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Dear Michael;
I know that you are probably still on your perpetual, self-financed book tour, trying to sell copies of your shamefully Franco-centric pamphlet out of the trunk of your car in the parking lots of racetracks and cattle auctions. And the road being what it is–and knowing you as I do, I assume that by way of sustenance, you have reverted to your usual fare: cans of Dinty Moore beef stew, heated over a hot-plate in your cheap ass single rooms at Motel 6 and Days Inn. As you are too tight with money to order up any Pay-Per-View, I thought, having just returned from Spain, that I’d send you a little excerpted Food Porn (from the rough draft VO of an upcoming episode of No Reservations ) –to help you through those lonely, hungry nights:
"……and who knew anything in a can could be so good? At Espinaler Bodega, in a small, seaside village outside of Barcelona, Miguel cracks open another 150 Euro can, containing 10-12 perfect, plump Galicean clams, and upends them onto a small oval plate. They take their place next to similar plates of mussels, razor clams, cockles and tuna belly. He pours me another glass of the dark, house vermouth and scatters a few toothpicks across the bar. Behind me, the tables in the small room are full. Locals, mostly. Sitting alone and in groups. Most smoke. One old man takes puffs on a cigar between mouthfuls from an open can of anchovies. It’s the Catalonian version of the neighborhood saloon (old, wood bar, draft beer, potato chips)–except some of the cans lining the walls above the cigarette packs sell for astronomical prices. And Albert Adria is standing next to me with a glassy, blissed out look on his face, excitedly pointing out the tiny fat globules speckling the can juices around the clams. He’s gushing over the virtues of the also-house made pepper sauce, which has become something of a staple all across Spain. (They’ve even used it at El Bulli).
Albert’s got the same look later–in the countryside, standing over a heap of charred calcots; over-wintered onion sprouts which have been burned over grape vines. There’s about twenty of us, in ridiculous little bibs, our fingers smeared with carbon, guzzling tinto straight from the spout, slipping off the crispy, black exteriors like a woman’s panty-hose, revealing tender white, sublimely sweet interiors, then dragging them through smoky thick pepper and almond sauce. There’s fresh morcilla, of course, and chorizos..and lamb chops..and more vermouth. But it’s all about those onions.
And he’s got the same look, even later, at Quimet and Quimet, an ancient, family owned bar in Barcelona, specializing in "montaditos", little, stacked tapas of mostly canned food–assembled to order from a selection of nearly a hundred varieties. How can you LIVE in Barcelona (much less regularly be fed by all the best chefs in the world) and STILL be so excited? Actually, it’s not hard to fathom. Walking down the street here is an exquisite form of torture. Everywhere you look there’s something you want to eat. It makes you frantic.
For a more specialized market of food-related wank material, I delved deeply into the world of deep, dark, African chocolate, the very best, pure and un-cut, gallons of it, vats of molten, velvety goodness, shaped and molded into edible works of art by master chocolatier Enric Rovira. He makes chocolate that emulates the tiles on Gaudi buildings, Barcelona cobblestones, the planets. He works with and collaborates with artists and sculptors.He makes museum quality "pieces" of varying sizes from basketball to enormous. I’m not ordinarily a "chocolate" person. Or a sweets person. I think chocolate in bed is about as sexy as waking up next to a damp rottweiler. But this guy’s stuff is off the hook. I was like that rotten kid in Willy Wonka. The one who gets thrown in the food processor for being gluttonous?
The food porn quotient only gets ratcheted up– from X to hard XXX– in Saint Sebastian.
Now, I’m standing in the kitchen at Etxebarri, a charming, rustic looking old building in a ludicrously beautiful village in the mountains. Victor, the owner and chef has just served me an impressive mound of grilled (yes, grilled) imperial beluga caviar, warmed over his homemade charcoal until it plumps and heats and takes on an unearthly sweetness from the smoke. He’s a zen master of the grill. One whole wall of the kitchen–across from the roaring ovens where he’s making charcoal–is a series of fiendishly designed, custom crafted grills. Each raises and lowers independently with the turn of a wheel. Each item to be cooked gets its own little fire. There’s something very…Japanese about things here. He’s grilled me an oyster (sans shell) and served it on top of seaweed with its liquid. He’s grilled me two thick slabs of freshly made, un-cured, un-aged chorizo from a pig killed–yesterday. And now? Now, I’m eating freshly killed baby eels–an unimaginable luxury. Tiny, near-filament thin elvers, swam all the way from the Sargasso and upriver–so that Victor could deposit them in his tank. Then poison them with tobacco. Slip off their outer skins. And then..then…"saute" them in a specially designed "pan"–actually a basket-pan–in which the eels can be "jumped" very quickly over the fire without taking on fat. Only heat..a tiny bit of smoke..a few seconds..and then eaten–without sauce or garnish. Pure, absolutely unadulterated pleasure. At about 1500 a kilo.
Speaking of food porn, if you haven’t gotten your hands on Andoni Aduriz’s collection of cookbooks, lovingly bound monographs, works of art and essays, you’re missing out on some of the most exciting, kooky, creative printed work anywhere. The remarkably funny, personable Aduriz is–on one hand–sort of a 19th century rennaissance man–a Basque version of one of those potty English herbalist/naturalist/writer/amateur surgeons. A Sir Francis Richard Burton or Lawrence of the Kitchen. He’s an obsessive chronicler and collecter of wild herbs–employing a full time herb-wrangler. He studied the biology and inner workings of the human liver at a med school–so that he could better understand (and cook) foie gras. He’s worked at both Arzak and El Bulli. And he uses his strange and terrible powers to devastatingly powerful and impressive effect at his restaurant, Mugaritz–in yet another gorgeous country village outside Saint Sebastian. He’s "out there"–alone and on the edge, clearly a major influence on many of the hotshots whose names we now know well, creatively, well beyond Alinea and WD-50 and Moto territory, and yet EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DISH I had was a home run. No "almosts". No "Wow! That was really creative, but…." . He is an absolute original–something all the more impressive in Spain, where most are either working (or improving upon) respected traditions–or continuing on what Adria and others have been doing. Every dish was fucking genius. Repeat: Genius.
Of course, I ate the jamon. Lot’s of it. And the gambas. And the wild mushrooms at Gambera..and the veal cheeks and the fish cakes and the baby sea cucumbers and white anchovies and the hot peppers and white asparagus and the "Russian salad" and the baby squids and I drank lots of beverages with Basque names which I can’t be bothered to spell here.
And then I went home to Arzak. And my (wish he could be) my step-Dad, Juan Mari and his daughter (and chef) Elena sat down with me and my wife in the kitchen and we ate what was for me–a perfect meal. I’ve read a couple of accounts on line–food nerdlingers griping that Arzak is not quite as good as it once was. Not so. I ate there in 2000. I ate there last week. To my mind? It’s better. You’ll have to wait and watch every long, lingering moment of tape for descriptives on that one. I’m still floating."
I don’t know about this topic more.But By reading your post I got impressed.Now I am interesting to know more about this.
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*pant, pant, pant*
*rolls away from the wet spot*
*lights two cigarettes*
*hands one to bourdain*
*hands the other to ruhlman*
food porn, pay per view porn…bourdain seems to know his porn alright.
scroll down on this page to the bourdain-victor mature comparisons….quite a pic there! proof of his true love for bone marrow. http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=3170205&st=15&p=9984208&
Orlando sans Disney would be good.. I was just there and found wonderful tacos al pastor, lechon asado, a couple of Trini roti joints, Haitian cafes.. und so weiter. (There’s a bunch more that I didn’t even try to find. I only had a week there.)
.. and it was not expensive like within the Kingdom of the Rat.
T.
someone give bourdain a fucking cigarette an a nanny!
Tony’s brain must be porned over. It’s Sir Richard Francis Burton. One of the first Westerners to Mecca, who accompanied Speke to Lake Victoria. He also translated the Kama Sutra, the Perfumed Garden and A Thousand Nights and a Night.
An explorer and sensualist.
Rather like Tony.
SS
well tony bourdain’s writing certainly has improved since kitchen confidential and that ridiculous fiction stuff, eh monsieur ruhlman? heh.
geez louize, now i can’t wait for tonight, i want to run out to OLIVIA on houston or BAR CARRERA in the ev or somewhere for some basque chow right now.
you know the clev could really use some little tapas joints like these ny’ers.
Okay, I want it noted here and now that Kate in the NW was the Original Hard Tongue poster! (Maybe poster isn’t the right word. I don’t want to be associated with a poster of a tongue, hard or not – apologies to Mick Jagger. I digress…)
Anyway – it seems to be a popular concept, this HT thing, and Ruhlman and Bourdain are the kingpins of the foodie crack that is the vicarious meal. Now you have your logo. I want T-shirts…a whole line of Ruhlman/Bourdain kitchen accoutrements (picture the silicone spatulas, the tongue-tongs) and a new book/TV show called “The Tome of the Tumescent Tongue; Hard-Core Food Porn for the Excruciatingly Literate Traveler.” Just send me a free autographed copy when you’re done.
Come on, make us happy! Plump our tongues! It’s what we pay you for, right? Uh oh – what does that make you guys…or …or the Travel Channel, or the Food Network…?(but we already knew that).
I’d better stop before the Vice Squad shuts us all down.
Cheers!
While I am distracted beyond Gruyère by the giant pink tongue-hard-on in the room, I will skein together my three and a half unfazed neurons akimbo to respond,
that while I’m SURE Tony has a Yoda-like handle on the Hezbollah Tofu blog/”movement” (and yes, I use that term loosely), I eerily and coincidentally felt stirred to dedicate a befuddled-rebuttal to AB’s treatment by HzT this week.
I vexed, wrestled and I schvitzed, because I KNOW this just looks so (insert hand-job gesture), but here you go:
http://happyhoarfrost.blogspot.com/2008/03/bourdain-hezbollah-tofu-cant-take-tony.html
And,
Old Man: before you come out spraying Ruhlman from your holster of Dinty Moore?–know that my little sister upped this allusion LONG ago, when she silkscreened t-shirts emblazoned,”Dinty Moore: Looks Like Dog Food, Tastes Like Heaven.” And she was like 12.
Just a few thoughts: I saw “Anonymous” on a Cook’s Tour last night, and of all places, he was in San Sebastian; the meal at Arzak and everything else caused tongue tumescence. Then I watched Top Chef, tonight. Since I’m a proud Chicagoan, I’ve been enjoying the show, but I gotta say, neighborhood block party fare sufffered badly by the comparison to what I’d seen in San Sebastian, the night before. And finally, Michael, a TV deal wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I see you as the erudite and witty host.
Happy Spring, (though we’re expecting more snow)
Adele
Bourdain:
Nice hand-wringing on Letterman the other night. You looked like you were going to crap yourself. I know it wasn’t the big audience, since you’ve spoken live in front of audiences for years now. And since the show is taped, it’s not like you were broadcasting live to millions of viewers.
My guess is that you were censoring yourself. And I was pleasantly surprised to not hear a single f-bomb from you that had to be bleeped. Of course, you were shaking like you had DTs, so I’m thinking you hadn’t had a drink it at least an hour. It wouldn’t have been proper to throw up on Dave and then start licking Paul Schaffer’s face.
http://hezbollahtofu.blogspot.com/
Does Tony know about this?
(Double post under wrong topic elsewhere, sorry)
Ruhlman, when the hell are you getting your own show so you can climb out from Tony’s shadow?
I mean, really. It’s embarassing for a man of your…ahhh…gravitas to forever be Olive Oyl to Bourdain’s Popeye. Time for you to open up your own can of spinach, nu?
You write like a sonofabitch, you’re comfortable on camera (at least on Next Iron Chef), you’re pretty enough to be the BeeGee who didn’t get a facelift. All huge assets for you, my friend.
Get thee to a production company! And then to Discovery or Travel Channel, or whatever, but please O Lord, do not allow him to go to the droids of TFN.
Amen.
Wow, a tounge hard-on. What a great concept!
and of course humor to his shows.
Shouldn’t that be “coarse?”
You guys need to team up on another adventure. Disney with the kids?
OMG, Bourdain, take me with you. I will carry your stinky shoes, I don’t care, just take me with you.
Interesting comments about Tony here: http://jcarrot.org/the-great-seitan/
Wicked, wicked, food porn starlet set loose upon the Catallan countryside!! Tony fashions himself the Maquis de Sade of foodies everywhere and delights in these exquisite tortures. May I get you a feather sir?
Delightfully….well, dirty and fulfilling! Love the interaction between you and Bourdain, from whom in 5 days I will be requesting a special signature in the Last Supper book. You’re not getting off that easy, buddy!
Cheers, Bonnie (artnlit)
it disturbs me to admit this, but bourdain, fast on his way to becoming an old coot, is actually getting good at this TV business, bringing not just his big fat mouth to his subjects but rather genuine complexity, pathos, and irony as well as travel info and of course humor to his shows. i say this after recently viewing the NOLA no rez, followed by the bizarre romania episode (for which even I am receiving infuriated email). He doesn’t do it alone–his innovative production company zero point zero has just a little bit to do with it
Off topic, but is it an accident that Aqua Colbert is made using Cincinatti tap water?
Wow. My tongue is hard. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen before just from reading a computer screen. I’ve heard tell, but never actually experienced it….
I’m so glad there are all these people out there writing – witty and well – about food. Makes it almost worthwhile booting up the ol’ Mac.
Thanks to both of you! And keep recommending other brilliant foods/folks/restaurants to us out here in the “real” world.
Sheesh – sounds like a scorned girlfriend to me. Does Nigella have your room number?
now I have to pack my bags for a weekend of dining.
Dinty Moore? I always thought Ruhlman would be into the Castleberry Stew. Higher tail to lip ratio.
Wow. My tongue is hard. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen before just from reading a computer screen. I’ve heard tell, but never actually experienced it….
I’m so glad there are all these people out there writing – witty and well – about food. Makes it almost worthwhile booting up the ol’ Mac.
Thanks to both of you! And keep recommending other brilliant foods/folks/restaurants to us out here in the “real” world.
Tony,
I fell in love with Spanish food 8 years ago when we spent two weeks at a villa overlooking the Med. The food we ate at restaurants was extraordinary, the food we cooked ourselves was extraordinary. And why is it people on the Mediterranean can make wonderful foods in cans and we can’t?
“Anonymous” is quite the sensualist, isn’t he (she?).
Tony was great on Letterman last night too – I think Dave is quite the fan.
Love, love, LOVE Barcelona. Love all of Catalonia, in fact. Deeply, insanely jealous now.
That sounds really, well—dreamy. Your description of eel is mouth watering—I feel dirty reading it! Looking forward to seeing the show.
AB isn’t kidding anyone… he was really in a McDonalds parking lot eating a breakfast burrito. His tears cascading into his screw top bottle of sangria, as he looked hazily at his favorite bloggers review at GQ. You know what AB… We got your back… well everyone except perhaps Mr. Ruhlman. Now put down that bag of frozen assorted Tapas you got from the local price-club and pull yourself together! You got Letterman to do!
One Love…
Don’t feel bad, Michael. I just had a burger and fries at McDonalds.
Hey Ruhlman,
Love it when you allow Tony to whip you in front of the masses- it makes for an entertaining educational experience. Thanks Tony for the peek-a-view ahead, and the poetry in porndom
Maybe Bourdain got hit by a car, this reads like a foodie version of “Life on Mars”.
Tony This is the show I want to “See” Handheld or Hidden camera, no production values, just “Great FOOD”
No politico BS.
Ah Well Quantum Physics says to see something changes it so you can’t see what you just saw.
See you later,Wyndham
Tony, I don’t think you’re going to Hell but if you do it’ll be run by the snout-nosed beasts that you’ve gorged on all your life…mmmm, now I’m hungry for some bacon.
Of course, by saying “(wish he could be) my stepdad”, Bourdonymous, er, I mean, Anonymous, is lobbying for polygamy.
Yeah, you better stay anonymous for this one.
And please be gentle with Mr. Letterman.
quite simply, i love what you guys create just by knowing each other…
always a bright spot in my day – for sure.
and damn if that wasn’t just fucking amazing…
“off the hook??”
Oh, my my my. I take it this trip was to assuage the heartache of not getting hosting duties for the Kickin Kitchen Showdown with Summers. Or whatever it’s called.
Is this Rachael Ray on $40 a day?
Wow.
Did the room get warm already? Goodness.
Am currently eating my laptop
why do u keep urself so segregated? Michael gets all the rap for your actions–I know the more aloof u are the more money the Food network will pay to have u on Iron Chef America….
You F…Ng fool….like everyone else an interview with Adam Roberts????!!!
Okay now you really are one of ‘them’ and the rest is just bullshit
Michael, a terrible price you pay in ritualistic abuse from this haunted but brilliant friend of yours, but if we must…
Tony,
Nicely written, truly a fine aphrodisiac of sorts, better than “Ask your 4-star Chef(Eric Ripert)” in Men’s Health Mag. for us who crave this kind of Food Porn. My taste buds are still quivering in the wet spot created by all the Saliva, and all of this before lunch. Now I will just have to close my eyes and pretend I’m eating something else other than this leftover Easter Egg Salad sandwich. Thanks
They (Ruhlman, Bourdain, et al) need some sort of a scholarship Foundation so that poor cubicle-bound shmucks like us can win a chance to go on a gastronomic dream tour. A week away from monotony, tucked away in the far corners of Spain is vitally important.
I’ll draw up the papers.
Ahh, so that’s why Bourdain’s too busy to have done his Bravo blogs – San Sebastian or Valerie’s “buh-llinis”? No brainer, there . . .
Thanks AB, good luck on letterman tonight!
Michael,
Doesn’t Tony realize you’re very busy and you don’t have time to read through his long winded emails? LOL.
I think there should be some kind of rule that you can’t post items like this when lunch is still 2 hours away.
So very, Bourdain.
So very.
Was Bob del Grosso in Spain during this time ?
Wow, Guy Fieri’s writing has certainly improved since the last time I read it.
Good one Bourdain