Our Bourdain Day Tribute
As we pay tribute to the late chef and TV personality, Anthony Bourdain, we are featuring quotes and excerpts from CNN’s Parts Unknown and CNN articles regarding our five locations: Peru, China, Spain, Italy and Canada. Bourdain traveled around the world to share stories of cultures and to bring us all to see the beauty, the reality, the challenges, and most importantly, the food from all these countries and more.
His open, honest approach when explaining and trying local cuisine in the streets of a foreign city, or enjoying a sit-in down Michelin star meals, made us feel like we were also invited into the conversation with locals, famous chefs, or stars from around the world.
Here are five quotes and excepts for our five locations:
“It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description…Machu Picchu, for instance, seem[s] to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and whats happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.” -Anthony Bourdain’s NY-Times Best Seller “The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones”.
“If you love in Manhattan like I do and you think you live in the center of the world, this place, Shanghai, will confront you with a very different reality. Turn down a side street, it's an ancient culture. A century's old mix of culinary traditions, smells, flavors. A block away…an ultra-modern, ever clanging cash register, levels of wealth, of luxury, a sheer volume of things and services unimagined…” - Parts Unknown, Shanghai.
"It takes a special breed to live in a province like Quebec. It gets cold in winter, and winters are long. It takes a special kind of person for whom frozen rivers, icy wind-whipped streets, deep seemingly endless forests are the norm. I will confess my partisanship up front. I love Montreal. It is my favorite place in Canada. The people who live there are tough…and I admire them for it. Toronto, Vancouver, I love you, but not like Montreal." -Parts Unknown, Montreal.
"Any reasonable, sentient person who looks to Spain, comes to Spain, eats in Spain, drinks in Spain, they're gonna fall in love. Otherwise, there's something deeply wrong with you." -Parts Unknown, Granada.
“As so many have found throughout history, it is easy to fall in love with Rome. She is seductively beautiful. She has endured and survived many things.” Parts Unknown, Rome.
Early in his career, he trained as a professional chef and worked at some of Manhattan’s top restaurants. Later, he went onto write a NY Times Best Seller and tell-all book called “Kitchen Confidential” that takes the reader behind the scenes of the culinary world and into the kitchen. He would later began collaborating with CNN to create TV series that would take us on a wild ride with our crazy Uncle Tony.
Do you want to learn more about food and culture? Definitely check out our blog The Secret Ingredients Behind Peru’s Diverse Culinary Scene!
