Anthony Bourdain - A Cooks Tour?

So, with Dad safely back home, time to move on to other matters, one in particular was my total confusion as to what on earth an old, chain smoking, heavy drinking, greasy New York oaf was doing presenting an (albeit distinctly sensationalist) travelog-style food tour series on UKTV Food...I speak, of course, of Anthony Bourdain...my first thought was - "How on earth does this guy know what any of that is tasting like with a cigarette sticking out the side of his mouth?" - my second thought was - "Perhaps he doesn't actually want to know what a still beating cobra heart actually tastes like"...anyway...a revelation this morning, I have started reading "Kitchen Confidential", the book that propelled him to fame, and suddenly, everything is clear...he's the closest thing the Americans have to Gordon Ramsay...

The book, however, beats anything Mr Ramsay has written (hands down), although littered with similarities, he's unbelieveably frank (to the point of painful, retrospective self derision) and glitteringly funny, constantly full of facinating anecdotes, and at this point, I'm only about a third of the way through...didn't even bother to pick up a Metro on the tube this morning, and was still reading when I got out of the lift on the 20th floor...

Roll on lunchtime... ;)