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culinaryrockstarhasleftthe building. The rock star was Anthony B ourdain a nd th e b uild ing was t he Downtown Bristol Seafood Grill, host of B ourdain's ho ur-lo ng tel l- all, ans wer - all,A Cook ' s Tour : G l o b a l Adventuresin ExtremeConditions.Book hounds know Bourdainas the

DM: lt's recentlycome to light that JuliaChild hadan affil

but TV addictsknowhim simplyas Tony, authorof KitchenConfidential,

with the organizationthat was absorbedinto the CIA.Whatdo

the charismatic,say-anything,do-anythinghost of TravelChannel'sNo

think about that?

Reservations. Turnsout, Tony has been to KansasCity before,and, not

outofa AB:As muchas I liketo thinkaboutluliajumping

he loves the area'sbarbecue.So at 9 a.m. on a recent surprisingly,

in the middleof the nightwith a knifein herteeth,slitting

began. Saturdaymorning,that'swhereour phoneconversation ble argumentthat KansasCity is the barbecuecapitalof the country,

workingbehinda desk. throats,t thinkshewasprobably DM: Before the TV gigs, and beforeyou wrote Confidential, wasthereevera momentin yourlifewhenyou

if not the world.

you weregoingnowhere?

Anthony Bourdain'You could certainly make a perfectly defensi-

Darren Mark: Where does this desire come from to travel the world, tasting all kinds of differentand interestingfoods? AB: Who wouldn't see the world given the opportunity?l'm fas-

AB: I was like44 yearsold and livingpaycheck-to-paycheck. 40,I beingaliveat 30reallycameasa shockto me.WhenIturned anychance of didn'thavea plan.I prettymuchthoughtI missed

cinated by history.I grew up readingadventurestories and novels

I wrotean obnoxious ing the world and havingfinancialsuccess.

about far-awaylands and never thought I would see any of these

that I didn'tthinkanyonewouldreadotherthancooksin NewYork

places.So giventhe opportunityto see any of these places,or lust to

was still working the line when I wrote it and I was still working

eat in China, what sane person wouldn't run right off to that?

be linesometimeafteruntilit dawnedon methatman,thiscould

Nothing against America, especiallyKansasCity, which has good food, but becausewe're one of the newest countries in the world,

careerEvenbeforeI wason TV,I thought,whowouldbecrazy to put meon TV,"andwhenI wason TVI thought,"whowouldbe

everybodyhas been cooking a lot longer than us, and a lot better up

enough to keep me on TV?"So early on I learnedthat not givinga

until recently.

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"|.4.i/e {^aK:|1-li"A,t 208 was a good b usine ss m odel. Ther e wer e guy s on t he F o o d

Factory?I don't want spaghettiand I don't want to eat in a factory.

Net work wh o wo uld ca ll t he VP of pr ogr am m ing ev er y d a y a n d

The MacaroniGrill?My God, I just want to shoot myselfin the head.

ask q ue stions about t heir hair and l' d r at h e r b e

DM: Do you ever take a moment to considerall of the great

o n h ero in t han do t hat . DM: Are you tired of answeringthe question, "What'sthe weirdestthing you'veevereaten?"

t h i n g s t h a t a r e h a p p e n i n gi n y o u r l i f e ? and AB: I think about it everyday.It's ludicrous.I feelverylucky, l'm still delighted and puzzledby it all l'm very happyaboutit. I

AB: Yeah,becausel'm not sure what'sweird any more. The words "weird"and bizarre"are a

remember what it was like not too long ago to work a busy

little offensive to me after spending so much

lunch shift, to work a griddle. I'm very aware of it. I feel kind of

t im e in As ia. I t ' s lik e t alk i n g s - -

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like I successfully lust robbed a bank. I keep looking in the

about my friends.You know,most

rearview mirror every few blocks and I expect to see red lights,

of the world eats bugs. I'd rather t r y s om et hingt ot ally un f a m i l i a r

a n d n o t h i n g . I i u s t c a n 't b e l i e v e l 'm g e t t i n g a w a yw i t h th i s s- . writa successful DM' Now that you havea successfuirestaurant,

rather than eat really poorly

ing careerand a successfulTV career,what do you wantto do next?

preparedltalian food. If you're

AB: I want to raisea happy daughter.Otherthan that,l'm flying

m ak ing r eally bad l i n g u i n e

by the seat of my pants. Somethingthat I won't give up on is doing

pomodoro,that makesme real-

withgood the best I can raisinga happy a girl with high self-esteem

, y ou 'r e t h e ly m ad. Bas ic ally if

the firsttime martialarts skills When my daughteris in kindergarten,

Olive Garden,I have a real issue

little Timmy comes and pokes her in her arm, he'sgoingto get his

wit h .l

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