Wasted Continuum

Tonight I saw Anthony Bourdain at one of his speakings. I have not seen him since 2007 at Solera. If you have not seen any of his speakings, let me paint you a picture of the first few minutes of him walking onto the stage. The theater is darkened and the stage is lit. His name is announced and he walks out with a bottle of Summit beer in one hand. Continue Reading »

On the Travel Channel, Monday night, March 10th, at 10 p.m. ET/PT, Anthony Bourdain goes back the kitchen of Les Halles. He’s been gone eight years and now he’s coming back to see if he still has what it takes to run his pirate ship. Since leaving Les Halles, the dining area has doubled, the kitchen is still the same size and Tony is not any younger. I’ve been waiting for this episode since he teased it back in November. This is also the season finale of No Reservations. I can’t think of a better scenario to end the season with. I’m so excited to see it. I’ve only seen him cook once on Chef’s Story and a few brief moments throughout No Reservations. It’ll be interesting to see him in a real kitchen doing his thing. This means that I will be completely off the grid tomorrow night while it’s airing. Don’t even bother trying to reach me. You will be ignored.

This past week was filled with big dinners because of the Chinese New Year. My parents did a lot of cooking for us. So last night I decided to cook a nice dinner for them. I made soupe au pistou. It’s a French vegetable soup with pistou. Pistou is similar to pesto. It was nice a hearty and tasty. I also made a leeks vinaigrette salad. The vinaigrette turned out amazingly well. The tangy red wine vinegar was perfectly balanced by the egg. I definitely would make it again. Both the soup and salad are Anthony Boudain recipes. His book, Les Halles, hasn’t failed me yet.

For the main course I made poulet cuisses maison (chicken thighs). It’s basically seared then cooked on medium heat. A vinegar based sauce is made from the chicken fat afterwards. This is the first main course recipe I tried from Jacques Pepin. I have made a couple vegetable dishes from his recipes before with great success. This dish was no different. I got it from his book The Short-Cut Cook. This was a quick and simple recipe with big payoff.

I uploaded photos of the food on my Flickr account.

Finally, there was a new episode of No Reservations tonight and he started out big. Bourdain went to another food mecca, Singapore. It was a great episode with lots and lots of food. The crab looked so good. I think I want to try cooking that. The bone marrow dish looked so amazing too. This is a time when I wish tv sets emit smells. It was a bonus to see Tony wear his Cook Free or Die t-shirt in the beginning and the end of the episode. Can’t wait to see next week, the Berlin episode.

I’m in the middle of reading “Bone in the Throat,” the first novel written by Bourdain. It’s pulling me in pretty quick. It’s very restaurant centric. Shocking. It’s great so far.

The day has come. New episodes of No Reservations starts Monday. You know what that means? That means I will be off the grid from 9pm-10pm. Can’t wait. If you haven’t watched the show yet, you should check it out. If you love food, not that you just love eating, but actually love all aspects of food and how it can overtake all five of your senses, this is the show for you. Ok, so the show is more travel centric, being that it’s on the Travel Channel, Tony is always looking for the purest culinary delights of the world.

No Reservations

I’m all packed and ready to head out to San Francisco to ring in the new year with my best friend. As I have mentioned before, I won’t be posting anything until I get back. In fact, I don’t think I’m going to bring my laptop. It’s too bulky. If only I had an ultra-mobile laptop. I will still be twittering with my phone and maybe on my friend’s computer. My twitter daily summary posts will still show up automatically.

I’m traveling light this time. I’ll have my tiny 4 gig Nano with me. I just bought a new book to read. It’s Bone in the Throat by Anthony Bourdain. Can’t wait to read it. I already started the prologue and it’s got me sucked in. Since I’m not bringing my laptop, that means I won’t upload any photos either until I get back.

So, happy new year all!

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