Remembering Anthony Bourdain's Delaware connections
Patricia Talorico
"Hi. Anthony Bourdain?"
"Call me Tony. Patricia Talorico?"
"Yes. Call me Patty."
And so began my first introduction to Tony Bourdain. The year was 2001 at the old Blue Angel in Philadelphia, one of the few eateries owned by successful restaurateur Stephen Starr that has since closed its doors.
Our dinner was low-key, easygoing and fun. Champagne was sipped. Pate was eaten. Not one fan approached the table for a selfie or an autograph.
Selfies were not yet a thing. And, in fact, neither was Bourdain.
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That night in the dimly lit French bistro, few people other than me seemed to know who Bourdain was. I had loved his writing in "The New Yorker" and couldn't wait to chat.
Bourdain was alone, no publicist or assistant nearby, no friends or family. He had an audience of two — just me and my sister. He seemed perfectly content. We hung out for a good, long time enjoying good food, drinks and conversation.
Tony Bourdain, the super tall, earring- and black leather coat-wearing chef, wasn't yet the mega, globe-trekking, TV culinary superstar Anthony Bourdain. He was just a guy, who seemed a little embarrassed to be in the limelight, actually.
Bourdain just wrote "Kitchen Confidential," a ground-breaking book that (at that time) made a lot of chefs angry.
Not everyone remembers that part since Bourdain, who apparently took his own life Friday in France at age 61, has since become a hero of working class chefs and international food lovers.
Bourdain was in Philadelphia during a now-defunct festival called The Book & The Cook. He was there to talk about the book he had written, released in 2000, that lifted the curtain on professional kitchens and restaurants. There were bawdy boasts of sexual escapades and cautions to customers not to eat fish on Mondays (he said it was old and leftover from the weekend) and warnings that the bread basket on a restaurant table was likely recycled.
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Earlier that night in Philadelphia, I was at an event for Tom Douglas, the superstar, James Beard Award-winning Seattle chef and restaurateur, who grew up in Delaware. Douglas was in a great mood and wanted my sister and me to hang out and have a drink. But when I told Douglas I had already set up a meeting with Bourdain, his face clouded over.
"That assh--e?" Then, Douglas went on a rant about how much he hated "Kitchen Confidential."
Years later, while eating pizza with Douglas at one of his Seattle restaurants, I reminded him of his smack talk about Bourdain.
Douglas started laughing. "Oh, I'm sure I said it," he said, but added that in the ensuing years, he and Bourdain had become close friends.
I told Tony that story later, too, and he chuckled. "I deserved being called an assh--e."
Tony Bourdain became one of the biggest stars in the world, but he never seemed to forget his beginnings. He was a late bloomer and didn't achieve fame until age 44.
When I interviewed him again after that first 2001 meeting, he was already the host of "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel, and later CNN's equally popular "Parts Unknown." He immediately mentioned our dinner at the Blue Angel. It shocked me that he remembered it.
It was so easy to chat with Bourdain, who, on the phone, wasn't always as "on" as he was on TV. But he was just as funny and quick with the quips. He traveled so often, but didn't stay one place too long.
"I'm like a touring band," he told me, and then reconsidered — "or probably more like Mickey Rourke in 'The Wrestler.' I'm in and out."
We once had a long conversation about writing and how hard it is to write exactly as you speak. It was his gift. Even better were the off-the-record moments when he would let loose some really juicy chatter about the culinary world.
Tony Bourdain had his own enemies list and wrote about who he liked and who he didn't like in his book, "Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and People Who Cook." He was never shy with his opinions.
Our first connection was through cookbook publicist Carrie Bachman, who grew up in Delaware.
"He was so generous helping other chefs and cookbook authors with praise/blurbs for their books and by interviewing them at events or helping them promote their books.
Bachman said Friday.
She called Bourdain "generous and honest."
"He asked for nothing in return," Bachman said.
Bachman, in particular, remembers when she was working with British Chef Fergus Henderson on various cookbooks, including "Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking." Bourdain said he wanted to help any way he could.
However, Bourdain wanted to "stay out of the limelight and only promote Fergus," Bachman said.
Bourdain was delighted to hear that I had eaten at Henderson's London restaurant, St. John. We talked about the roasted bone marrow and parsley salad, the kidneys and other dishes Henderson featured on the menu.
As his TV fans know, Bourdain was a fearless eater — he once ate warthog rectum in Namibia — but said he would never eat cat or dog in any country. Ever.
"I know the difference between what is a pet and what is meat."
Before Bourdain came to Wilmington in 2011 for what was essentially a stand-up act, we chatted on the phone. By then, he was ready to put to bed his moniker as the "bad boy of the culinary world."
Gone was the leather jacket, earring, thumb ring and cigarette habit. Bourdain was remarried with a young daughter.
"I'm not the same guy that I was. I'm not the working-class hero or the bad boy. I'm a dad now. I'm at home in my jammies with my daughter."
He also had long since given up professional cooking, and said he didn't miss it. Bourdain also told me he wished he could take back his most famous line, the one that he said will stay with him "until I'm crumbs in the can."
"Look, go ahead, eat the damn fish on Monday, I don't care," he said.
Still, when he came to Wilmington's DuPont Theatre, now the Playhouse, he was on fire.
"Who here is in the restaurant business?" he asked.
The crowd exploded.
"Bad night to be eating in Wilmington," Bourdain joked. After that line, everyone in the audience was eating out of his hand.
Bourdain told me he was a big admirer of Dogfish Head Brewery. He particularly liked Dogfish's 60-Minute IPA as well as the Milton-based company's plucky attitude.
"I think they embarked on what most people would've said was a foolhardy venture. You know, the blind pursuit of excellence and weirdness and creativity," he told The News Journal by phone in 2012 from New York.
"I relate to what they're doing. I admire them for both the pure creativity, the seeming foolhardiness and how damn good their product is."
"I think their IPA speaks for itself," he said.
Bourdain had a connection to Dogfish Head owners Sam and Mariah Calagione through Zero Point Zero Productions, the New York-based company that produced Bourdain's TV programs, and did the same for Calagione's 2010 well-received "Brew Masters" TV series.
Ironically, the last time I saw Bourdain was in 2016 in Philadelphia. The same city where we first met.
He was giving an Oct. 26 talk at the Academy of Music. He was just as funny as he had always been.
Bourdain said while he liked cookbook author Ina Garten, known as the Barefoot Contessa – "she cooks correctly" – he didn't want to spend a weekend at her luxurious East Hampton, New York, home.
"It is very creepy in Ina Land."
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He occasionally sipped a can of DELCO Lager made by 2SP Brewing in Aston, Pennsylvania, and said one of the worst mistakes he has made as a traveler is eating the breakfast buffet at a hotel. It's a recipe for disaster.
"It's like getting into a hot tub after [porn star] Ron Jeremy got out. Nothing good will ever come of that."
He also shared that he was no fan of his former Travel Channel show, "The Layover."
"I hated it. Every show was utter, f–ing misery," he said of the series about how to kill time in a city while waiting to catch a flight, which ran from 2011 to 2013.
But Bourdain did add that the 2012 episode that focused on Philadelphia was his favorite.
"It was the one show where I actually had a good time," adding one of his favorite meals was at Zahav, a modern Israeli restaurant owned by James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Solomonov.
Here are some travel tips Anthony Bourdain shared when he was in Wilmington in 2011:
1. Be grateful. It's a privilege to have an American passport.
2. Make the most of a trip. "If you're in Tokyo and you find yourself at a Hard Rock Cafe, there is something seriously wrong with you."
3. Dress appropriately. Bourdain recounted a tale of seeing a teenager in line at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul — one of the most sacred places for Islamic worship — dressed in short "Daisy Dukes," stripper heels and a low-cut shirt. Huge Fashion Don't. Huge.
4. Observe local customs. Read up and learn what's not cool to do, such as showing the soles of your feet or shoes in Japan. (It's consider rude.) And don't disrespect a sushi chef by dunking a piece of nigiri in a bowl of soy sauce with a glob of wasabi. "It's like spitting in the milk of his mother."
5. Eat what's good, eat what's local. If you go to New York City for only one day —- eat deli food. "We do good deli."
6. Don't go to Russia. Bourdain, who likes his liquor, a lot, couldn't handle the amount of vodka drinking that he said begins in the morning and goes well into the evening.
"I can't drink in a country where a grandmom can drink me under the table and then carry me home at night."
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Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico