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Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018), American Culinary TV Personality, Author, and Host of CNN's "Parts Unknown"


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This may be posted elsewhere but god bless Anthony Bourdain and his take on the Food Network. He has summed it up as succinctly as possible. Especially his reasons to hate Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee (the latter is truly the worst thing FN has stuffed down our throats). Truly f**king brilliant.

Hah. He's probably still bitter that his own Food Network show got cancelled.

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Regarding RR, Bourdain hits the nail on the testicles:

She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough.
Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better--teach us--and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys.

That's right-- nothing to see here, keep shopping please.

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He's probably making twice as much from his Travel Channel shows.
I like No Reservations more than A Cook's Tour. He's finally admitted to himself that he's no longer a cook and just a food-focused traveller. And even though his narrative can get a little...stale, shall we say....there are nuggets like the Beirut episode that make up for it.
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Anthony Bourdain is such a snobby elitist. If you haven't gone to a top cooking school and proven yourself for years by making utterly inaccessible dishes at a restaurant fully accredited by the Hoity-Toity Stick-Up-the-Ass Society, you're nothing but goat spittle to him.

"Does ANYONE actually believe that Bobby Flay can’t make a better chili than a supermarket ground beef bearing amateur?" Holy flirking shnit YES, you arrogant bass mole. I DO believe that just because someone can't live up to your high standards that they can produce a quality product. The fact that the funniest Superbowl commercial was made by an amateur tells me this. That most of the best films out there are indie productions. That more people watch YouTube everyday than television.

You're funny and entertaining, but it's time to realize, Mr. Bourdain, that yes, the common man is indeed worthy of MORE than the snail's pubic hair's worth of respect you give him.

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He's probably making twice as much from his Travel Channel shows.

But the bitterness of being fired never goes away.

Anthony Bourdain is such a snobby elitist. If you haven't gone to a top cooking school and proven yourself for years by making utterly inaccessible dishes at a restaurant fully accredited by the Hoity-Toity Stick-Up-the-Ass Society, you're nothing but goat spittle to him.

"Does ANYONE actually believe that Bobby Flay can’t make a better chili than a supermarket ground beef bearing amateur?" Holy flirking shnit YES, you arrogant bass mole. I DO believe that just because someone can't live up to your high standards that they can produce a quality product. The fact that the funniest Superbowl commercial was made by an amateur tells me this. That most of the best films out there are indie productions. That more people watch YouTube everyday than television.

Actually, none of the people he praises meet that description. Alton Brown is determindly accessible and never cheffed; Emeril ran a couple of well-regarded but hardly avant-garde places in NOLA; Flay's Mesa Grill, if not cheap, seems hardly "hoity-toity;" Batali had one relatively modest restaurant -- Po ( "signature dishes at PO' -- such as the delicate white bean bruschetta...") whe he got his show; Giada ran a small catering company (but had connections through her dad and -- in Mario's words -- "a great rack").

Many charges can be leveled against Mr. B (I think he's kind of recycling himself these days, kind of like the Rolling Stones, and his fiction is awful), but I think the snob thing doesn't hold water.

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It's long been a characteristic of American food culture that anyone who defends standards and condemns mediocrity is considered an elitist or a snob. Thankfully this attitude has begun to change, and the appeal that outliers like Bourdain and others enjoy I think is due at least partly to that change.

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Anthony Bourdain is such a snobby elitist. If you haven't gone to a top cooking school and proven yourself for years by making utterly inaccessible dishes at a restaurant fully accredited by the Hoity-Toity Stick-Up-the-Ass Society, you're nothing but goat spittle to him.

"Does ANYONE actually believe that Bobby Flay can’t make a better chili than a supermarket ground beef bearing amateur?" Holy flirking shnit YES, you arrogant bass mole. I DO believe that just because someone can't live up to your high standards that they can produce a quality product. The fact that the funniest Superbowl commercial was made by an amateur tells me this. That most of the best films out there are indie productions. That more people watch YouTube everyday than television.

You're funny and entertaining, but it's time to realize, Mr. Bourdain, that yes, the common man is indeed worthy of MORE than the snail's pubic hair's worth of respect you give him.

Dude. Do you not watch his shows or read his books. He has just as much praise for the old lady in a stall in an open air market that serves him a bowl of goat inards soup as he does for profesionally trained chefs. What he goes off on are soulless hacks like Rachel Ray and Sandra Lee.

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Anthony Bourdain is such a snobby elitist. If you haven't gone to a top cooking school and proven yourself for years by making utterly inaccessible dishes at a restaurant fully accredited by the Hoity-Toity Stick-Up-the-Ass Society, you're nothing but goat spittle to him.

"Does ANYONE actually believe that Bobby Flay can’t make a better chili than a supermarket ground beef bearing amateur?" Holy flirking shnit YES, you arrogant bass mole. I DO believe that just because someone can't live up to your high standards that they can produce a quality product. The fact that the funniest Superbowl commercial was made by an amateur tells me this. That most of the best films out there are indie productions. That more people watch YouTube everyday than television.

You're funny and entertaining, but it's time to realize, Mr. Bourdain, that yes, the common man is indeed worthy of MORE than the snail's pubic hair's worth of respect you give him.

While I am not familiar enough with Bourdain's work to take a position either way regarding the specifics of Dan's post, I do agree with what I think is the "spirit" of his post: that much criticism of the FoodNetwork smacks of elitism. It is clear that the FoodNetwork televises programs that can get the best ratings, not necessarily the shows that have the highest culinary aptitude (if that makes sense). You don't like Rachel Ray? Millions do. Change the channel. Get over it.

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Many charges can be leveled against Mr. B (I think he's kind of recycling himself these days, kind of like the Rolling Stones, and his fiction is awful), but I think the snob thing doesn't hold water.

While his fiction truly does suck, I do enjoy his food/restaurant writing. A sports columnist I enjoy, Bill Simmons, really captures the vibe of a guy sitting around with his buddies shooting the s^% about sports, pop culture and what have you. Similarly, Bourdain captures the extreme and colorful commentary that occurs when restaurant staff are doing the same thing. Does he exaggrate for effect? Of course, but so do the best storytellers.

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I'm pretty much on Bourdain's side with this one, but he glosses over one crucial point, which is that while Mario, Alton, and Emeril may be marginalized or patronized, they are willing participants. The Food Network isn't Stalin's Soviet Union or Burma or Zimbabwe. Nobody's holding hot irons to their feet and forcing them to do these shows. Sympathy for the "victims" is tempered a bit by their sizable paychecks, and the sizable egos that keep them doing the shows that bring in those paychecks.

[it is, however, entertaining to picture Rachael Ray's off-camera identity as torture master, water-boarding chefs into becoming Good Citizens of the pablum team.]

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Anthony Bourdain is such a snobby elitist. If you haven't gone to a top cooking school and proven yourself for years by making utterly inaccessible dishes at a restaurant fully accredited by the Hoity-Toity Stick-Up-the-Ass Society, you're nothing but goat spittle to him.

I've been holding off from weighing in on this little flap, but a very slight hangover and a general old-school "back in my day" crankiness compel me to set my slightly shaky hands to keyboard this morning. Dan, you're a nice kid but you're way off base here. I am not some boot licking acolyte of St. Bourdain (his worship of Batali makes me want to puke and I share Waitman's opinion of his fiction) but he does not champion only "utterly inaccessible dishes," but anything that is made with care and attention to flavor and tradition. He evangelizes about Vietnamese street food and Fergus Henderson's rustic lips and a**holes cuisine with nearly the same fervor that he bring to his rhapsodizing about Thomas Keller's precious little joint in Napa. If his hyperbolic enthusiasm gets one more person to get off their Stouffers-gobbling ass and head down to their local Pho parlor then I will cheerfully pitch in to build him a bigger soapbox.

He sussed out Rachael Ray's message pretty accurately in my opinion:

We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!”
To quote someone who I don't quote often :lol: , Rachael is the EVOO splashin' Food Network Beacon of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Basic kitchen skills and knowledge have eroded to the point that even the combining of prefabricated ingredients in thirty minutes is celebrated as inspiring people to "cook." It's remarkable that fifty years ago, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was written with the average American housewife in mind. Her message that fresh, seasonal food is important, and her reassurance that YES, you can do this, was revolutionary. Now, cooking from Mastering gets immortalized for Gen X hipsters by Julie Powell as the kitchen equivalent of the labors of Hercules. You cannot convince me that the marketing of Ms. Ray and her dumbed down cuisine is, as Martha would say, a Good Thing. :unsure:

Yum. Oh.

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Anthony Bourdain is such a snobby elitist. If you haven't gone to a top cooking school and proven yourself for years by making utterly inaccessible dishes at a restaurant fully accredited by the Hoity-Toity Stick-Up-the-Ass Society, you're nothing but goat spittle to him.

"Does ANYONE actually believe that Bobby Flay can’t make a better chili than a supermarket ground beef bearing amateur?" Holy flirking shnit YES, you arrogant bass mole. I DO believe that just because someone can't live up to your high standards that they can produce a quality product. The fact that the funniest Superbowl commercial was made by an amateur tells me this. That most of the best films out there are indie productions. That more people watch YouTube everyday than television.

You're funny and entertaining, but it's time to realize, Mr. Bourdain, that yes, the common man is indeed worthy of MORE than the snail's pubic hair's worth of respect you give him.

Here's the Bourdain quote that I believe gets at the heart of the thing "...THROWDOWN: the object of which is to allow every web-fingered geek with a backyard grill--or half-mad muffin maker to proclaim, “I beat Bobby Flay at makin’ barbeque!” at the heart-warming end of show--before returning to tend their meth labs." It kinda clashes with AB's man-of-the-people pose. (Although it's funny on an us vs. them level-us being, well, us; and them being the rednecks.)
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I've been holding off from weighing in on this little flap, but a very slight hangover and a general old-school "back in my day" crankiness compel me to set my slightly shaky hands to keyboard this morning. Dan, you're a nice kid but you're way off base here. I am not some boot licking acolyte of St. Bourdain (his worship of Batali makes me want to puke and I share Waitman's opinion of his fiction) but he does not champion only "utterly inaccessible dishes," but anything that is made with care and attention to flavor and tradition. He evangelizes about Vietnamese street food and Fergus Henderson's rustic lips and a**holes cuisine with nearly the same fervor that he bring to his rhapsodizing about Thomas Keller's precious little joint in Napa. If his hyperbolic enthusiasm gets one more person to get off their Stouffers-gobbling ass and head down to their local Pho parlor then I will cheerfully pitch in to build him a bigger soapbox.

He sussed out Rachael Ray's message pretty accurately in my opinion:To quote someone who I don't quote often :lol: , Rachael is the EVOO splashin' Food Network Beacon of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Basic kitchen skills and knowledge have eroded to the point that even the combining of prefabricated ingredients in thirty minutes is celebrated as inspiring people to "cook." It's remarkable that fifty years ago, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was written with the average American housewife in mind. Her message that fresh, seasonal food is important, and her reassurance that YES, you can do this, was revolutionary. Now, cooking from Mastering gets immortalized for Gen X hipsters by Julie Powell as the kitchen equivalent of the labors of Hercules. You cannot convince me that the marketing of Ms. Ray and her dumbed down cuisine is, as Martha would say, a Good Thing. :unsure:

Yum. Oh.

Bravo!

I watched part of his No Reservations show when he was in LA and the first place he goes is Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. That is a high temple of culinary arts right there.

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It kinda clashes with AB's man-of-the-people pose. (Although it's funny on an us vs. them level-us being, well, us; and them being the rednecks.)
He is not Everyman and does not pretend to be. He is egalitarian only in his food snobbery.

And as I am a fellow mean cynical crank, you won't find me clutching my pearls and fainting at his use of mockery or sarcasm to make a point.

(Oh, and if you just want eye candy Giada has a better rack, although Nigella is more to my taste overall.)

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The wife and I will be going. We won't have time to eat prior to the event, so I'm trying to think of a place to eat after it finishes. I've never been to Lisner Auditorium. What's good within walking distance?

Circle Bistro; Notte Bianche; Marcel; Dish; 600 Restaurant... And, that's just in the West End.

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The wife and I will be going. We won't have time to eat prior to the event, so I'm trying to think of a place to eat after it finishes. I've never been to Lisner Auditorium. What's good within walking distance?

Manouche, but he might not be out that early.

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I will be there. Maybe the new Tonic at Quigley's? Also Kinkeads is in walking distance. So is Pizza Italia, for those of us looking to relive the Thurston years...
My wife and I will be there as well. In any event, a friend of ours has two tickets available for it. Its sold out, so if anyone is looking for two seats, send me a PM.
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Oh, me too. He's still looking damned fine these days.
He definitely looks healthy and happy - guess that's what being a new dad and a non-smoker (!) will do for you.
How was the talk?
It was interesting. The first 20-30 minutes included clips from the show followed by him talking about what was going on in that place, with the people, etc. The rest of the evening was Q&A with the audience. Even though he said he hated ending with a question about the Emmy-nominated Beirut/Lebanon episode, it was very interesting to hear how profoundly that experience touched him (as well as what a fan he is of the Marine Corps because of it).

For me the best part (Heather, you'll appreciate this :P ) was watching the Smithsonian rep's face (she had come back out to the podium to try to get him to wrap things up) when he finished a response with "a bunch of guys standing around in the kitchen talking about dick!" :blink: . The question had been about advice for people wanting to get into a culinary career. I can only imagine what Smithsonian lady's face looked like during the numerous f-bombs dropped throughout the evening. ;)

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I was at the talk last night as well - it was great! Very entertaining... As others have mentioned he did his usual vegetarian and Food network bashing - although he admitted that (despite being a bobblehead) Giada can cook and (despite not wanting to spend the wkd at her house) so can Ina Garten.

Goldenticket - I'm glad someone else noticed that!!! The look on her face was priceless!! Also, in the row in front of me, a lady had brought along her son - I'd put him at about 7 - wonder what she was thinking!

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I can only imagine what Smithsonian lady's face looked like during the numerous f-bombs dropped throughout the evening. :blink:

You should have heard the grandes dames behind me complain to a Smithsonian rep at the end of the talk- how next time, the audience should be advised if such profanity is to be used!

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