Just got back from seeing Anthony Bourdain in in the city, and it was an absolute treat. He is every bit as much fun as you would imagine him to be. Lots of good and useful stuff in the talk, but two stick in my mind:
1. Truffle oil is the ketchup of the newly affluent.
2. To find good places to eat, provoke the nerds.#2 showed a remarkably precise understanding of the internet. The question at hand was how to find good restaurants, and his answer was to take the city you want to go to and just google up some restaurant names that serve the dish you’re after. Then got to chowhound or another foodie site, and rather than asking about restaurants, you put up an enthusiastic post talking about how you just had the best whatever you’re looking for at one of these restaurants.
At that point, what drivingblind likes to call the nerdfury will begin. Posters will show up from nowhere to shower you with disdain, tell you how that place used to be good but has now totally sold out and – most important to your quest – will tell you where you would have gone if you were not some sort of mouth breathing water buffalo.
The post title is also pretty funny.
***Update***
Hat tip to John via IM, who clearly neglected to tell me that he read about this at Jim Henley’s. Tsk.
Also, don’t waste any more votes on us at the Webbies. As per Michael’s orders, vote for the Jawa guys instead.
Andrew
Bourdain’s No Reservations is actually quite good this season. His trips to some very third world locales have been really honest and he’s still a funny drunk.
John Cole
Heh. Nerdfury. So true.
capelza
I simply adore him. Watch his show all the time.
I really like his openess and his honesty. His show from Lebanon was great. He was there to film a regular show and got caught up in the effects of the Israeli/Hezbollah war.
Abe Froman
I got hooked on him when I read Kitchen Confidential. That’s when I knew i wanted to be a Chef…. Too bad that was 3 years ago, and I’ve already been an engineer for 9 years.
p.s. does anyone else who sends alot of text messages in short hand have a horrible time typing now? or is it just me?
Jim Henley
Inner. Gary Farber. Rising!
Dreggas
Speaking of food any of you all down in AZ going here this weekend?
Mary
#pets Henley’s inner Farber and offers it a treat#
Gus
I love the nerdfury idea. Truffle oil, not so much. The one time I tried it I though it tasted like feet.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
AB is a friend of a friend, and I got to spend a night out in NY with their gaggle of chefs a few years ago when AB had his old Food Network show. He’s one of the most honest people you’ll ever meet, and a bon mec to boot. Hence, he’s uniquely unsuited for a television host. I’m always amazed when they renew him for another series.
Jimitha
nerdfury is a variant of an old idea on Usenet. If you went, for example, into a Linux newsgroup and asked nicely how to do something, everyone would ignore you or just call you a newbie. The proper technique is to flatly claim that it is impossible to do X under Linux, but is a trivial matter under Windows, and therefore Linux sucks. You would invariably receive a large number of thoroughly researched responses debunking your claim. You can substitute any other sides of a religious war for Linux and Windows here.
Perry Como
Drizzled on potato chips, served with steak tartar. Yummy feet.
horatius
Anthony Bourdain – the new Ben Domenech?
This whole tip reeks of a certain World of Warcraft caption comic contest entry where one character is looking for something, and another character, who doesn’t know the answer, deliberately responds with false information on the general channel and gets smacked down by a frenzy of replies rebuking him, and giving the correct answer.
ImJohnGalt
Abe Froman:
Behold, Cooking For Engineers
Best. Recipe. Format. Ever.
Krista
I love the Food Network. Anthony Bourdain is always great to watch.
But for pure food porn, with cardiac-event-inducing quantities of butter and sugar, you have to watch the Barefoot Contessa. It’s not unusual to see husband and me watching it, while occasionally gasping, “Oh, Ina!” in delight and shock.
Dulcie
I like Anthony, but my true love is Alton Brown of Good Eats fame. His road trip across the country last year, and his river run up the Mississippi were so much fun to watch – mostly because I’m a sucker for a good road trip.
jake
So that’s what John is doing when he blogs about his Mac.
My only problem with NR is Bourdain, who makes it damn hard to concentrate on the food.
rachel
I wish the TV show had hung on a bit longer.
Catsy
He’s spot on about truffle oil, from our experience. We fall somewhere in the middle class, and one of our vices is the truffle cafe in the Pike Place Market. They sell all manner of decadent and retardedly expensive truffle products. Our favorites are the truffle oil, which we use very sparingly in mashed potatoes (among other things), and truffle salt, which I’m completely stupid for and will put on almost anything, especially grilled corn on the cob.
(though I once discovered that the salt is amazingly wonderful to just dip your finger in and taste if you’re stoned out of your mind)
Bombadil
I agree with both, but Anthony Bourdain is on one of the Discovery/Travel channels, isn’t he?
reid
I have one of Bourdain’s books and have tivo’ed his show, but I’m a bit put off by his attempts at a “cool” vibe. As if he thinks he’s the Hunter S. Thompson of the culinary world (especially obvious if you saw the Vegas episode). I’m sure he’s a good guy and fun to hang out with, but it’s not cool to overestimate your coolness.
Strangely enough, I also got that same feeling after watching Alton Brown’s road trip miniseries, which someone mentioned above. Good Eats is an excellent show; creative, funny, and informative. But Alton just doesn’t come across quite as awesome as the show on-the-fly, and he even seemed bossy and egotistical at times. Again, I’m sure he’s a great guy too, but success may be going to their heads and making them believe too much in their own hipness. Yeah, I’m overly critical sometimes.
I think some top-notch material could come out of throwing the regulars here together for a long night of drunken foolishness a la Dave Attell in “Up All Night”. This is the funniest blog I’ve stumbled on. Or maybe it’d just turn into a bunch of girlish giggling over blog posting all night, hard to say….