I am going to truly kick off this blog with a post on the show that started it all for me- "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations." I got into this show a bit late as my cable provider was last to jump on the Travel Channel bandwagon. I caught the occasional episode when I would travel in hotel rooms and sometimes on the net.
The show is about (now) celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and his food-related travels around the world. Bourdain has a no holds barred approach to life- he drinks, curses and makes frequent ironic and pop culture references. Bourdain came into prominence with his autobiography on the restaurant industry "Kitchen Confidential." The memoir was a runaway bestseller. What most people take from the book was that they should never order fish at a restaurant on Mondays because it's usually the leftovers from the weekend. Bourdain previously had a very similar show on the Food Network called "A Cook's Tour" that was a half hour long. After a falling out with Food Network he took the same show to Discovery Channel sister network Travel Channel.
Bourdain has traveled the world twice over. He not only profiles the food of the location but the local culture and customs. Bourdain tends to shy away from what he calls tourist culture, those locales where most tourists visit first (i.e. Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, etc...).
Now in it's 7th season the show is going strong. On a recent episode he visited Cuba. This was an eye opening experience seeing fifty year old cars roam streets against a back drop of crumbling architecture. One aspect of Cuba that he touched on that kind of amazed me was how big baseball is there. I knew Castro was a fanatic about the game but I didn't know it transcended to the masses. There are even groups organized within the country that are allowed to argue about the games, players, teams, etc... Bourdain touched on how a country that isn't free is allowed to argue about a sport. He also showcased how Cuba has a growing tourism industry that features many five-star restaurants and hotels, many of which are closed to the general population of the country by price tag. Bourdain paints Cuba in the most positive light possible.
No Reservations has featured many guest stars including Bill Murray, Mario Batali, Emeril, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent and Sean Penn. There seems to always be someone who is both famous and indigenous to the area.
If you are interested in both travel and food start out with this show all the way back to episode 1. The show is available on Netflix and has almost every episode available via their streaming service.
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| Anthony Bourdain at his restaurant Les Halles |
Until next time...
—Chris
