Luckily some people are more aware of local events than I am. Yesterday, my friend Melda gave me notice that chef, author, traveller, Anthony Bourdain was going to be in Toronto today to do a book signing so we headed out north on a cold blustery day to attend.
Bourdain is chef at Les Halles in New York and has a foody travel show on television. Anyhow, the man is a fantastic storyteller and his tales of cooking and eating around the world are very entertaining even for those of us with little ability in the kitchen. At the book signing, he had some great honest answers to questions from the audience as well as one story that involved Anthony, Emeril, Jamie Oliver, Martha Stuart and a crack pipe in the hot tub, which alas turned out to have no basis in truth. Bourdain also seemed genuinely pleased when an audience member informed him that he had cured her of vegetarianism. I believe his general response was "ah, my book has been a success!"
Aside from the dick who was organizing the event for the bookstore, it was certainly worth the couple hours of waiting. If you've got the chance to catch him on this book tour, it's worth checking out.
Comments
Lisa - December 6, 2004 12:31 pm
While I don't despise vegetarians, I like this quotation ... “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” (70). -- Bourdain.
He says somewhere else -- I think in a Powell's interview that he's not a meat industry advocate, he hates factory farming etc etc ... but what he hates is not so much the choice to be a vegetarian, but the people who send him flaming emails/letters attacking him for eating pig snout or whatever. He says:
"To travel the world sneering at other cultures for whom a chicken is the difference between life and death...or for instance the pig slaughter in Portugal: however horrifying it was to me — and it was horrifying — this is a center of social and cultural life for a community dating back six hundred years. If some Birkenstock-wearing knucklehead driving around in a SUV and wearing sneakers someone was sold into slavery to make is sniffling about the poor animals, that person is clearly never going to experience the world."
while i don't know how one can wear Birkenstocks and sneakers at the same time, I take his general point.
Jane - December 6, 2004 7:12 pm
Lovely lovely man. I wouldn't have expected that the personality he oozes on the show and in the book is so unmodified in person. So very appealing. So how far did you drive up north to see him? I found out about his visit in Vancouver so I was hoping he'd put an appearance here, too.