I can’t exactly pinpoint the moment that I fell in love with Anthony Bourdain.  I do know that it began with the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations” television show.  I cannot recall if I really knew who he was before that.  I certainly wanted to find out more about him once he graced my television screen with his larger than life presence.  I must have stumbled across “No Reservations” one night while channel surfing, because I was never a big fan of food or cooking shows.  Granted, my husband is a chef, a Culinary Institute of America graduate actually (just like Tony!) and his family was always big into the celebrity chef scene, including the new cooking show craze, but it escaped me.  I just didn’t get why people would watch cooking or food related shows on TV.  That is, until I discovered Anthony Bourdain.  “No Reservations” is about so much more than food or cooking, Tony and crew really take it to a whole new level with the places that they go and the people they choose to share their moments with.  But it isn’t just that.  Anthony Bourdain makes this show the success that it is.  The life he lived before stumbling into fame created a humble, grateful, man who truly seeks pleasure in all of his adventures.  He so easily passes on his pleasure to us, the audience.  We want to be there, meet the people, eat the food… discover new things about distant places and ourselves.

I began my Anthony Bourdain exploration with the book that made him famous, “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly“.  A truly entertaining must-read! It made me understand who this guy was that I was watching on “No Reservations” and how he became who he is today.  He just wasn’t like all the other “celebrity” chefs on TV, and that’s exactly why I liked him.  And to my surprise, I found him to be an excellent writer!  I truly didn’t expect that.  I didn’t expect the emotional grip he had on me while reading his story.  And ironically enough, I think I just stumbled upon the exact moment I did fall in love with Anthony Bourdain…   it was while reading “A Cook’s Tour”, specifically the passages about his first experience eating a raw oyster on the half shell:

“…in that unforgettably sweet moment in my personal history, that one moment still more alive for me than so many of the other “firsts” that followed… I attained glory”

“This, I knew, was the magic which I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware. I was hooked.”

“Food had power.”

Now, I was hooked.  Not only on Tony, but on a whole new way of looking at food.  I was married to a trained chef and even owned my own restaurant, but I had only, just then, fully realized the deep connection we all have with food.  I immediately thought back to my first clam on the half shell… I may not remember that exact moment, but there’s a photo of me at around one, shirtless, with clam juice running down my chest.  (HaHa, Tony’s voice just popped into my head there, saying, “Food porn”.)  There would be many more of those moments in my childhood spent by the sea, memories attached to food… and I “got it” now.

So while on Twitter this summer,  a friend sent out a tweet about Tony coming to Raleigh for a speaking engagement – “An Evening with Anthony Bourdain” – and I knew I had to be there.  I called the day the tickets went on sale, hoping to score the ‘Meet & Greet’ tickets, only to find out they were sold out.  I just wanted to shake the hand of the man who opened me up to a whole new world of food at 35.  It wasn’t to be, but I went ahead and purchased two general tickets anyway and promptly called my husband to tell him to clear his schedule for November 13th.  This was June and I had never purchased tickets for anything so far in advance!  We went this past Saturday night.

How was it you ask?  Awesome, of course!  I got to see the man in person.  I didn’t get to shake his hand, but when he opened up the microphones for questions… I couldn’t just NOT go… I couldn’t just SIT there and not attempt to speak to him.  I stumbled to the microphone, my heart beating out of my chest while waiting for my turn.  All sorts of awkward childhood blooper moments popped into my head.  Would I be able to speak?  Would I say what it was I really wanted to say?  The answer is, I barely remember what I said :} I had read a passage in his book, “A Cook’s Tour“, earlier that day and it had brought me to tears.  It was about Tony and his brother going back to France to try to recapture their childhood.  They saw the same things, smelled the same smells… even did the same activities, but Tony still felt something was missing.  That thing was his father.  So my question, in essence, was did he ever have a moment in his life where he did recapture that moment, where he did feel his father’s presence?  I was sooooooo incredibly nervous, not even knowing if I had said what I wanted to, that all I heard of his answer was that the smell of “garlic and fennel” brings back memories of his father.  He had talked to me!  I just wish I hadn’t been so nervous so that I could have remembered it better.  I had, however (as you will see below), remembered to TWEET about it, which in turn, got a re-tweet from the official @NoReservations Twitter account! Woo Hoo!

Glad you got a chance! RT @cosmickitchen: I just stood at the mic and asked a question… o.m.g. http://ow.ly/i/5tvV So nervous—
  (@NoReservations) November 15, 2010

The evening was bittersweet.  I loved what Tony had to say and I loved seeing him in person, but I know that he said the same thing in Charleston the night before.  It’s his job.  Let’s face it, those of us who REALLY love Anthony Bourdain don’t want to hear him give a speech…  we want to be elbow to elbow with him in Vietnam, laughing around a fire, eating native food and drinking illegal substances.  But until that day comes, we’ll always have “No Reservations”…

Author’s Note: I’m sure just like any job, Tony gets burnt out and wonders why he’s still doing it… if so, I hope he reads this and remembers why.

Me at An Evening with Anthony Bourdain

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