Anthony Bourdain: Gonzo bon vivant pirate chef

By the time I got home from driving her home (my husband, the coward, had fallen asleep at 11:30 and missed all the coughing, wheezing, crying, etc.), I was too wired to sleep and decided to start reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. I've been intrigued by this book since it was first released a couple of years ago, and while the girls were at the "dance" (not that 10-year-olds actually dance with boys), we went out to dinner and hit the bookstore and record store. We bought a fabulous gospel CD by The Mighty Clouds of Joy called I Want to Thank You. We also took a look at Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, the companion book to what may in fact be my husband's favorite television show. As he wasn't interested in buying that book in hardcover, I convinced him to get the paperback of Kitchen Confidential instead.

Bourdain, if you've not seen, heard, or read him, is rather a gonzo bon vivant pirate of a man. He speaks extremely well, and when I "heard" his voice in my head as I was reading last night/this morning, I realized I was in for a good time. I enjoy cooking shows even though I can't cook. I also like the more cheesy shows on Food Network that take you into a food factory; they remind me of Mister Rogers' visits to see how graham crackers, crayons, or construction paper were made, always my favorite part of his show, which I never appreciated until my daughter was born. (There's a terrific Salon.com article about Rogers for anyone interested, and his wonderful children's book, Making Friends, was one I read to my daughter time and time again.)

But back to Bourdain - here's a guy whom some author should model a romance novel hero about. One senses that for him, cooking is both a sensual and swaggering experience. This is a "rock 'n' roll" chef who clearly saw and did a lot of nasty things over the years, and yet cooking is such a nurturing activity that it's hard to categorize him. His show, A Cook's Tour, follows him, documentary style, as he eats and drinks through a variety of cultures. But don't mistake his show for a PBS travelogue aka Rick Steves; travelling, eating, and drinking to Bourdain is a macho test. What's the most dangerous place for him to visit, what's the weirdest thing he'll eat, and what's the oddest thing he'll like? Even though he's often over the top, the episode where he and his brother visit his father's village in France and he reminisces about eating his first raw oyster, while not exactly Proustian, is touching nonetheless.

If you find Bourdain not to your liking, you might prefer Peter Mayle's Provençe books, the best of which I think are A Year in Provençe and Toujours Provençe. Or you might like to read about Tuscany in Frances Mayes' Bella Tuscany/Under the Tuscan Sun. These books are particularly fun because they provide a "slice of life" look at what it's like to move to as a foreigner to Provençe or Tuscany, try to fix up an historical estate, and deal with the colorful locals, of which there appear to be an unending supply. There's a loving but wry sense of humor here, not as out-and-out hilarious as, say, Calvin Trillin's writings about the whacky people he's known and loved, but in the same vein. These books give me the opportunity to have a fly-on-the-wall experience of people who have managed to do what I cannot, which is the ability to relax and enjoy the world passing by.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

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