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506693a
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Whachoo want, white boy? Burn cream? A Band-Aid? Then he raised his own enormous palms to me, brought them up real close so I could see them properly; the hideous constellation of water-filled blisters, angry red welts from grill marks, the old scars, the raw flesh where steam or hot fat had made the skin simply roll off. They looked like the claws of some monstrous science-fiction crustacean, knobby and calloused under wounds old and new. ..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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e95a2bd
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Under 'Reasons for Leaving Last Job', never give the real reason, unless it's money or ambition.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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85ce907
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Only desperation can account for what the Chinese do in the name of 'medicine.' That's something you might remind your New Age friends who've gone gaga over 'holistic medicine' and 'alternative Chinese cures.
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chinese
holistic
china
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Anthony Bourdain |
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13ce9e2
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I, a product of the New Frontier and Great Society, honestly believed that the world pretty much owed me a living--all I had to do was wait around in order to live better than my parents.
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expectations
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Anthony Bourdain |
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45f46ec
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My love for chaos, conspiracy and the dark side of human nature colors the behavior of my charges, most of whom are already living near the fringes of acceptable conduct.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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b55657e
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I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.
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reality
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Anthony Bourdain |
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70d8826
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Writing is a treason of sorts.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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d7609bf
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At the base of my right forefinger is an inch-and-a-half diagonal callus, yellowish-brown in color, where the heels of all the knives I've ever owned have rested, the skin softened by constant immersion in water. It distinguishes me immediately as a cook, as someone who's been on the job a long time. You can feel it when I shake my hand, just as I feel it on others of my profession. It's a secret sign, a sort of Masonic handshake without th..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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0db3f0c
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As incisively pointed out in the documentary 'Food Inc.', an overwhelmingly large percentage of 'new,' 'healthy,' and 'organic' alternative food products are actually owned by the same parent companies that scared us into the organic aisle in the first place. "They got you comin' and goin'" has never been truer."
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Anthony Bourdain |
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438ce13
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It's very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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a166640
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Frightened people become angry people--as history teaches us again and again.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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da52dfa
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if you look someone in the eye and call them a 'fat, worthless, syphilitic puddle of badger crap' it doesn't mean you don't like them. It can be - and often is - a term of endearment.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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c0db3e8
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Cream rises. Excellence does have its rewards.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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b430359
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People confuse me. Food doesn't.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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14108a7
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To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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afac25c
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In another telling anomaly of the meat-grinding business, many of the larger slaughterhouses will sell their product only to grinders who agree to not test their product for E. coli contamination--until after it's run through a grinder with a whole bunch of other meat from other sources...It's like demanding of a date that she have unprotected sex with four or five other guys immediately before sleeping with you--just so she can't point the..
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humor
food-regulation
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Anthony Bourdain |
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d2e8f72
|
Having a sous-chef with excellent cooking skills and a criminal mind is one of God's great gifts.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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75d462a
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I often use the hypothetical out-of-control ice-cream truck. What would happen if you were walking across the street and were suddenly hit by a careening Mister Softee truck? As you lie there, in your last few moments of consciousness, what kind of final regrets flash through your mind? 'I should have had a last cigarette!' might be one. Or, 'I should have dropped acid with everybody else back in '74!' Maybe: 'I should have done that hostes..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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c917c00
|
Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me . . .
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Anthony Bourdain |
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ddf75ba
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I wanted kicks - the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I'd yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I'd found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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cf32168
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Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman -- not an artist. There's nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen -- though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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b04a7be
|
Early moralists who believed that taking too much pleasure at the table led inexorably to bad character-or worse, to sex-were (in the best-case scenario, anyway) absolutely right.
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sex
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Anthony Bourdain |
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e14234f
|
I had field experience, a vocabulary and a criminal mind. I was a danger to myself and others.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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dc506c1
|
Only one in four has a chance at making it.... And right there, I knew that if one of us was getting off dope, and staying off dope, it was going to be . was going to live. I was the guy.
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drugs
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Anthony Bourdain |
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6f256ed
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The food that comes in Tuesday is fresh, the station prep is new, and the chef is well rested after a Sunday or a Monday off. It's the real start of the new week, when you've got the goodwill of the kitchen on your side. Fridays and Saturdays, the food is fresh, but it's busy, so the chef and cooks can't pay as much attention to your food as they -- and you -- might like.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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31e3cd1
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Bigfoot understood -- as I came to understand -- that character is far more important than skills or employment history. And he recognized character -- good and bad -- brilliantly. He understood, and taught me, that a guy who shows up every day on time, never calls in sick, and does what he said he was going to do, is less likely to fuck you in the end than a guy who has an incredible resume but is less than reliable about arrival time. Ski..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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89479b8
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And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don't know what they want to eat.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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de48afe
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I'm asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it's this: to be a part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one's hands--using all one's senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure (thought oral sex has to be a close second).
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humor
subculture
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Anthony Bourdain |
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45c0f9e
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Perhaps omelet skills should be learned at the same time you learn to fuck.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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7e6b78e
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So you want to be a chef? You really, really, really want to be a chef? If you've been working in another line of business, have been accustomed to working eight-to-nine-hour days, weekends and evenings off, holidays with the family, regular sex with your significant other; if you are used to being treated with some modicum of dignity, spoken to and interacted with as a human being, seen as an equal -- a sensitive, multidimensional entity w..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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faf68ce
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These are the end products of the Masterminds of Safety and Ethics, bulked up on cheese that contains no cheese, chips fried in oil that isn't really oil, overcooked gray disks of what might once upon a time have been meat, a steady diet of Ho-Hos and muffins, butterless popcorn, sugarless soda, flavorless light beer. A docile, uncomprehending herd, led slowly to a dumb, lingering, and joyless slaughter.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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8baad59
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He doesn't yearn for a better, different life than the one he has - because he knows he's got a home in this one.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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990c4c1
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While we're on brunch, how about hollandaise sauce? Not for me. Bacteria love hollandaise. And hollandaise, that delicate emulsion of egg yolks and clarified butter, must be held at a temperature not too hot nor too cold, lest it break when spooned over your poached eggs. Unfortunately, this lukewarm holding temperature is also the favorite environment for bacteria to copulate and reproduce in. Nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to ord..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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afb3b2c
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Male, female, gay, straight, legal, illegal, country of origin--who cares? You can either cook an omelet or you can't. You can either cook five hundred omelets in three hours--like you said you could, and like the job requires--or you can't. There's no lying in the kitchen. The restaurant kitchen may indeed be the last, glorious meritocracy--where anybody with the skills and the heart is welcomed. But if you're old, or out of shape--or were..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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d933c7a
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The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going to mess around with the chef's recipes and presentations. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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6f1ae5b
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A three-star Italian chef pal of mine was recently talking about why he -- a proud Tuscan who makes his own pasta and sauces from scratch daily and runs one of the best restaurant kitchens in New York -- would never be so foolish as to hire any Italians to cook on his line. He greatly prefers Ecuadorians, as many chefs do: 'The Italian guy? You screaming at him in the rush, "Where's that risotto?! Is that fucking risotto ready yet? Gimme th..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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b42feb4
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Everyone should be encouraged at every turn to develop their own modest yet unique repertoire--to find a few dishes they love and practice at preparing them until they are proud of the result. To either respect in this way their own past--or express through cooking their dreams for the future. Every citizen would thus have their own specialty. Why can we not do this? There is no reason in the world. Let us then go forward. With vigor.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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f611373
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Remember, brunch is only served once a week -- on the weekends. Buzzword here, 'Brunch Menu'. Translation? 'Old, nasty odds and ends, and 12 dollars for two eggs with a free Bloody Mary'.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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c07caa5
|
Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these water heads imagine, is a temple that should no..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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4dc6ad4
|
for the rest of my life- to resemble this one: both complex and strangely comforting.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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60eb706
|
There is no halfway. You don't, it turns out, sell out a little bit. Maybe you thought you were just going to show a little ankle - okay, maybe a little calf, too - but in the end, you're taking on the whole front line of the Pittsburgh Steelers on a dirty shag carpet.
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Anthony Bourdain |
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b353f68
|
What took me to cooking was that there was something honest about it," says David Chang. There is no lying in the kitchen. And no god there, either. He couldn't help you anyway. You either can--or can't--make an omelet. You either can--or can't--chop an onion, shake a pan, keep up with the other cooks, replicate again and again, perfectly, the dishes that need to be done. No credential, no amount of bullshit, no well-formed sentences or ple..
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Anthony Bourdain |
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b8abc87
|
We are, after all, citizens of the world - a world filled with bacteria, some friendly, some not so friendly. Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonald's? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I..
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travel
food-writing
eating
food
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Anthony Bourdain |
|
25c4850
|
Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
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|
Anthony Bourdain |