On the plane, I like to read fiction set in the location I'm going to. Fiction is in many ways more useful than a guidebook, because it gives you those little details, a sense of the way a place smells, an emotional sense of the place. So, I'll bring Graham Greene's The Quiet American if I'm going to Vietnam. It's good to feel romantic about a destination before you arrive.
Anthony BourdainWe learn as professionals by repetition, by getting it wrong, getting yelled at and doing it again.
Anthony BourdainI am not a fan of people who abuse service staff. In fact, I find it intolerable. Itโs an unpardonable sin as far as Iโm concerned, taking out personal business or some other kind of dissatisfaction on a waiter or busboy.
Anthony BourdainMy wife was easy because she trains [jiu-jitsu] all the time. She's pretty much on a completely different diet. I always just threw meat at her and she's happy on a 100 percent protein diet, so we seldom ate together.
Anthony BourdainThe notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, 'I'm not interested,' or you're unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don't understand that, and I think it's rude. You're at Grandma's house, you eat what Grandma serves you.
Anthony BourdainBut I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe oneโs own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money.
Anthony Bourdain