An Acknowledgement of Appreciation for Chef Anthony Bourdain

   As I’ve mentioned before this culinary life was not the planned path that was set out for me so many years ago. When I left university in 1978 to pursue cooking it was a surprise and possibly somewhat of a disappointment to my family and friends who had high hopes for me along other avenues, but that is ancient history now…

    The year was 2000; I was living in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, running my own restaurant, “Eclipse”, “Eclectic Culinary Delights and Moonshine”. My morning routine at home was to have my coffee, print menus, place orders, payroll, all administration, etc. before I headed down to the restaurant around noon to start my real day, in the kitchen cooking, (we were only open for dinner). I always had CNN on the TV so I could keep in touch with “the real world”. This particular morning CNN had a story about a Chef in New York who had just written a book exposing what really goes on behind the closed doors of a professional kitchen. The Chef was Anthony Bourdain and his book was “Kitchen Confidential, Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”. Well needless to say this really caught my attention and I thought to myself, “I really need to read that”. Then I carried on with my day and actually forgot about it.

   Not even 2 weeks later I received a copy of Bourdain’s book in the mail from my mother. I started to read it and couldn’t put it down. It was incredible in that it was all so “familiar”, the circumstances and experiences were so similar it was scary. Reading about Tony’s “Wilderness Years” was reminiscent of the few years that I was in Toronto, and I believe it was around the same time, early to mid 80’s, and although I’ll get some flak from New Yorkers I can tell you that there are a lot of similarities between Toronto and New York. Toronto is a cosmopolitan city with a very vibrant culinary culture. I can remember late nights, (actually more like early mornings), stumbling down Yonge Street, “half snapped”, with my cook buddies in the exact same mood and mindset that Tony writes about, (not to mention the other, very entertaining, stories in this very well written book). Since then it has been on the “required reading” list for my employees for both its entertainment, and educational values. Personally I can really identify with this book.

   But the most important aspect of this book though, (and Tony if you ever happen to read this then I must Thank You profusely for enlightening my mother), is the very short note, written by my Mother that accompanied the book when she sent it to me. It simply said,

   “Now I finally understand you”.

    Happy Cooking Everyone!