously happy to be there. I could just watch the B-roll from those shows all day. It’s a good place to work, a good place to eat.

A good place to be." -- Tony Bourdain Beirut Beirut "The 2006 Beirut show obviously holds a special place in the memories of all who were involved. Like the war that broke out around us, it happened unexpectedly. That experience changed those of us who were there. And it changed subsequent shows. We never, from that point on, forgot how arbitrary life and death can be, and how harsh life can be for the people we leave behind when we head safely home with our cameras." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "The 2006 Beirut show obviously holds a special place in the memories of all who were involved. Like the war that broke out around us, it happened unexpectedly. That experience changed those of us who were there. And it changed subsequent shows. We never, from that point on, forgot how arbitrary life and death can be, and how harsh life can be for the people we leave behind when we head safely home with our cameras." - Tony Bourdain Cleveland: Harvey Pekar Cleveland: Harvey Pekar "Harvey Pekar. We wanted to celebrate and step inside the life of Cleveland’s greatest chronicler in the style of American Splendor.

It took a lot of work and pre-production to do that. But I’m very proud of the result. Not least because I believe so fervently that the late, great Pekar was a uniquely American, wonderful and important man whose life deserves celebrating and remembering. My love for Cleveland is absolute. I may not love it for the reasons some might like -- but I love it just the same. I am honored that Harvey, may he rest in peace, liked the show." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Harvey Pekar. We wanted to celebrate and step inside the life of Cleveland’s greatest chronicler in the style of American Splendor. It took a lot of work and pre-production to do that. But I’m very proud of the result. Not least because I believe so fervently that the late, great Pekar was a uniquely American, wonderful and important man whose life deserves celebrating and remembering. My love for Cleveland is absolute. I may not love it for the reasons some might like -- but I love it just the same.

I am honored that Harvey, may he rest in peace, liked the show." -- Tony Bourdain Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong, particularly the scene where a third-generation noodle maker practices his craft, rocking painfully and disfiguringly on his bamboo pole under the faded photos of his parents, encompassed everything I believe to be good and true about people who choose to make food the very best they can. It was a beautifully shot and edited sequence -- one of our very best. If our show is principally in the business of celebrating cooks -- wherever they may cook -- and in whatever circumstances -- then this was as good an example of our work as we could ask for." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 Hong Kong, particularly the scene where a third-generation noodle maker practices his craft, rocking painfully and disfiguringly on his bamboo pole under the faded photos of his parents, encompassed everything I believe to be good and true about people who choose to make food the very best they can. It was a beautifully shot and edited sequence -- one of our very best.

If our show is principally in the business of celebrating cooks -- wherever they may cook -- and in whatever circumstances -- then this was as good an example of our work as we could ask for." -- Tony Bourdain Montana Montana " Montana , which opens with the great American author and poet Jim Harrison reading from his work, would have been a proud achievement for that alone: Jim Harrison is in it. That’s enough. But it’s also where I started to look at those parts of America so different than my own -- cowboy country, gun country, red state, Palin bumper sticker America , with a genuine affection I’d previously only felt for Vietnamese and South Americans and Europeans." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 " Montana , which opens with the great American author and poet Jim Harrison reading from his work, would have been a proud achievement for that alone: Jim Harrison is in it. That’s enough.

But it’s also where I started to look at those parts of America so different than my own -- cowboy country, gun country, red state, Palin bumper sticker America , with a genuine affection I’d previously only felt for Vietnamese and South Americans and Europeans." - Tony Bourdain Sardinia Sardinia "Sardinia was a risky show, because it was so personal, and I had a whole new Italian/Sardinian family looking over my shoulder -- and more perilously -- I had chosen to include my wife. My wife’s father’s family in the mountain towns of that incredibly beautiful island were the best "fixers" any one could have hoped for. The cinematography was incredible. And the editors, in spite of the fact that I was sitting in their laps for much of the cut and making their lives miserable, responded with a beautiful and heartfelt love letter to what is for most people an unfamiliar culture." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Sardinia was a risky show, because it was so personal, and I had a whole new Italian/Sardinian family looking over my shoulder -- and more perilously -- I had chosen to include my wife.

My wife’s father’s family in the mountain towns of that incredibly beautiful island were the best "fixers" any one could have hoped for. The cinematography was incredible. And the editors, in spite of the fact that I was sitting in their laps for much of the cut and making their lives miserable, responded with a beautiful and heartfelt love letter to what is for most people an unfamiliar culture." - Tony Bourdain Venice Venice "Venice was where we were really hitting a golden period for cinematography, I think. Using film lenses and adhering to a stylebook shamelessly lifted from works like Don’t Look Now and The Comfort of Strangers, we’d do things like wake up very early in the morning to shoot in Piazza San Marco -- intending to make the usually crowded Venice look empty and haunted. It’s an example of a show that came out just as we’d planned, looked and sounded like we wanted it to, and it also had the advantage of being filled with great characters and food." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Venice was where we were really hitting a golden period for cinematography, I think.

Using film lenses and adhering to a stylebook shamelessly lifted from works like Don’t Look Now and The Comfort of Strangers, we’d do things like wake up very early in the morning to shoot in Piazza San Marco -- intending to make the usually crowded Venice look empty and haunted. It’s an example of a show that came out just as we’d planned, looked and sounded like we wanted it to, and it also had the advantage of being filled with great characters and food." - Tony Bourdain Rome Rome "Probably my favorite show of all of them. My proudest achievement. Why” Because it was so suicidally stupid. Because no one wanted it. Because everybody thought it was a bad idea to do a show in Rome—that most beautiful and colorful of cities—in black and white. : Instead of run and gun hand held cameras and fast editing, we shot stationary, with film lenses. Instead of no lighting and barely acceptable sound, we lit as if in a studio, made frequent use of subtitles." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Probably my favorite show of all of them. My proudest achievement. Why” Because it was so suicidally stupid. Because no one wanted it.

Because everybody thought it was a bad idea to do a show in Rome—that most beautiful and colorful of cities—in black and white. : Instead of run and gun hand held cameras and fast editing, we shot stationary, with film lenses. Instead of no lighting and barely acceptable sound, we lit as if in a studio, made frequent use of subtitles." - Tony Bourdain El Bulli El Bulli "It was the most important restaurant in the world -- in its last days. And the greatest culinary artist of this or last century, Ferran Adria, had agreed to open his life and his kitchen to us. So it was important to get it right. We threw everything we had at it. Every camera, every technical innovation -- every creative idea we could come up with. We got the right guy -- the best guy -- Jose Andres -- to come along and show us, through personal reminisces, what it all meant -- and why it was important." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "It was the most important restaurant in the world -- in its last days. And the greatest culinary artist of this or last century, Ferran Adria, had agreed to open his life and his kitchen to us.

So it was important to get it right. We threw everything we had at it. Every camera, every technical innovation -- every creative idea we could come up with. We got the right guy -- the best guy -- Jose Andres -- to come along and show us, through personal reminisces, what it all meant -- and why it was important." - Tony Bourdain Holiday Specials Holiday Specials "Our last in a series of Holiday Specials was a high watermark of sorts. It has always been my belief that the pursuit of excellence in television is impossible if one does not regularly seek to cause terror and confusion at one’s network. The network’s sweetheart, Samantha Brown, playing herself as a crazed, vengeful, alcoholic and homicidal shut-in, pumped a bullet into my leg (spraying blood on a stuffed kitten) between pouring schnapps into a bowl of Fruity Pebbles." - Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Our last in a series of Holiday Specials was a high watermark of sorts. It has always been my belief that the pursuit of excellence in television is impossible if one does not regularly seek to cause terror and confusion at one’s network.

The network’s sweetheart, Samantha Brown, playing herself as a crazed, vengeful, alcoholic and homicidal shut-in, pumped a bullet into my leg (spraying blood on a stuffed kitten) between pouring schnapps into a bowl of Fruity Pebbles." - Tony Bourdain Cajun Country Cajun Country "The pig slaughter and boucherie in the Cajun Country show is a personal favorite. It starts with a prayer. And it’s a scene I’m most grateful to the network for -- for leaving it alone. Pretty disturbing stuff to see a pig shot close-up to the brain. It’s ugly, and painful. But that’s what happens when you take a life for your dinner. And somebody, somewhere does -- every time you order a pork chop. We always work extra hard whenever we shoot in New Orleans or Louisiana -- to do right by them -- as they have been egregiously failed by so many others. Also, we love the place ferociously." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "The pig slaughter and boucherie in the Cajun Country show is a personal favorite. It starts with a prayer.

And it’s a scene I’m most grateful to the network for -- for leaving it alone. Pretty disturbing stuff to see a pig shot close-up to the brain. It’s ugly, and painful. But that’s what happens when you take a life for your dinner. And somebody, somewhere does -- every time you order a pork chop. We always work extra hard whenever we shoot in New Orleans or Louisiana -- to do right by them -- as they have been egregiously failed by so many others.

Also, we love the place ferociously." -- Tony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain chats with folks Anthony Bourdain chats with folks "Blanca – post-scene with Brandon Hoy and Chef Mirachi." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Blanca – post-scene with Brandon Hoy and Chef Mirachi." -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain sitting on a dock Tony Bourdain sitting on a dock "With fishermen Frankie, Tony and Captain Vinnie, who appears to be wondering who I am." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "With fishermen Frankie, Tony and Captain Vinnie, who appears to be wondering who I am." -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain poses with a man that looks like him Tony Bourdain poses with a man that looks like him "Ralphie Balzano taking me for a ride in the Buick. We could be brothers." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Ralphie Balzano taking me for a ride in the Buick.

We could be brothers." -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain with a character from The Wire Tony Bourdain with a character from The Wire "Yes, in my head I'm pretending I'm in The Wire right now." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Yes, in my head I'm pretending I'm in The Wire right now." -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain showing his excitement Tony Bourdain showing his excitement "With 'Omar Little' and 'Marlo Stanfield' at Gloria's -- they look cool. I look like an excited child." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "With 'Omar Little' and 'Marlo Stanfield' at Gloria's -- they look cool.

I look like an excited child." -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain on the Cyclone at Coney Island Tony Bourdain on the Cyclone at Coney Island "Tragically, I'd never been on the Cyclone at Coney Island before this show." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Tragically, I'd never been on the Cyclone at Coney Island before this show." -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain on the Cyclone rollercoaster Tony Bourdain on the Cyclone rollercoaster "Here, I'm refusing to get off the Cyclone because I'm having so much fun." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Here, I'm refusing to get off the Cyclone because I'm having so much fun." -- Tony Bourdain Cameraman is happy to be at Brooklyn Fare Cameraman is happy to be at Brooklyn Fare "Cameraman Jeremy Leach is struck dumb by the beauty of Brooklyn Fare's chef's table." -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "Cameraman Jeremy Leach is struck dumb by the beauty of Brooklyn Fare's chef's table." -- Tony Bourdain Camera sits on a trash can that says

 the words Thank You Camera sits on a trash can that says the words Thank You "And that, ladies and gents, is a wrap!" -- Tony Bourdain 960 1280 "And that, ladies and gents, is a wrap!" -- Tony Bourdain Tony Bourdain on the rollercoaster Cyclone on Coney Island Tony Bourdain on the rollercoaster Cyclone on Coney Island Anthony Bourdain prepares to ride Coney Island's Cyclone for the first time.

960 1280 Anthony Bourdain prepares to ride Coney Island's Cyclone for the first time. Tony Bourdain shares a meal in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain shares a meal in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain has a meal with restaurateur Eddie Huang at Pok Pok. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain has a meal with restaurateur Eddie Huang at Pok Pok. Tony Bourdain at a restaurant in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain at a restaurant in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain at Randazzo's Clam Bar in Sheepshead Bay with chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain at Randazzo's Clam Bar in Sheepshead Bay with chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone. Close-up picture of a roasted pig Close-up picture of a roasted pig Close-up shot of a roasted pig at Primorski restaurant off Brighton Beach Avenue. 960 1280 Close-up shot of a roasted pig at Primorski restaurant off Brighton Beach Avenue. Picture of Anthony Bourdain in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn Picture of Anthony Bourdain in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn Tony Bourdain in Sheepshead Bay.

960 1280 Tony Bourdain in Sheepshead Bay. Tony Bourdain in the Red Hook district of Brooklyn Tony Bourdain in the Red Hook district of Brooklyn Tony Bourdain in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn with local Ralph Balzano. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn with local Ralph Balzano. Tony Bourdain with Talib Kweli Tony Bourdain with Talib Kweli Tony Bourdain with music artist Talib Kweli at Roberta's. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain with music artist Talib Kweli at Roberta's. Tony Bourdain at a deli in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain at a deli in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain with Lloyd Lederman of Jay and Lloyd's Kosher Deli. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain with Lloyd Lederman of Jay and Lloyd's Kosher Deli. Tony Bourdain with actors Michael Kenneth Williams and Jamie Hector Tony Bourdain with actors Michael Kenneth Williams and Jamie Hector Tony Bourdain at Gloria's West Indian cuisine restaurant with actors Michael Kenneth Williams and Jamie Hector.

960 1280 Tony Bourdain at Gloria's West Indian cuisine restaurant with actors Michael Kenneth Williams and Jamie Hector. Outside shot of deli in Brooklyn Outside shot of deli in Brooklyn Exterior shot of Jay and Lloyd's Kosher Deli in Sheepshead Bay. 960 1280 Exterior shot of Jay and Lloyd's Kosher Deli in Sheepshead Bay. Close-up shot of duck with kumquat at Blanca restaurant. 960 1280 Close-up shot of duck with kumquat at Blanca restaurant. Tony Bourdain with Zamir Gotta in Brighton Beach Tony Bourdain with Zamir Gotta in Brighton Beach Tony Bourdain with good friend Zamir Gotta on the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain with good friend Zamir Gotta on the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. Tony Bourdain at Sunny's barbecue in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain at Sunny's barbecue in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain with brothers Sunny and Ralph Balzano at Sunny's Bar in Red Hook. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain with brothers Sunny and Ralph Balzano at Sunny's Bar in Red Hook.

Tony Bourdain and others hold up their catch of the day Tony Bourdain and others hold up their catch of the day Tony Bourdain, Dave Pasternack and fishing buddies with the catch of the day. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain, Dave Pasternack and fishing buddies with the catch of the day. Tony Bourdain eats clams in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain eats clams in Brooklyn Tony Bourdain having clam strips at Ruby's bar in Brighton Beach. 960 1280 Tony Bourdain having clam strips at Ruby's bar in Brighton Beach. Anthony Bourdain Profession - Anthony Bourdain Net Worth Anthony Bourdain Profession Read more... Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain Net Worth is $6 Million. Anthony Bourdain is a New York-born chef, author, and television host, with an estimated net worth of $6 million dollars. Rather than serving as chef at a particular establishment, Anthony Bourdain travels a. Anthony Michael "Tony" Bourd... Anthony Bourdain Net Worth is $6 Million. Anthony Bourdain Net Worth is $6 Million. Anthony Bourdain is a New York-born chef, author, and television host, with an estimated net worth of $6 million dollars.

Rather than serving as chef at a particular establishment, Anthony Bourdain travels a Anthony Michael "Tony" Bourdain is an American chef, author and television personality. He is well known for his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and is the host of Travel Channel's culinary and cultural adventure programs Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and The Layover. A 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of numerous professional kitchens, Bourdain is currently a chef-at-large, whose home base is Brasserie Les Halles, New York where he was executive chef for many years. Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City to Pierre and Gladys Bourdain, and grew up in Leonia, New Jersey. Bourdain has French ancestry on his father's side; his paternal grandfather emigrated from France to New York following World War I. Bourdain's mother worked for the New York Times as a staff editor. Bourdain was a student at Englewood School for Boys, graduating in 1973. He attended Vassar College before d... Ever Wonder How Anthony Bourdain Came to Be ANTHONY BOURDAIN?

(and What He Looked Like in 1972?) | Bon Appetit chefs Ever Wonder How Anthony Bourdain Came to Be ANTHONY BOURDAIN? (and What He Looked Like in 1972?) Written By Anthony Bourdain The chef who grew up to be one of the world's most adventurous (and opinionated) eaters says all the credit goes to Dad, who taught him the pleasures of sukiyaki and dirty-water hot dogs I was shucking oysters at a raw bar in the Village when my father died. He was 57 years old, an age I'm rapidly approaching. I think about that a lot--and about my father, whose face I see in my own more and more with the passing of the years. There's a picture of me with my then four-and-a-half-year-old daughter that was taken at a food festival in the Caymans last January. She's sitting on my lap, eyes closed. I'm holding her tight, my face sunburned and blissed out with the joys of fatherhood. I've never looked so much like him.

Related: See more childhood photos of Anthony Bourdain My father was, as he liked to say, "a man of simple needs." He grew up with a French mother, a French name, speaking French, and spent many summers in France. But this history wasn't really a factor in my childhood. It always came as a shock to me when he'd break into French with a Haitian cabdriver as there was, seemingly, nothing "French" about him, or us, or how we lived. He liked wine (on the rare occasions when some came our way), making pronouncements like "all wine is red," but couldn't have cared less whether it was a Chateau de Something or a vin de table--as long as it was from Bordeaux, near where his family came from. To him, all food was either "marvelous" or not worth mentioning. A decent steak frites at a crummy brasserie was as good as a fine-dining meal.

(During my early vacations in France, our family's crummy brasserie of choice was the unpromising-sounding Quick Elysee, where a thin slice of humble rumsteak with curiously blond frites soon became a treasured taste memory.) In his view, France and New Jersey, where we lived, were the same; he seemed equally attached romantically. France had runny, pungent cheeses and sausages that were "marvelous." But the Jersey Shore, where we were more likely to vacation, had steamer clams, not to mention the occasional lobster with drawn butter. He taught me early that the value of a dish is the pleasure it brings you; where you are sitting when you eat it--and who you are eating it with--are what really matter. Perhaps the most important life lesson he passed on was: Don't be a snob. It's something I will always at least aspire to--something that has allowed me to travel this world and eat all it has to offer without fear or prejudice. To experience joy, my father taught me, one has to leave oneself open to it. The world, in his view, was filled with marvels. George C. Scott's manic eyebrows in Dr.

Strangelove were deemed "marvelous." But then so, potentially, was any food that was new. Wherever you were, he taught me, was an opportunity to eat something interesting. Growing up in New Jersey, American food was Italian. Chinese. Jewish. Diner. (I still drive out to Hiram's roadhouse in Fort Lee to order my father's favorite birch beer.) It took a trip "across the bridge" to be able to delve into the exotic worlds of "smorgasbord," "sukiyaki," "German," and old-school bistro French. Chinese food was deemed worth investigating as a family--and investigate we did, venturing frequently into Manhattan on weekends for fabulously gluey and bright-colored Cantonese on Upper Broadway and in Chinatown. Visits to my father's office in Manhattan would yield trips to Wienerwald for foreign sausages steamed with sauerkraut; salty pretzels and charred roast chestnuts from street carts; the mysterious joys of the dirty-water hot dog. He was delighted by different. Thrilled by discovery.

In the early '70s, he "discovered" sushi because it was being served in the signless, some-what sinister back room of a run-down hotel on 55th Street that some Japanese colleagues had tipped him off to. When he walked me, 14 years old, through the shabby hotel lobby for the first time, opened an unmarked door, and ushered me into a smoky room crowded with Japanese people eating raw fish, he was bubbling over with childlike glee. There's a photo of my father. My favorite. He's sitting on a beach at Cap Ferret in France, near the oyster village of La Teste-de-Buch, where he'd spent many summers as a kid. My younger brother, Christopher, and I are with him--we must have been about 10 and 12, respectively--eating sandwiches: saucisson a l'ail or jambon blanc. I remember very well the texture of crusty baguette, the smear of French butter, the meat, the inevitable grain of sand between the teeth.

Surely, somewhere nearby, there was Orangina or Pschitt for us kids, and a bottle of warm Evian or Vittel--all wildly exotic to my brother and me at the time. There might well have been a comically runny cheese. My father, upon unwrapping it, would have joked about it, comparing its reek to "old socks," calling my brother and me by our alternate names in Dad language: Oscar and Eggbert. He was generally a pretty serious man, prone to escaping into books and music--a moody one, too, I suspected. But with us, he was almost always goofy and without vanity. I think it was that day--the day of the photograph, or another very much like it, sitting by the edge of the rough Atlantic, perhaps after a swig of rough red table wine--that I first heard him make that statement: "I am a man of simple needs." An expression of genuine satisfaction with the moment. It left an impression.

I remember those words every time I find myself made ridiculously happy by a bowl of noodles eaten while sitting on a low plastic stool, sucking up the smell of burning joss sticks and distant wafts of durian, the sight of Vietnamese families on their motorbikes around me. I feel myself moving like him. I feel his face in mine when I pick up my daughter. I hear his voice in mine when I say something silly, make myself ridiculous for her entertainment. When we eat together, I can't help but try, like my father, to portray what we eat as potentially awesome or funny--as "marvelous." While I feel strongly that to try and make a small child into one's own image as a pint-size "foodie" would be at best annoying and at worst a form of child abuse, I am secretly proud when she reaches for a hunk of salty Pecorino, a caper, or an anchovy, as she is apt to do on visits with my wife's family in Italy. I admit to shamelessly praising her when she, to our surprise, became enamored with oysters on the half shell. I was made proudest in Paris last year.

My daughter came along for dinner with me, my wife, and Eric Ripert--the grown-ups eating oysters and clams, whelks and periwinkles from an enormous seafood tower at La Coupole. She had been picking at her pasta with butter and moved on to oysters. She looked up at what must have seemed, from her perspective at near eye level with the tabletop, an Everest of crushed ice and sea creatures. Her gaze traveled up and up, past the giant crabs on the second tier, settling on the two steamed lobsters dueling at the top. "Sebastian!" she cried, misidentifying one of the lobsters as the adorable crustacean sidekick of Ariel, the heroine of the Disney film The Little Mermaid. Without blinking, she reached up, grabbed her little friend, and began devouring him without hesitation or remorse. I thought, That's my little girl. I'm quite sure my father, had he been there, would have been just as proud--of both of us. --Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain is the host of No Reservations and the author of Medium Raw*.

When not traveling, he lives in New York.* See More World-famous chef Anthony Bourdain won't eat restaurant fish on Mondays, and there's a good reason why 19,732.40 -72.32 (-0.37%) World-famous chef Anthony Bourdain won't eat restaurant fish on Mondays, and there's a good reason why Jessica Orwig More (Shutterstock/Olga Lyubkina) After more than 30 years of experience in the cooking industry, world-famous chef and best-selling author Anthony Bourdain has learned the ins and outs of how food gets from the kitchen to your plate. And on certain days, some restaurant foods are better than others. For example, if Bourdain is eating out: "I never order fish on Monday," he wrote in his book, " Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly." He's talking about restaurants in New York City that don't necessarily specialize in fish, where the "main thrust of their business" isn't seafood, Bourdain wrote in his more recent book, " Medium Raw ." The reason has nothing to do with religion, superstition, or the like.

Instead, he says, it has everything to do with quality. Unless you're dining at a restaurant on the coast or an upscale place known for seafood, there's a chance that your Monday fish special at the dive bar down the road could include fillets that are four days old. Disturbingly, fresh fish lasts only about three days, and that's only if you refrigerate it properly, according to New York city expert fishmongers interviewed by The Huffington Post . It all starts at the fish market View photos (Usg19 on Wikipedia) Fulton Street fish market. Bourdain spent most of his cooking career at different restaurants in New York City, where most restaurant seafood is bought at the Fulton Street fish market in the Bronx — the second-largest seafood market in the world. During each weekday, buyers and sellers handle millions of pounds of seafood, which equates to over $1 billion in daily sales. But the market is closed on the weekend, and it's open only from 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. on Friday mornings . Chefs usually order the bulk of their fish on Thursdays in preparation for the busy weekend.

By the time Monday comes around, if the fish doesn't smell too fishy, then it might end up on your plate — depending on whether your chef actually cares about what he's doing — an attitude that is increasingly common in the cooking business nowadays, Bourdain wrote in "Medium Raw." Come Tuesday, the fish is likely too spoiled to sell, and as the old fish is thrown out, a new order comes in. Your best days for ordering fish in New York City at a restaurant, then? Tuesdays and Thursdays, wrote Bourdain.

Question: Anthony Bourdain is famous in what profession?
Answer: Chef