I travel 250 days a year. There are chef friends who I only see every couple of years. By conventional standards I'm a bad friend. I'm not there to remember your birthday or to offer you words of support through Twitter. I'm not up on what you're doing in New York because I'm not in New York. I'm not what people call in parenting circles "present."
Anthony BourdainThe older I get, and the more I travel in particular, the less I care about what exactly is in the dish than who's cooking it and why.
Anthony BourdainLook, getting bullied in school and coming home crying in the rain and my mom making me a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup with some oysterettes. It was comfort food; that is what food should be.
Anthony BourdainCooking is work that is traditionally done by working-class people. The work itself is not glamorous. It's repetitive, and it's a lot closer to factory work than art, whatever level you're doing it at. Certainly chefs are used to living like rock 'n' rollers to some extent, inasmuch as we get a lot of those fringe benefits without having to learn how to play guitar.
Anthony BourdainI don't snack. I don't generally eat sweets or drink soda. I never eat between meals or even before big ones.
Anthony BourdainThe journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A train to Mecca.
Anthony BourdainLet's at least acknowledge who is working in America right now and what our needs are, as well as the moral question of somebody who's been here 20 years, paying taxes to which they probably do not receive a refund, and not committing any crimes, working hard, and supporting an industry. Shouldn't there be some middle ground here? Shouldn't there be a way for them to be welcome in this country?
Anthony Bourdain