Bourdain Experience II

He’s very tall and surprisingly energetic after having been on the road all day. Even though his demeanor is laid-back, you can see the ten-to-seventeen-year-old Tony, eager for new sights, sounds, experiences. I read the books, I watch the show, and I am pretty much counting on him being a no-bullshit guy; one of the few people on the planet where what you see is what you get, on the page, on camera, in person.

I relate to Kitchen Confidential, I am only two years younger than Tony and was two years ahead of my class and therefore those restaurant days and druggie 1970s were my coming-of-age as well—I was some of those people and knew the other ones. He did heroin and restaurants, I did LSD and went from restaurants to the religious commune.

While the guys are getting some film outside, Bourdain & I chat about quitting smoking and the effect of children on one’s will to live (positive).

The guys are done outside. We ask if we can get a shot of Tony toasting the success of “not” launching a Titan missile. Don’t really want to toast the annihilation of Switzerland on camera—or do we? The wonders of post-editing will tell. Then drinks for the crew, chips & salsa in the break room. Don’t know where I get the guts or stupidity, I ask him if I can shamelessly plug my book. He says yeah. He actually picks it up and holds it for the camera!!! Atomic Cocktail???, he says, with cameras rolling.

I was supposed to tell the story of how the book came out of the Titantini Cocktail recipe, created to celebrate the upcoming 25th anniversary of the museum. I think I say the press-release-atomic-angst shtick of writing the book, give the recipe, and we toast to peace. He says, It’s good, surprised. Awkward, all of it. Who knows if it will make the show.
But he does finish the drink, post-camera, and compliments my homemade salsa and guacamole. This doesn’t go to my head—I take it to mean the food doesn’t suck—which was my reason for making it instead of picking up from Tucson, or recommending a restaurant down here. There’s no place decent open from here to Nogales at this hour. (10 P.M., if you’re wondering. This was before the wonderful diner Spanky’s opened next to the 99cent Store.)

I hate those guacamoles that look like vomit or congealed pea soup and even when they’re fresh I don’t like tomatoes or jalapenos in it. Garlic, lime, and avocado, that's it. Bourdain says Mexican food is like Italian food, it’s either done so well it’s great or it’s truly terrible. I wax rhapsodic about fresh food, ask where they’re going in Hatch, say in a worshipful voice, chiles, and it’s another bonding moment—he says, Red or green, and I say without hesitation, green—he says, me, too.

He does sign my book, and I tell him I’ve enjoyed it and grateful to know that I can throw out most of the knives from my home kitchen that I’ve been lugging around for thirty years. He tells me the story of watching swords made in Japan.

Then that’s it, they’re done, just grabbing a bite, driving the 4 hours to Hatch tonight to have breakfast at The Pepper Pot in the morning. He accepts a copy of my book, we give the crew Atomic Cocktail T-shirts, he says on the way out the door, “I have a feeling we could have talked food a lot more,” and I am touched. He didn’t have to be so gracious. Don’t know what all will end up on TV, but I learned some things from reading Kitchen Confidential, cooking for, and meeting Bourdain.

I learned that I am a nurturer; I didn’t need to impress with the food, because I don’t want to be a chef, or run a restaurant—I cook for friends and family and get to pick my guests—that’s what I enjoy. I learned a long time ago that you can’t cook good food if you’re thinking about yourself—whether trying to impress someone, or being out-of-sorts—from piqued to suicidal. It’s all about the food and how it tastes. And thanks to a Shirley Jackson story I read as a teenager, love in every third stir.

One of the things Bourdain says in Kitchen Confidential is that food is power. I’ve thought about that from a political point of view, saying how dangerous it is to import so much of our daily produce and grains and canned food. I didn’t have an aha! from the book how in my own life food is personal power—but I had to make fresh food for those guys, it was imperative. I had to then think about how I have cooked for people since I was 10 years old. Even in the religious commune, I was the cook. (And I learned to grow my own food and can it, another kind of personal power.)

Making people feel good is personal power, and it’s what I do. As a writer, as a home cook, and hopefully more and more in my personal and working life, it’s what I do. So maybe it’s not a surprise that Bourdain is personable and gracious—because even when cursing and railing and even saying the truth about when things are bad—the end result for a cook, the result you hope for, is for people to feel a little bit of grace, of amazement, of freshness and beauty—a little bit of heaven. To eat is to live, to cook is to give--the end result a celebration of life.


So, I get to put together two more equations in my life: Love is power, cooking is love, cooking is power. And I learn from the on-camera thing I need to be as funny in person as I am on paper and be more of a storyteller if I want to be interviewed. So I still have my ongoing battle between the extrovert and introvert within—but all in all, I feel lucky, too. Lucky to have survived childhood, adolescence, restaurant work, drugs, depression—to be alive, to have love, and to be learning still in this precious world.

P. S. I confess, I do care if everyone really liked my food. The crew kept saying about the salsa, “This is homemade??” I sure hope it didn’t taste as bad as store-bought. And Todd said the hot version was not either that hot. But Jared said Todd’s been divorced 4 times. They were, however, happy to take the leftovers.

P. P. S. By the time Bourdain and the crew blog and edit the show, it’s clear that the Southwest road trip is just one long haze of heat, dust, fumes, and alcohol—and while their visit to the Titan Missile Museum is a chapter in my book, it’s a paragraph, a sentence, a joke, a blip in theirs. But thanks for playing, guys! It was fun--or should I say, It seemed like a good idea at the time...