Bourdain's Got a New Show. So Watch it.

If you don't like Anthony Bourdain, then, well...damn. What's wrong with you? No Reservations has been in off season now for about a month and a half, which is quite the happiness-killer when paired with the start of an academic term, but now (yes as in this week) that I am in the ******* middle of midterm examinations, papers, and presentations--my true love decides to return to me, though this time my prancing little black-lunged cavalier has traded his never-should-be-worn-in-public cutoff jean shorts for what looks like....wtf? Is that a suit? Anthony Bourdain: Travel Chanel's newest talk show host. Oh la la.

The inaugural address of At the Table with Anthony Bourdain graces cable and satellite waves this monday the 20th of October at 10h00 in the hours that dance in the sun's retreat. Not in America? Sucks to be you. Watch it on youtube.



For my hubris, I would love to review a show that has yet been graced by my eyes--but I will instead let the talented prose of those over at the Travel Chanel website do it for me:

As you'd expect from an Anthony Bourdain vehicle, opinions fly and no topic is off limits as Tony hosts a no-holds-barred dinner with four featured guests. Joining Tony around the table are celebrated writer Bill Buford, "Nightlife Queen of New York" Amy Sacco, TV personality Ted Allen, and gossip columnist Chris Wilson. They'll debate the ethics of an $1,800 dinner, and Tony will reveal how he always, secretly hopes the waiters like him. Food and travel stories will run wild from Wylie Defresne's restaurant wd~50 in New York City. Anything goes "At The Table With Anthony Bourdain.

I'm getting excited. For anyone who sheepishly knows nothing of Bourdain--I forgive you. But listen. Chef, traveler, smoking alcoholic, writer, and kind of a bastard. Tony is known for his harsh and sometimes crude opinions, such as if you put ketchup on your dog i will fucking kill you, or that vegetarians really don't deserve oxygen (is he really so far off though? hehe). On the other hand he has been caught, on a few occasions, showing squishy pangs of sensitivity, such as tearing up after a homemade feijoada in São Paulo, or hanging his head in acknowledgment at the site of a cattle slaughterhouse in Argentina. He respects the concept of food on a level only scraped by other high-profile personalities--with an emphasis on history, tradition, change, cultural perspective, meaning, and purpose---there is no food in this world without a story and a purpose. So in the words of Tony: As citizens of the world, we should know what came before. How we got here. Why we do things the way we do them. Where food comes from. Preach it.

Lawrence??

Señor Bourdain has published cookbooks (Brasserie Les Halles), novels (Bone in the Throat), biographies (that would be biography--Kitchen Confidential), and short essays (collected nicely in The Nasty Bits). His television career kicked off with the stimulating A Cook's Tour on the Food Network, and then actually took off when he left Rachel's cesspool of extra-virgin OO to film No Reservations for the Travel Channel and where currently, though now in re-runs, you can watch him scampering about the globe eating real food you could only dream about getting your greedy little hands around. He's also appeared as judge on Bravo's Top Chef. Yeah you saw that one eh?

So Tony in his drive to dominate the entire industry now hits us with his culinary Inside the Actors Studio. Wait, didn't another tv chef personality have a talk show? Perhaps miss Ray's Daytime Drama? Hoo hoo I kid--Mr. Bourdain will not fail to entertain us with his witty turn of phrase-- so cook free or die good sir, but now we speak free or--change the channel.

Monday. 10:00. Be there. I will leave you with this clip from No Reservations. And of course it's Paris you dopes.

all photos were stolen from The Travel Channel.

a bientot