Nasty Bits Part 9

He'd cook like an angel.

COMMENTARY.

SYSTEM D.

I wrote this piece shortly after Kitchen Confidential came out and was clearly feeling nostalgic for my kitchen and my cooks. I still felt like a punk, guilty even, for not working as a chef anymore, for doing something as relatively easy as writing about myself and talking about myselfa"and getting paid for it. And I think the piece reflects that feeling of homesickness. Leaving day-to-day operations at Les Halles, I felt like a traitor; and by celebrating my old friends, my old lifea"and some of the less lovely practices of that lifea"I was revisiting it in my mind, seeking some kind of vicarious absolution. Non-cooks might not understand that when describing a steak caught "on the bounce" or finishing sliced gigot under a salamander, for instance, I was never "exposing" or looking to shock or inform. I recall all that nonsense now with warmth and affection. It makes me kind of sad rereading this piece. The yearning for something that even then I suspected I'd never get back, coupled with the growing realization that I would probably have a very hard time hacking it at this point, make me feel a million years older and many lifetimes removed from the person who put this on paper.

THE EVILDOERS.

d.a.m.n, was I angry! This is one mean-spirited rant. I was spitting mad, having just endured a four-hour flight, economy cla.s.s, on American Airlines where I'd found myself seated between two gigantic specimens of humanity. One of them, a woman of Jabba the Hutt proportions, literally took up half my seat in addition to her own, leaving me balanced on one b.u.t.t cheek, leaning forward and against the seat back in front of me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sit back. I couldn't do anything but fume silently. Neither she nor the flight attendants ever acknowledged my obvious distress. For the duration of the flight, I tried to lull myself into a state of calm by focusing on the in-flight telephone against which my face was mashed, imagining what would happen if I wrapped the cord around my neck, leaned forward with my full body weight, and ended my life. That thought was what got me through.

The notion that eating yourself up to five-hundred-pound weight cla.s.s, requiring a.s.sistance to even drag yourself out of bed, is an "alternate lifestyle choice" deserving of respect and accommodation always struck me as disingenuous. And in the uncertain times during which the piece was written, it even seemed "wrong" to be so unapologetically huge, when (it appeared at the time) we might at any moment be called upon to flee a building or make our way quickly to an exit.

Equating morbid obesity with a lack of patriotism was, I grant you, a bit of a stretch. But I'd just (along with Eric Schlosser) debated a duo of professional apologists for the fast-food industrya"in front of the Multi-unit Foodservice Operators a.s.sociation in Houston, no lessa"and when statistics and good sense failed to make an impression, the low-blow argument that "you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are hurting the war against terror" landed squarely in the groin.

A COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS n.o.bODY ASKED FOR.

I actually used the substance of this overtestosteroned primal scream as the basis for a later commencement address to a graduating cla.s.s at the Culinary Inst.i.tute of America. The tone, I think, reflects my general sense of growing wussification after deserting my old job at Les Halles. Like an aging guy worried about his p.e.n.i.s who suddenly and uncharacteristically buys a too-fast-for-him sports car, I think I was overcompensating. The piece was written for a British magazinea"I was pondering the subject of Gordon Ramsay, annoyed at the bad press he was getting for being a "bully." I knew well of his loyalty to his chefs, and had recently seen a lot of his interacting with cooks after hours. The way some journalists were "shocked" by his bad language and "harsh" treatment of staff seemed fundamentally ignorant and dishonesta"as anyone who knows Gordon knows him to be a complete cupcake.

FOOD AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS.

This is what happens when a major food magazine is foolish enough to a.s.sign me to write about Las Vegas. I'd never been there, but I hated the place in principle. And I was scheduled to do a television show about that tortured relationship. All I really wanted to do was rent a big red cla.s.sic Cadillac like Hunter Thompson and pretty much reenact Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And have somebody else pay for it.

At the end of the day, it was a pretty hard place to hate. Unsurprisingly, I had a lot of fun (most of it not described in the article). And despite serious doubts and suspicions, I was encouraged by what some of the chefs I admired were doing there. The first draft/original version appears here, with my friend Michael Ruhlman mentioned by name. My editors at Gourmeta"sensiblya"gutted much of the piece for publication. The shameless duping of Thompson's masterwork is, of course, no accident. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas changed my life when 2-73.

it first appeared in serial form in the pages of Rolling Stone, and here I was, at forty-nine, finally able to live it. Homage or cheesy imitation? You decide. I had a h.e.l.luva time.

And if you've never jumped out of an airplane with a flying Elvis? I highly recommend it.

ARE YOU A CRIP OR A BLOOD?.

More and more frequently in my travels, I find out that everything I know is wrong, or at least very much in question. After sneering relentlessly at "fusion"a"having experienced so much of the worst of ita"I'd started coming across some more interesting and virtuous expressions. In Sydney, I'd been dazzled by Tetsuya Wakuda's Australian/j.a.panese. In Miami, Norman Van Aken had astonished me with a menu consisting of ingredients that were almost entirely unfamiliar. I recognized the dogma in my own relentless sneering about the evils of fusion, and didn't like the feeling of repeatedly finding myself in rooms filled with people who agreed with me. As much as I admired and appreciated the slow-food movement and the increased interest in better, more seasonal ingredients, there was a whiff of orthodoxy about it all that I felt contradicted the chef's basic mission: to give pleasure. I'd met a lot of very hungry people in recent years, and I doubted very much whether they cared if their next meal came from the next village over or a greenhouse in Tacoma. The notion of "terroir" and "organic" started to seem like the kind of thinking you'd expect of the privilegeda"or isolationist. The very discussion of "organic" vs. "nonorganic," I knew, was a luxury. I've since come to believe that any overriding philosophy or worldview is the enemy of good eating. This was an early slap back at a perfectly respectable point of view.

VIVA MEXICO! VTVA ECUADOR!.

I'd regrettably agreed to be a presenter at the annual James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony just a few weeks before writing this piece. There I was, at the Oscars of the food world. I stood up on that stage, reading from the teleprompter and looking out at a huge audience of America's foodie and restaurant-industry elite. I'd never seen so many white people a.s.sembled in one room in my life. It looked like a rally for George Wallace or David Duke. Hundreds and hundreds of smug, self-satisfied white people in tuxedos and evening wear, waiting around to congratulate each other before hitting the buffet. And I felt sickened by the experience. Here we all were at an event celebrating cookinga"and presumably the people who do the job of cookinga"and barely a Latino in sight. This when as much as 65 percent of the workforce in our industry is, in fact, Mexican, Ecuadoran, and otherwise of Spanish-speaking origin. Where the h.e.l.l were they? How come they weren't here? Who honors them? While we were all swanning around patting ourselves on the back, the people who keep us in business were still hiding out from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, paying dodgy lawyers for services barely, if ever, actually rendered, and sending money home to families they rarely saw.

The awfulness of that moment made me very angry, and as unattractive as it might be to admit, I can tell you that when it was finally revealed how little money raised by the Beard House was actually going to "scholarships"a"and when the foundation's president found himself facing jail time and its board of schnorrers, grifters, and marginal dips.h.i.ts had to step down, I was overjoyed.

After the scandal broke, a journalist asked me what I thought should be done with the Beard House, the author's former West Village home, restored and maintained as a shrine to a man who, by many accounts, was a complete (if talented and important) b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I suggested they convert the property into something useful, like a methadone clinic. I wasn't entirely kidding.

COUNTER CULTURE.

I remember reading a food critic's complaint about all the fancy meals he'd had to "endure" over the years, his sense of burnouta"and felt no sympathy whatsoever at the time. How could anyone be expected to feel sorry for a person who was regularly fed the finest wines, the best ingredients, in the most expensive places? This is a fairly recent piece, ill.u.s.trating, I think, my own growing sense of "fine dining fatigue." On book tours and on trips to promote the shows, and back in New York, again and again, I'd found myself eating much bettera"and fanciera"than I would have liked. Though I usually craved nothing more extravagant than a simple bowl of noodles, or a meatloaf sandwich, my proud and generous hosts of the moment would insis on bringing me to the "best restaurant in town." And whether this was Chicago, Reykjavik, Frankfurt, or Stockholm, there was a growing sameness to the offerings. Quality was up everywhere as the ambitions and abilities of chefs rose, but so was the sense of seriousness and self-importance. I turned some kind of corner when, at Alain Duca.s.se New York, I was offered a painfully extensive discourse on the water selectionsa"a lengthy distraction which bled out any possibility of joy from what was already a dark, stiff, and humorless exercise in pomposity. My meal at Joel Robuchon's new concept operation in Paris, L'Atelier, was a welcome relief, and seemed to light the way for other chefs to serve high-style food in more comfortable, less stuffy surroundings. And Martin Picard's outrageously over the top Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal was an answered prayer, a loud, defiant, and joyous "f.u.c.k you!" to convention for which I was (obviously) very grateful. When I find a chef or a restaurant I love, I tend to make a cause of ita"to get hyperbolic. But I feel a real sense of relief, a return to sanity and reason, when I eat at St. John in London, or at Martin's Au Pied, or at Avec in Chicago. When it's finally and only about the food, and all the nonsense and artifice are stripped away. When I can be certain the words "truffle oil" will never issue from a waiter's mouth, and no sauce shall be foamed, and nothing will be served in a shot gla.s.s except tequila.

A LIFE OF CRIME.

Writing incessantly about food is like writing p.o.r.n. How many adjectives can there be before you repeat yourself? How many times can you write variations on the tale of the lonely housewife, temporarily short of funds, and the h.o.r.n.y but hunky delivery boy who's not averse to negotiating for that pizza? How many times can you describe a f.u.c.king salad without using the word "crisp"? So it's always a pleasure when I'm given the opportunity to write about something that doesn't involve food or chefs. I do have other interests. Crime is one of them.

ADVANCED COURSES.

I think all the international travel began to make it easier for me to see and appreciate my own country, and I stopped sneering and started looking at the flyover and the red states not as the enemy but as strange and potentially wonderful foreign lands. It certainly helps that it's usually the chefs and cooks I meet first, but after sitting down to eat with ex-Khmer Rouge, for instance, or being hosted with incredible generosity by former VC cadre leadersa"and a lot of other Very Nice People who've done some Very Bad Thingsa"I began to be (I like to think) less judgmental about my own country. I mean, if I can get drunk with a bunch of probably murderous Russian gangsters and have a good time, why can't I get along with an Evangelical Republican from Texas? This was an early grope at being comfortable with that vast s.p.a.ce between the coasts, a coming to terms with my own sn.o.bbery.

NAME DROPPING DOWN UNDER.

Written for a British magazine, and dripping with Britishisms. I'd spent so much time in the UK by this point, I was starting to sound like Madonna. "Where's the loo?" "I have to stop and buy some f.a.gs." "Brilliant!" "I have to go have a slash . . ."

MY MANHATTAN.

Years later, this piece still stands as a decent visitor's guide to New York. I'd add the restaurants Masa and Per Se in the Time Warner Center on the high end, and maybe Corner Bistro for burgers on the low. Siberia still reigns supreme among dives, though some weekend nights lately are reserved for an all-male leather crowd. Better phone ahead.

HARD-CORE.

This is an unabashed b.l.o.w. .j.o.b of an article. Like everybody I've introduced to her, I'm hopelessly, gushily a fan of Gabrielle Hamilton. I neglected to mention in this article exactly how good a writer she is. Two subsequent pieces she wrote for the New Yorker and for the New York Times Magazine were genius. Not too long after this article was written, she got a monster-size advance from a major publishing house to write what will presumably be a memoir. It will no doubt be better and more interesting than Kitchen Confidential. Every day that Gabrielle Hamilton likes me? It's reason to live.

WHEN THE COOKING'S OVER.

I'm sure Ruth Reichl got a lot of angry mail from Gourmet readers about this piece. It's something of a departure from their once traditional territory of bundt cake recipes and restaurant roundups. There's a dark, perverse streak to Ms. Reichl I'm very grateful for. I mean, the scuzzball strip club, the Clermont Lounge, in the pages of Gourmet} I think that's a first.

THE COOK'S COMPANIONS.

Some of my favorite books on The Life. To which I'd now add Ludwig Bemelmans's Hotel Bemelmans. When I finally became aware of it, it was both delightful and dismaying to discover that I'd done nothing new when I wrote Kitchen Confidentiala"that Bemelmans had been there before me, and done it better and with more authority.

CHINA SYNDROME.

China is great. China is BIG. China is FUN. And it's hugely frustrating to know that even if I dedicated the rest of my life to the project, I'd never see all of it. There's little question in my mind that as China continues to emerge as an economic superpower, and as we find ourselves increasingly dependent on its manufacturinga"and its credit linea"that it will eventually pretty much rule the world. To which I say, "Welcome to our future masters!" With China as our landlord, we will, at least, be eating a h.e.l.l of a lot better.

NO SHOES.

Also written for a Brit magazine, hence the reference to the loathsome and inexplicably popular Michael Winnera"a s.h.i.t film director turned shiftier food columnista"and the Gordon Ramsay references and the egregious use of Britspeak. I stand by my Sans Footwear Theory, though. Food indeed does taste better with sand between your toes.

THE LOVE BOAT.

Happier times . . . Written a while back, this was my first a.s.signment for Gourmet. They send me on the coolest jobs. This one was a real punisher.

IS CELEBRITY KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS?.

I think I was perhaps being a little disingenuous in this piece. I'd myself, by this point, become quite accustomed to nice hotels and flying business cla.s.s. And I was a little harsh on poor Rocco, who now hosts a local radio show in New York where he answers telephone calls from old ladies who want to know where to buy the best kosher chicken. Remembering how talented a cook Rocco once was, and no small amount of self-loathing, infused this piece with a little too much bitternessa"and bulls.h.i.t. Looking at Rocco's painful progress, I have to admit that I seea"if not for the grace of G.o.d and all thata" myself . . . minus the cooking talent.

Let's face it. I'm pushing fifty. If I had to go back to the kitchen now? It would break me. This vida loca better lasta"or I'm f.u.c.ked.

WHAT YOU DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MAKING FOOD TELEVISION.

This was a much more honest piece than previous ones, when I was still representing myself as some kind of outraged working cla.s.s hero. It's far more descriptive of what my life was really like (and still is) most of the time. Since the piece was written, I've left New York Times Television and ended relations with the Food Network. But I'm still together with Chris and Lydia, and many of the same shooters and editors who produced and made the first TV show. Only now, it's the Travel and Discovery Channels that are enabling my swinging new lifestyle.

These days, we've got a bigger budget, more freedom, and more indulgent masters, but the day-to-day is the same. It's like traveling with a band, on constant international tour. I sold my soul to the television G.o.ds so that I might see the world and live out my childhood fantasies of faraway places. This is the way things are. I've become a character in Spinal Tap.

WARNING SIGNS.

Anyone who's ever spent any amount of time in London knows exactly which chain I'm talking about here. Incredibly, they're still in business.

MADNESS IN CRESCENT CITY.

I have no idea which of these places still exists after New Orleans was nearly wiped out by hurricane and flooding. I suspect many of the places mentioned are still trying to get back on their feeta" if they can. I dearly hope that Snake and Jake's in particular returns, as there are few n.o.bler establishments. This piece is a cla.s.sic example of the kind of "triple dipping" I do these days. Here's how it works: First: Visit city on book tour. Inevitably, end up eating, bar-hopping, and getting trashed with all the local chefs.

Second: Using all the valuable "insider" information acc.u.mulated during earlier book tour debauch, return to the same location to make a television show.

Third: Using one's experiences during filminga"and the handy production notes and videotapea"write an article about the place for a magazine and get paid TWICE!

A VIEW FROM THE FRIDGE.

Something of an apology here, to all the waiters I've been curt with or abusive to over the years. There really is nothing more loathsome or shameful than some miserable p.r.i.c.k who walks into a restaurant determined to have a bad time, ready to lord over a relatively powerless server. Behaving like a mean, sarcastic, superior, and dismissive "boss" to your waiter should be a flayable offense. It really is in your interesta"most of the timea" to be nice to your waiter. It's also the decent thing to do. It's pretty much a relationship ender for me when a new friend behaves imperiously with a server, or makes ludicrous and unreasonable demands. I find it mortifyinga"and never repeat the experience. If you can't behave in a restaurant you can't be my friend. It's that simple. Bad behavior is for bars. They're used to a.s.sholesa"and know how to deal with them.

NOTES FROM THE ROAD.

G.o.d, I hated Singapore the first time I visited it (the experience described here). The heat, and the transition to the freezing cold bars, then back out into the heat againa"it nearly killed me. As did the sheer volume of food and my general state of exhaustion. After many return trips, Fve since come to love the place with a pa.s.sion. (See "Die, Die Must Try," page 231). But back then, I was having a real problem adjusting. I've since become better at airplanes, airports, book tours, hotels, and so on, and whine about it a lot less. It's always amusing to me to see some twerp musician on Behind the Music complaining about "life on the road," or to hear some first-time novelist griping about the rigors of a book tour. Two years ago they were sitting in Mom's cellar noodling away on a guitar, or clacking away on a word processor, and now they're griping about the agony of fine hotel rooms and world travel and a fat publicity budget? That barely qualifies as work. I know what work isa"or once knew. I still remember it, however faintly at times. Standing in a busy kitchen twelve hours a day is work. The rest is a privilege. I read this piece now and want to say, "Shut the f.u.c.k up, you spoiled, whining b.i.t.c.h! You're lucky anybody gives a s.h.i.t about you at all in Singapore! Now sit down and eat the turtle fat, you lazy, bloated gasbag."

THE DIVE.

Ahhh, yes. This piece.

Written originally as an e-mail (never sent). At the time, I was heartbroken, in love, and feeling really sorry for myself. As self-serving as the piece may be, I was being truthful about one thing: When I jumped from that rock? I really didn't give a f.u.c.k.

A DRINKING PROBLEM.

Another piece for the Brits. And who was I kidding? What's wrong with good food in a pub? There's a reverse sn.o.bbery to my position that's hard to defend. After an initial frenzy of overenthusiasm, many of the so-called "gastro-pubs" seem to have settled down to serve pretty simple, honest, and decent fooda"most of the time not incompatible at all with a good pint. I think I had my head up my a.s.s when I wrote this thing. Had the a.s.s-kicking actually occurred, I would have richly deserved it.

WOODY HARRELSON: CULINARY MUSE.

I meant every word of this and still do. I shake with rage at the thought of a smug, self-satisfied Woody, sitting in Thailanda" with its amazingly old and diverse culinary culture, and its many rightfully proud cooksa"insisting on eating only the same raw salad day after day. And the thought that Woody's peculiar worldview might spread, like some destructive virus, fills me with horror. If anything, I've become even more hyperbolic on the subject since I wrote this piece, once even referring to Raw as "the most evil doc.u.ment since Mein Kampf (which might, admittedly, be a little over-the-top). Poor Charlie Trotter, who's been nothing but kind and generous to me in the past, has unfortunately born the full weight of my sense of betrayal and rage. Roxanne Klein's Larkspur eatery thankfully closed. But the pernicious spread of raw food continues, and its prodigiously farting adherents continue to multiply. They must be stopped.

IS ANYBODY HOME?.

The food writing "community" is a swamp. A petri dish of logrolling, cronyism, mendaciousness, greed, envy, collusion, corruption, and willful self-deception, in which nearly all of us are hopelessly compromised. This piece was a reaction to a momentary episode of profound disgust.

It was also my way of acknowledging the growing realization that I'd been beating up on Emeril far too long. Early on, making fun of him had been a cheap, easy laugha"a crowd-pleasing shtick. But in the years since referring to him as an "Ewok" I'd seen so much worse. And I had never really acknowledged that unlike so many of the "celebrity chefs" who'd followed, and will undoubtedly one day replace him in the country's favors, Emeril actually paid his dues. I'd long come to believe the man deserved a lot more respect than I'd been giving him, regardless what I thought of his shows. This was my way of apologizing.

BOTTOMING OUT.

This was a pretty harsh, unforgiving editorial I turned in when asked by the Los Angeles Times to comment on Robert Downey's most recent arrest. Writing it, I was pretty d.a.m.n sure that he was a goner. And I was quicka"too quick as it turns outa"to write him off. Another dead guy, another dead junkie. The predictable, almost inevitable, end to the same old story. Since writing this piece, a very good friend who I had similarly written off, turned my back on, and left for deada"after decades of hard drug usea"has managed to turn his life around. And Downey continues to survive and prosper and do good works with considerable charm and self-awareness. I wish them both well, and apologize for thinking the worst. Sometimes it's nice to be wrong.

FOOD TERRORISTS.

Things only got worse since I wrote this impa.s.sioned defense of an embattled friend. Foie gras is under fire, or soon to be illegal, in California, Chicago, and even New York. A treasured and fundamental ingredient of cla.s.sical gastronomy since Roman times, it will likely disappear entirely from menus in my lifetime. A tragedy, but a predictable one. The PETA folks have been very clever in picking foie gras as a front. Though they know full well that there are worse, more widespread examples of inst.i.tutionalized animal cruelty (ma.s.s-produced chicken, for instance), they likely saw this as an easy win. What politician can realistically be expected to stand up for chefs, taking the public position that they are for the force-feeding of cute ducks and geese so a few rich people who can afford it can sup on their distended livers? Not a vote-getter . . .

We shall surely lose this struggle in the end. I'm resigned to ita"just as I'm resigned to the fact that I can no longer smoke in a bar in New York, a pub in Ireland, or a restaurant in Sicily. But in the losing, I'd sure like to see the rotten f.u.c.ks who terrorized Chef Manrique's family identified, arrested, convicted, sentenced to prison for a very long time, and mistreated terribly therea"learning firsthand, one would hope, about the gag reflex. It's no less than they deserve.

SLEAZE GONE BY.

Oooh. I'm so bad. I'm so street . . .

A pretty glib, wildly over-romanticized look at the New York City of my misspent youth, as written for British readers. Like crack was somehow a good thing? What a t.w.a.t I was when I wrote this.

Not that I don't miss the Forty-second Street grind houses and the Terminal Bar and Hawaii Kai. But feigning nostalgia for getting ripped off at knifepoint? Withdrawal symptoms? Selling my possessions on the street? Dope dealers with clubs and guns? Feral crackheads? Who was I kidding? The bulls.h.i.t meter is flashing bright red.

PURE AND UNCUT LUXURY.

An earnest attempt at food p.o.r.n, and a pretty good one, I think, as I'm getting a hard-on rereading it. I did not exaggerate. This is exactly how good Masa was that magical evening. Whenever I want to treat myself to something very special, I take myself there and indulge. Beg, borrow, steal, stick up a liquor storea" whatever it takes to get the moneya"but for G.o.d's sake, go! Bring plenty of extra, as you'll want additional pieces of tuna.

THE HUNGRY AMERICAN.

My love affair with Vietnam continues. What I failed to mention in this piece is that on this, my second trip to the country, as soon as I arrived (with Chris and Lydia in tow), as soon as we stepped through the airport doors, saw Linh, looked out at that enchanted place we'd previously come to adore, we all burst into tears. Why Vietnam, above all other countries I've visited? Maybe it's pheromonic. Maybe every person has a special place, a place that's just right for them. Maybe it's Linh and Madame Ngoc and the friends I've made there. Or the simple good things there are to eat, everywhere you look. Or the women in their ao dais pedaling by on ancient bicycles. Or the smell of burning joss, jasmine, and nuac mam. Or that it's beautiful. Who can really describe why they fell in love?

DECODING FERRAN ADRIA.

This was written at and about a real turning point in my life. A number of turning points, actually. Chris, Lydia, and I were about to head into what we'd thought would be season three of A Cook's Tour for the Food Network. During an earlier book tour, I'd met Ferran Adria for the first time, and I'd managed (amazingly) to get him to consent to let us into his life and his restaurant and workshop and do a show about it. We'd scheduled a shooting period, which I rightly understood to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Then things started to go sideways . . .

The network didn't want any more foreign shows (or not nearly as many). They wanted more barbecue. Tailgate parties. Dude ranch shows. They were completely uninterested in some guy named Ferran Adria in Spain, no matter how good or how important or unique everybody said he was. People who talked funny, with accents, or (G.o.d forbid) in foreign languagesa"and expensive shows about thema"did not, they insisted, "fit their business model." As the scheduled shooting date approached, negotiations dragged on. The production company, New York Times Television, were (to say the least) unsupportive. Chris, Lydia, and I felt that this was going to be one amazing show, so in the end, we just said "f.u.c.k it," and using entirely our own money went ahead and spent a week with Adria, producing a stand-alone doc.u.mentary we remain very proud of (it's now been shown all over the world). It was the beginning of an enduring relationshipa"and for better or worse, an entirely new life. We broke with NYT. We ended our relationship with the Food Network and determined that we'd wander the media hustings until we could work together again, making the shows we wanted to make, the way we wanted to make them. Thankfully, the Travel and Discovery Channels happily took us on.

This was also a time when my feelings about "molecular gastronomy" and cuisine and my craft in general underwent a tectonic shift. I'd previously been very hostile to the idea of laboratories and food science and the very notion of Ferran Adria. It was a deeply traumatizing moment of clarity when I realized I was enjoying what Adria was doing. And I still have yet to figure out fully what it might mean in the grand scheme of thingsa"and for the future of cooking. But then that's what the piece is about: the acknowledgment that there are things you don't know, an acceptance of the possibilities and pleasures of the new.

BRAZILIAN BEACH-BLANKET BINGO.

My first a.s.signment of travel/food writing, written for Food Arts. I'll never forget getting the call, in the middle of my first book tour, while still working at the restaurant (with extended breaks). "You want me to go . . . where? Brazil? And you'll. . . like pay me for it?!" I've since been back to Brazil a number of times and have come to love Sao Paolo more (I didn't the first time), Rio less (a friend was shot to death there shortly after I last saw him), and Salvador more than ever. Sushi Samba has gone on to become an empire of restaurants all over the country. Michael and Taka are no longer with them.

THE OLD, GOOD STUFF.

I love the "old school" stuff and tend to wax sentimental about it. Michael Batterbury, the publisher of Food Arts, took me to Le Veau D'Or, knowing I'd love it, and over many gla.s.ses of wine, and the kind of food I've always believed to be the enduring glory of France, inspired me to write this piece about "dinosaur" cla.s.sics and some of the few places you can still find them. Pierre an Tunnel closed its doors in August 2005.

DIE, DIE MUST TRY.

Like I said, I've really come to love Singapore.

A CHEF'S CHRISTMAS.

About as sappy, romantic, and idealistic as I could muster, this was an honest attempt to write a children's Christmas fablea" but with language that children probably shouldn't read. In a departure from just about everything else I've ever written, and everything I've ever experienced, for that matter, I wanted very much to write just one story with an unambiguously happy ending.

ANOTE ON THE AUTHOR.

Anthony Bourdain is the author of seven books, including the bestselling Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour. A thirty-year veteran of professional kitchens, he is the host of the television series No Reservations, and the executive chef at Les Halles in Manhattan. He lives in New York City.

BYTHE SAME AUTHOR.

Nonfiction Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook A Cook's Tour Typhoid Mary Kitchen Confidential.

Fiction The Bobby Gold Stories Gone Bamboo Bone in the Throat.