You gotta read this...

[thebighat]

I don't know how long this link will last..trashing tony

stupid link takes you to the wrong story. Go to Boston.com, then pull down the Boston Globe online, left side of the screen click food section and read the review of tony's new show.

[Jim]

Big Hat,
Can you re-direct? I tried for quite some time to find the article, but never seemed to get there. I would like to see it if it's still possible. Thanks!!

[thebighat]

Try this. They seem to have mislabled the story.

trashing tony


you need adobe acrobat reader for this. But it's funny.

[chrose]

It rem,ains to be seen if this goes the way of Emerils sitcom and I don't doubt that it will. I think the article hit it on the head (even Tony made a comment in the book that you wouldn't be seeing a show about him on the Food Network!) that this seems to be the balance that the TFN doesn't hav. It's perfect yin yan. Sweet/sour, hot/cold, Emeril/Tony.
It's crocodile hunter meets Pierre Franey (sorry Pierre).
What the **** it's TV in 2002. David rosengarten will be here next week at the local grocery store and museum doing a demo and book signing. I think

"I'll fart in his general direction"!

[Mezzaluna]

I couldn't get the link to work... can you please post the URL so I can read it? Thanks!

I'm guessing this is about Tony Bourdains' new show on Food TV. I watched it, about a visit to Japan where he ate sushi and visited a sumo stable. I felt he made a huge big deal about every little bite and couldn't help thinking that type of emoting will wear thin after a couple of episodes. I did like the content of the show, however.

[Risa]

Can't get any link to work. I'll try to quote it all.

CHEF BRINGS A TASTE OF MTV TO FOOD NETWORK
Author(s): Michael Endelman, Globe Correspondent Date: January 9, 2002 Page: E3 Section: Food
It's a well-established path to chef celebrity: Scrappy, hard-working cook works up the ranks from dishwasher to executive chef, fires off a best-selling book along the way, and then snags a coveted spot on the Food Network. Following the lead of Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay is Anthony Bourdain, executive chef of the New York bistro Les Halles, the latest knife-wielding gourmand to journey from the burners to the camera with "A Cook's Tour," a weekly series on the Food Network that debuted last night and that is scheduled to run every Tuesday at 10:30 p.m.Accompanied by a book with the same title, "A Cook's Tour" seeks to establish Bourdain as the Sebastian Junger of the food scene. Its stated mission, as voiced by Bourdain over introductory credits, is to find "extremes of emotion and experience. I'll try anything, I'll risk anything, I have nothing to lose."

The result is an occasionally frustrating, but ultimately entertaining mix of alpha-male adventure journalism, extreme eating (cobra heart, anyone?), voyeuristic reality TV thrills, and hip exotic travelogue that manages to succeed - despite Bourdain's decidedly un-telegenic style.

Bourdain became known when he wrote an article for The New Yorker, which became the basis for

"Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly." That volume is a deliciously trashy tell-all memoir and chef hagiography, which established him as both the reigning bad boy and the Benedict Arnold of the foodie universe. Detailing everything that diners did (and didn't) want to know about the restaurant business, "Kitchen Confidential" was filled with all sorts of unsavory anecdotes - unhygienic food handling and crooked business practices - revealing gritty truths behind the swinging kitchen doors.

Throughout, Bourdain came off as a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time character; a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking drug addict, prone to bilious rants against vegetarians, clueless restaurateurs, and, er, celebrity chefs.

Which makes Bourdain an awfully curious choice for a television host. It makes me wonder whether someone at the Food Network decided that the channel needed to cultivate a hipper image; a scowling anti-chef to go along with its parade of slogan-spewing pot-stirrers (Emeril) and fresh-faced Brits (Jamie Oliver).

"Welcome to my world," intones Bourdain in the introduction to the first and every single episode of "A Cook's Tour," before cutting to a dizzying set of shots from the bustling kitchen at Les Halles. The quick-cut editing and buzzy techno music set a distinct mood: this is not a show for middle-aged home cooks. Shot with handheld digital cameras, "A Cook's Tour," uses a jittery and grainy cinema verite style that will be familiar to an MTV audience.

This mindfully haphazard aesthetic carries over to Bourdain's manner, as he's one of the most awkward characters ever to hold down a TV series. Looking like a cross between Elliot Gould and Lou Reed, Bourdain carries his beanpole 6-foot-4 frame with all the grace of a gawky adolescent. He's obviously uncomfortable in front of the camera, and his voice-over narration often sounds flat and forced.

What Bourdain lacks in traditional good looks and grace, he makes up for with contagious enthusiasm, sharp cultural observations, and an occasional flash of snarky wit. In the debut episode, "A Taste of Tokyo," he illuminates the futurist feel of walking through the Asian megalopolis ("a psychedelic assault on the senses"), the appeal of Japanese cuisine to Western chefs, and the almost-religious reverence chefs hold toward a nice piece of fish. His tone is accessible and intelligent, equal parts cultural critique and wide-eyed enthusiasm.

His eagerness to experience "extremes of emotion and experience," however, occasionally leads him to some fairly unpleasant meals and situations. An episode filmed in St. Petersburg, Russia, entitled "So Much Vodka, So Little Time," is filled with plenty of amusing (mis)adventures. Casting himself as the "ignorant, but enthusiastic" American, Bourdain suffers through countless shots of vodka, what looks like a truly awful fish pie, and a traditional "massage," which consists of being whipped by a thick bundle of wet birch branches.

Though Bourdain's unpolished style can be endearing, his amateurism is not. As a conduit between the real-life experience of eating food and the at-home experience of watching someone eat food, Bourdain can be woefully inadequate. After gorging on a sushi feast in Tokyo, he doesn't offer much more than cliched platitudes and orgasmic moans. "It's like you're cheapening it by talking about it," he says to the camera.

Ironically, the accompanying book features a wonderfully articulate account of the same meal, complete with plenty of specific examples and imaginative metaphors that bring to life, as he writes, "the best sushi ever." It seems that after a career of battling quarrelsome sous chefs and feisty restaurant owners, Anthony Bourdain has found the one thing that silences his prodigious talent for talk: the camera.

I saw that first episode and I thought it was annoying. I ended up lowering the volume because it was grating on my nerves. The action was too choppy. It felt too much like a reality tv show and I usually don't like to watch those. The Japanese did those shows years ago and we used to laugh and make fun on them on American tv shows such as Bloopers and Practical Jokes. I like to learn something when I'm watching shows on the Food Network and I didn't think I learned a single thing. They spent far too much time slicing up that live eel or belt fish and it made me feel a bit ill. If Food Network wanted to appeal to a younger audience and get that MTV feel, couldn't they have compromised with something like Nigella Bites? But then that would be more like VH1?[

[amw5g]

While I cannot speak to the show (don;t get FoodTV here), I can say that throughout the book, he seems to constantly dump on the fact that he has a crew following him. Not their personalities, but rather I got the feeling that he'd much rather be off on his own or with his wifey rather than being trailed by the crew. You can get the sense that he's feeling the part of the shill and the mugging face. It's a slippery slop and a thin line (to over-metaphorize my reaction) and it must be somewhat painful to try and not come off as hypoctrical.
Again, I haven't seen the show, but this is the sense i get from the book. Also, he attempts to put in to words his appreciation and reaction to the strange stuff that he's eating. Nevermind the sensory overload of the wild envrions, but he's not a food critic by profession. He scrambles for words at times and I'm sure his descriptions don't do his adventures justice.
Just me 2 cents on the issue...
-Andrew

[thebighat]

I haven't seen the show, or read the book, but devoted readers of this space might remember Anthony and myself having a bit of a cat-fight.

And I almost feel a little bad about having posted the link to the story. Look at how many people have viewed this thread, and if I hadn't, only those of us lucky enough to live in the Boston Globe circulation area would have had the chance to read that scintillating prose.

All I can say is, to quote Oscar Wilde, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

I am sure M. Bourdain is laughing all the way to the bank, and if he is, good for him. He's making the perhaps ill-informed choice to expand his public persona (who ARE all these publicists?) and so he can only sit there and take it.

[Isa]

Celeb chef Bourdain cooking up a (new) storm with 'A Cook's Tour'


By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Anthony Bourdain, who prefers a leather bomber jacket to a traditional toque, shuns the glitzy label "celebrity chef."


Anthony Bourdain doesn't consider himself a celebrity chef, but in fact, he is one.
Still, the executive chef at the two Les Halles restaurants in Manhattan is a celebrity, thanks to the best-selling book Kitchen Confidential and the follow-up A Cook's Tour, which has a companion series debuting at 9:30 tonight on the Food Network.

Brad Pitt might even play Bourdain in a film adaptation of Kitchen Confidential.

"It's supposed to be Brad Pitt, but who knows? I only know what I read in the papers. I'd like Gary Oldman -- someone a little beat-up."

The book, subtitled Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, is full of well-known "secrets" about the restaurant industry -- including the don't-order-fish-on-Monday-because-it's-not-fresh rule.

Bourdain, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and the author of two novels, intended the book to celebrate the hard life, camaraderie and commitment of kitchen workers. Kitchen Confidential's critics (mostly uptight food writers, according to Bourdain) thought the book didn't give proper respect to chefs.

A Cook's Tour, a travelogue of exotic places such as Vietnam, Cambodia and rural Mexico, offers a first-hand look at local cuisine and likely will have a new set of critics, says Bourdain. He picks the episode filmed in Portugal, featuring a medieval pig slaughter, as a likely target.

Bourdain, 45, grew up in Bergen County, N.J., and has lived and cooked in New York for most of his career. The foods he missed most on his nine-month global travels were scrambled eggs, Nova Scotia smoked salmon on a warm bagel, and hot dogs.

Q: How did you map out your destinations for A Cook's Tour?

Bourdain: "I was looking for kicks. I avoided France -- Paris and Lyon -- which would be obvious stops for any sort of food-travel show. (He did make a stop in rural France, however.) Italy, I avoided. India. China. These are `mother cuisines' that require a certain level of expertise, and all the subjects have been covered well by others. I was looking for off the road, and for places that when I was reading Tintin comics as a kid, sounded like cool places to go."

Q: Do you speak any languages other than English?

A: "I speak Spanglish. Nuevo Yorkeno -- Mexican prison slang. I'd fail at Berlitz, but I could make myself understood in any kitchen in America."

Q: What was your favorite place?

A: "Vietnam was the one place that exceeded my hope -- and I had very high expectations for Vietnam. In every way, it was better than my wildest dreams. Everything I wanted to find, I found, times 10. It's the best food per square foot of anywhere I've ever been."

Q: The worst?

A: "Given the choice between returning to Berkeley (Calif.) for a vegan potluck dinner and eating with the Khmer Rouge (in Cambodia), I think I'd choose the Khmer Rouge again."

Q: When did chefs become TV stars?

A: "The rise of interest in food and the rise of interest in the glamorous chef, or TV-friendly chef, happened around the same time in the early '80s when the idea of indiscriminate sex was revealed to be not such a great idea. That's one theory: It's the new porn."

[fodigger]

in and out is a great success story also(see the bad link) alot of bad luck for the family though. Family owned, started by a guy and his wife. Ran by his sons who both died early and tragically. The one sons only kid stands to inherit it all when the mom goes(she's like 80 and in poor health) the girl is all of 18 maybe 19. I hope she is surrounded by good people