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Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Culinary Maverick To Talk
By Charlotte Balcomb Lane
Journal Staff Writer
Chef, author and TV personality Anthony Bourdain is not another Emeril, though he does put plenty of "bam!" into the normally scrubbed and scripted world of television cooking shows.
"I want to show what a big, wonderful, messy, dirty place the world is," said Bourdain recently from his home in New York, where he was readying for a trip to Brazil for his television cooking program, "A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal."
Bourdain is also the author of the surprise best seller, "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly." This gravel-voiced chef has done for food writing and TV cooking programs what Hunter S. Thompson did for the drug culture and Michael Herr did for war correspondents.
"Kitchen Confidential" explored sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in professional kitchens in New York. Bourdain is the executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles in New York and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., with years of experience in restaurant kitchens.
In "A Cook's Tour," he brought a sometimes refreshing, sometimes revolting realism to the world of food and cooking.
The book and its companion series on the Food Network travel the lesser-known places of the world in a free-form, unscripted gonzo food travelogue, where he eats iguana in Mexico, witnesses a pig slaughter (on his behalf) in Portugal and explores haggis in Scotland. Bourdain avoids the well-documented culinary headliners of the world, like France, Italy and China, in favor of tiny restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, Rio de Janeiro and Fez.
"The dinner table is the best window on the world there is," said Bourdain in his frog-in-the-well voice.
By the book
For Bourdain's whistle-stop in Albuquerque on Nov. 10, he will speak during three events, two of which are free. The third, a dinner at Prairie Star, also includes the chance to chat with the chef.
He is coming to New Mexico — a state which is normally ignored by more famous chefs and food writers — at the invitation of Bookworks, a book store in the North Valley. Bookworks is working in collaboration with the Culinary Arts & Hospitality programs at Albuquerque TVI to host two of Bourdain's appearances: a noon lecture and book signing at the book store, and a 3:30 p.m. discussion and book signing at the Sheraton Old Town.
Proceeds from the sale of Bourdain's book will benefit TVI's Culinary Arts & Hospitality programs.
Nancy Rutland, owner of Bookworks, said she and special events coordinator Lindsay Lancaster, are working toward putting New Mexico on the food map with the big East Coast cookbook publishers.
"There is a lot of interest in great food and wine in this community," Rutland said. "We would like the New York publishers to realize that and start sending these guys our way."
In September, Bookworks helped bring master chef and cookbook author James Peterson to Albuquerque. The next big-name chef on schedule is Mark Bittman, known as "The Minimalist Chef." A date for Bittman's appearance hasn't been set.
Live feed
This will be Bourdain's first landing in the Land of Enchantment and he said he's looking forward to eating the stuff of the state: menudo, posole and tamales.
"I'm interested in how poor people's food enters the mainstream," Bourdain said, adding that once the rich take the sirloin and the filet, the "poor are left with the snouts and hooves and whatever little bits of meat and animal protein they can get."
The beauty of cooking, Bourdain said, is how people are able to transform these scraps of sustenance into fiendishly wonderful dishes, like feijoada in Brazil, haggis in Scotland and menudo in Mexico and New Mexico.
He's also eager to mix it up with the local folk, a practice he's cultivated on his television show. He is known for being completely accessible to the public, even to those hostile to his style of kill-it-and-eat-it food reporting.
"I'll answer any and all questions from the curious and the belligerent vegetarians. I welcome any local chefs and cooks," Bourdain said.
"I'm a very lucky cook who has gotten the opportunity to travel and eat."