I reread Kitchen Confidential recently—Bourdain is back in the air with the release this summer of the biopic Tony. I remember reading portions of the book to my husband as we drove up the California Coast to visit wine country. And many of his ideas—no fish on Monday, watch out for the specials—still echo through my thinking about restaurants.
When we saw Tony, I’d been reading some of the criticism around the film, most notably that it doesn’t accurately represent what Bourdain did or his relationships during his time in Provincetown. Instead, it takes events and rearranges them to create a narrative arc about redemption.
But Bourdain, at least as I understand him, was unrepentant. He was not out to hurt or manipulate anyone, and he talks frequently in his book about loyalty, protecting his people and demanding a lot of them. But it was also a wild crew: lots of yelling, smacking, dirty jokes, drug and alcohol-fueled behavior.
Two of his final chapters stand out as particularly poignant, given his later suicide. In one, he has been sent to Tokyo to work with the chef at a Les Halles outpost, and while he’s there has a meal of sushi he describes as if it were an orgy: one still wriggling creature after another sliced, sauced, and consumed with multiple shots of sake. Here is a man trying to grab all that life offers in the biggest way possible, dug way down into the body and its sensations, totally in the moment, yet still able to retain the memory clearly enough to write about it in detail.
The other chapter is an homage to Scott Bryan, who Bourdain says is a “real chef,” unlike himself. Bryan is disciplined and his kitchen at Veritas was quiet and orderly, front-of-house staff controlled. Bourdain marvels that after working with Gray Kunz at Lespinasse, Bryan stepped back from a la carte cuisine to learn pastry because he wanted to understand all aspects of food. In a particularly insightful paragraph, Bourdain suggests he could never do that because “if [he] had a well-disposed Eric Ripert and Grey Kunz in [his] background…[he’d] be mugging it up on the Food Network, schmoozing at the Beard Awards dinner and contemplating a future where [he’d] never have to get out of [his] pajamas!”
One commentator about the movie suggested that Bourdain is the epitome of the capitalist dream—he left having to work 15 hours days in high heat, grease, and blood to lounge around doing whatever he wanted—on screen, for us. He got his dream, but that dream replaced real work with self-presentation and consumption of experience. I guess it depends on how you define work.
We don’t know why he committed suicide, but rereading his book and seeing the films has made me wonder if the “new” wore out. All that experience and sensation after a time can begin to seem tedious and pointless, the pursuit of it a no-win. Even if the new is surprising and fresh, there has been so much surprising newness that it loses its power. Capitalism teaches us to always want the new sparkly shiny thing, but maybe after a while that new thing seems a lot like the old thing. When does enough become enough?
I’d love to hear your comments. Thanks, as always, for reading.
EVENTS!
Wednesday, October 14, 6:30 PM, Norwalk Public Library: Rick Magee and Jonathan Cohen on the male voice in poetry. All are welcome!
Tuesday, October 27: Preorders for my newest book Charlene go on sale from The Northeast Coast press. Watch for more info!
Sunday, November 1: Joint reading of all the Northeast Coast authors releasing books this coming January. Join us online from 7 – 9 PM.
Wednesday, November 4: I’m reading at The Spread in Norwalk, with Katie Schneider for her Poets and Writers Series. 7 PM, Norwalk, Connecticut
Saturday, November 7: Norwalk Public Library’s annual Indie Author’s Day! Come meet local authors, buy their great books and hear speakers on a wide range of literary subjects.
Wednesday, November 11: Barrett’s Books, Darien, CT, 6:30 – 8 PM: A joint reading with Barb Jennes, Katie Schneider and me.
Wednesday, November 18: Writers in Conversation, Norwalk Public Library, Korinna Moss and Karen Dukess on writing mysteries! 6:30 – 7:30 PM. All are welcome!
As so many, I was fascinated by Anthony Bourdain. I read his books and watched as many of his shows as I could without cable subscriptions.
I went to eat at Les Halles in NYC and was disappointed in it. It was crowded, overpriced and the food was only mediocre.
I went to hear him talk in Schenectady in Proctors and recall during the Q&A that he was asked what his guilty pleasure was. His reply was the one of the most disgusting fast food monstrosities you could imagine; some concoction of fried food, mashed potatoes, gravy, melted cheese, etc. Perfect stoner food, he explained.
I recall his addiction to re Jersey’s Johnny and Hange’s deep fried hot dogs: of course we had to try them and they were unbelievably greasy and disgusting.
He glowingly publicized our favorite seafood dive in Portland Maine; it was impossible to get a table there for years afterward.
So many reasons to dislike Tony Bourdain. He ate pig rectums in Africa, live monkey brains in Japan, skewered guinea pigs in some Central American country, I forget where…
So I can only ascribe his immense popularity and dedicated following to his undeniable charisma and sheer force of magnetism of his personality.
He was also a poet and philosopher in his travel and culture stories, and took us with him on his adventures all over the world.
His suicide was shocking and shattering: there were so many hypotheses about it but it seems it will remain a mystery.
There is a 2 or 3 story mural of his face on the side of the dormitory across from the student center at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. I suspect he would be highly amused by that, given his irreverence for that CIA.