Required Reading: Anthony Bourdain's Blog
December 05, 2011, By Craig J. Heimbuch 0 comments
I'm not the kind of guy who gushes a whole lot. I like things. I like places and people, movies, books and TV shows. But I'm as close to being a fan boy as the Kardashians are to being Nobel laureates.
I'm a man of particular tastes. Moleskin notebooks, decent pens, old movies and Miles Davis. I know it. And I don't expect anyone to agree with me. I also don't expect people to try to change my mind about the things I like. They are part of who I am, my brand. And if I really care, I can get other people to listen to me. It's like that for me with other people. I read Bill Bryson's book "Home" cover-to-cover even though I'm not particularly interested in the history of English home decor and design. But I read it because I really like Bryson. I like his writing, his perspective, his point of view—his brand.
It's the same reason I walk the fine line of fan boy when it comes to Anthony Bourdain. Perhaps most famous for his book "Kitchen Confidential," which led to his show, the amazingly successful "No Reservations" on Travel Channel, Bourdain is a no-nonsense traveler; a calls-it-as-he-sees-it gastrophile with an opinion on everything and a history to match.
He's been a chef and obviously has some chops as a TV personality, but for me, it's his writing that makes him special. I read "Kitchen Confidential" in two sittings. It took me a little longer to devour "The Nasty Bits," and I am currently tearing my way through "Medium Raw." Not being a chef, not knowing a whole lot more than scrambled eggs about food, cooking or the world of fine dining, I find myself lost in his descriptions of meals, chefs and the kinds of places he calls his favorite—street food, dive bars and places you wouldn't often take your wife and kids.
That's what I like about the guy. He describes a life I've never experienced in all my life of homogonized suburban sameness and foods I often have to Google to even begin to comprehend. And yet he does it in a language, a frank patter of a guy whose got other things to worry about than flowery words that keeps me transfixed and coming back for more. And he has a legion of fans the world over. Seriously, a legion. I paid $30 a ticket to take three of my friends to see him on a speaking tour last year, and we watched from the upper rafters of the biggest theater in town as he held court over whooping Howard Stern-a-philes and high-minded gourmands alike. It was nothing short of incredible.
There are only a few blogs that I read with any regularity, and most of them belong to the people who contribute to this site. Tony's Blog on the Travel Channel website sits comfortably atop the short list of exceptions. Though he's dabbled a couple of times with novels, this guy's real gift is in the essay, and there's something supremely satisfying about reading an author who you love's thoughts before they've been folded and twisted by well-meaning but ultimately inhibiting book editors. These relatively short, though too long for most blogs, essays are nuggets of work to come; a writer's notebook of raw observations and masterfully crafted stories of adventure, travel, disdain, praise and, of course, food. He doesn't update terribly often by modern internet standards, but a couple, three times a month you can log on and find some pretty great writing.
In November, 2011, Bourdain unfurled a new show on Travel Channel viewers, "The Layover." It's basically his whip-smart take on the classic travel television idea of how to spend a limited amount of time in a limitless place. The show is great. More practical than his other one. If "No Reservations" is an homage to Tony's filmlust, "The Layover" is his take on television travel guides. Consequently—and because the Travel Channel has a tendancy to serve up mini sites like cups of coffee at a Bob Evans—this means he has two pages on TravelChannel.com, each with something called "Tony's Blog." I can't quite tell if he'll maintain both separately, but for now they are separate and unique.
There's no telling what the future is for Bourdain. If one day the lilly will wilt beyond the point of gilding or if he will actually simply take over. But I'll be reading as he goes, realizing that, while it may not actually be Tony's world that I'm just living in, I can't help but wish in the quietest places in the back of my brain that it were.
Wouldn't that be amazing?
