Hands down the funniest thing I ever saw, live and in person, was Anthony Bourdain staring with naked, enraptured joy at the woman doing the American Sign Language translation of what he’d just said, then stopping just after she did to let us all know that “I just had to know what it looks like to sign ‘felching Mrs. Butterworth.’”
Thank you, Tony, wherever you are… if for nothing else, then for the Pho Chay I the Lunch Lady made just for my newly vegetarian self in Saigon.
I went to the 'Obama restaurant' in Hanoi for bun cha (not vegetarian) more so because Anthony Bourdain. Like a good American I smoked a Cuban cigar afterwards in a cigar bar under an image of Che Guevara I passed on the way back to the hotel which was out of the way likely guided by Tony's spirit if such things exist. Nonetheless, the Bun Cha up in the mountains of Sa Pa is better as are Dominican cigars.
Bourdain had a way of writing that made even throwaway lines feel meaningful, but so much of that era of content is basically disappearing. It’s nice to see someone do the unglamorous work of gathering the fragments before they fade completely.
It's funny because his, and Chuck Palahniuk's (fight club, etc) way of seeing the world- that brand of anti corporate- pro human- enjoy the waste- cynicism seemed so permanent and authentic- and like nothing could take it away from you- it felt like a staple of the human experience that was a place you could go to in your mind.
It's amazing to see how quickly that all got shovelled away and replaced with productised, streamlined, sterile groupthink- and one in which authentic sexuality and sex jokes are shunned. I think in some part he knew which way this world was heading and made a decision based off of that.
As a young person who stakes a lot of my headspace in the former, it's definitely an interesting, ridiculously two faced and contradictory cultural moment we're in right now.
If you've read Bourdain's books and gone beyond just skimming his TV shows you'll know they share deeply similar writing and irreverent humour- talking about every type of escape and prank- from summers tripping on acid rooting everyone he could find to working for the mafia as a chef to pay off his heroin addiction. And it's reductive to think that just because someone is talking about sex jokes they're interested in 'culture wars'. Is it revolting for him to have essentially predicted his own death in the same way?
I miss him a lot, his passing affected me far more than that of most public figures, but I won't sanitise my memory of him or pretend his humour, or his way of seeing the world was cookie cutter. That, to me, is far more revolting.
Awesome. I refer to https://bourdain.greg.technology/#food-im-thinking-about about once a year. One of my favorite vacations was going to a different hawker stall on his list each night in Singapore. Unsurprisingly, his picks are all pretty good, and #1 is justified in crowning the list.
Also for general bourdain tourism- eat like bourdain is a really passionate and fleshed out blog that tells you where and what he ate in each city/country.
I use it pretty frequently.
Didn't know he was such a fan of rap, interesting point about brioche buns.
Also: "Karaoke should only be performed with people who have already seen your genitals." :D
Hands down the funniest thing I ever saw, live and in person, was Anthony Bourdain staring with naked, enraptured joy at the woman doing the American Sign Language translation of what he’d just said, then stopping just after she did to let us all know that “I just had to know what it looks like to sign ‘felching Mrs. Butterworth.’”
Thank you, Tony, wherever you are… if for nothing else, then for the Pho Chay I the Lunch Lady made just for my newly vegetarian self in Saigon.
I went to the 'Obama restaurant' in Hanoi for bun cha (not vegetarian) more so because Anthony Bourdain. Like a good American I smoked a Cuban cigar afterwards in a cigar bar under an image of Che Guevara I passed on the way back to the hotel which was out of the way likely guided by Tony's spirit if such things exist. Nonetheless, the Bun Cha up in the mountains of Sa Pa is better as are Dominican cigars.
It's honestly hard to think of a better title for the definitive Anthony Bourdain biography then "Felching Mrs. Butterworth"!
Bourdain had a way of writing that made even throwaway lines feel meaningful, but so much of that era of content is basically disappearing. It’s nice to see someone do the unglamorous work of gathering the fragments before they fade completely.
It's funny because his, and Chuck Palahniuk's (fight club, etc) way of seeing the world- that brand of anti corporate- pro human- enjoy the waste- cynicism seemed so permanent and authentic- and like nothing could take it away from you- it felt like a staple of the human experience that was a place you could go to in your mind.
It's amazing to see how quickly that all got shovelled away and replaced with productised, streamlined, sterile groupthink- and one in which authentic sexuality and sex jokes are shunned. I think in some part he knew which way this world was heading and made a decision based off of that.
As a young person who stakes a lot of my headspace in the former, it's definitely an interesting, ridiculously two faced and contradictory cultural moment we're in right now.
If you're lumping together Bourdain and Palahniuk I think you've completely failed to understand Bourdain.
And then diagnosing his suicide as a result of your apparent culture war grievances over sex jokes is just revolting behavior.
If you've read Bourdain's books and gone beyond just skimming his TV shows you'll know they share deeply similar writing and irreverent humour- talking about every type of escape and prank- from summers tripping on acid rooting everyone he could find to working for the mafia as a chef to pay off his heroin addiction. And it's reductive to think that just because someone is talking about sex jokes they're interested in 'culture wars'. Is it revolting for him to have essentially predicted his own death in the same way?
I miss him a lot, his passing affected me far more than that of most public figures, but I won't sanitise my memory of him or pretend his humour, or his way of seeing the world was cookie cutter. That, to me, is far more revolting.
Have to love the content about how some sociopathic crazy guy is so “successful”.
Awesome. I refer to https://bourdain.greg.technology/#food-im-thinking-about about once a year. One of my favorite vacations was going to a different hawker stall on his list each night in Singapore. Unsurprisingly, his picks are all pretty good, and #1 is justified in crowning the list.
I've never ordered it, it always looks so incredibly bland, am I missing something here?
If you would order it once, you could stop wondering if you are missing something.
Also for general bourdain tourism- eat like bourdain is a really passionate and fleshed out blog that tells you where and what he ate in each city/country. I use it pretty frequently.
https://eatlikebourdain.com/
Maybe someone here knows the creators of li.st and we can get the missing lists back online?
thank you!!!
Thanks
Gentle reminder that the /kitchenconfidential reddit is a fun place to occasionally visit.
As someone who's worked in plenty of kitchens, I can thoroughly recommend the book. Totally nails kitchen culture.
There's this one chapter where he just rolls through a day at work, it's so good. A phenomenal writer, much missed.