Kitchen Confidential_ Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain [120]
I mentioned I'd eaten at Le Bernardin recently, the full-bore chef tasting. An eyebrow went up. 'Oh yeah? What did you have?'
When I told him, he looked happy, like I get when describing my first oyster.
'You have the mackerel tartare, dude?' he asked.
'Yeah,' I said, hesitating. 'It was good . . . really good.'
'Yeah,' said Scott. 'It is good, isn't it? What else did you have?'
I told him, the two of us talking about menus like some people talk about the Miracle Mets or the Koufax-era Dodgers.
'Who's making food these days that interests you,' I asked.
'Oh, let's see . . . Tom. Tom Collicchio at Gramercy Tavern. Tom makes really good food . . . and Rocco di Spirito at Union Pacific is doing interesting stuff.'
'Have you seen this foam guy's shit?' I asked, talking about Ferran Adria's restaurant of the minute, El Bulli, in Spain.
'That foam guy is bogus,' he smirked, 'I ate there, dude - and it's like . . . shock value. I had seawater sorbet!'
That was about as much bad-mouthing as I could get out of him. I wanted to know what he likes to eat, 'You know, after hours, you're half in the bag and you get hungry. What do you want to eat?'
'Beef bourguignon, he said right away.
I've found common ground. Red wine, beef, some button mushrooms and a few pearled onions, bouquet garni, maybe some broad noodles or a simple boiled potato or two to go with it. A crust of bread to soak up the sauce. Maybe I'm not wrong about everything.
All cooks are sentimental fools.
And in the end, maybe it is all about the food.
MISSION TO TOKYO
IF THERE WAS ANY justice in this world, I would have been a dead man at least two times over.
By this, I mean simply that many times in my life the statistical probabilities of a fatal outcome have been overwhelming thanks to my sins of excess and poor judgment and my inability to say no to anything that sounded as if it might have been fun. By all rights I should have been, at various times: shot to death, stabbed to death, imprisoned for a significant period of time, or at very least, victimized by a casaba-sized tumor.
I often use the hypothetical out-of-control ice-cream truck. What would happen if you were walking across the street and were suddenly hit by a careening Mister Softee truck? As you lie there, in your last few moments of consciousness, what kind of final regrets flash through your mind? 'I should have had a last cigarette!' might be one. Or, 'I should have dropped acid with everybody else back in '74!' Maybe: 'I should have done that hostess after all!' Something along the lines of: 'I should have had more fun in my life! I should have relaxed a little more, enjoyed myself a little more . . .'
That was never my problem. When they're yanking a fender out of my chest cavity, I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.
I'm still here. And I'm surprised by that. Every day.
So in the spring of 1999, I really and truly thought that I had had all my great adventures, that the entertainment and excitement segment of the program was long over. Been there and done that was more than an assumption for me, it was a defensive stance, and one that kept me - and keeps me - from repeating the stupid mistakes of the past. Sure, there were things to learn. I learn things all the time. But I'm talking about eye-opening, revelatory, perspective-altering life experiences:the exotic, the frightening, the totally new. I wasn't about to sample any new experimental hallucinogens at age forty-three. I wasn't going to submerge myself in some new criminal sub-culture, steeping myself