An Evening With Bourdain and His Fans

By OWEN MORRIS

Part II of my Anthony Bourdain post covers his speech at the Midland. Photos weren’t allowed (though that didn’t seem to stop about half the audience) which explains the lack of pictures for this post.

“Hey Owen!” I looked around to see who was calling me and noticed the shiny badge and the hand waving from the blue uniform. It was a friend of mine who is on the Kansas City, Missouri Police force. He was at the Anthony Bourdain event, in full regalia, providing security.

We started talking. “So what’s the deal? I’ve never heard of this guy,” he said. I told him Bourdain was a chef and he’d come to talk about exotic food. “A chef? This many people are coming to hear a chef speak?”

“Well he’s also written a couple of books.”

“So he’s an author. People get this excited about a chef writer?”

“He’s also got a TV show. On the Travel Channel.”

“So that’s why people are coming? The TV show?”

It’s difficult to explain the cult of Bourdain. He’s a good writer and has decent chef credentials but that doesn’t explain the raucous crowd at the Midland who cheered his every mention of exotic dishes and jeered, as if on command, at his mentions of Cinnabon, McDonald’s and Sara Lee.

The man obviously knows how to strike a vein. Reading his memoir Kitchen Confidential it’s easy to get swept up in the masochistic lust he has for the dirty, hard work of professional kitchens. Likewise, his television show, No Reservations, evokes that same dedication and love for other cultures’ dicey foods. But where Bourdain shines brightest is when he gets angry and goes on a rant, like he did last night about vegetarians. “I’m sorry my eyes face forward and aren’t on the side of my head,” he told the crowd in a New York accent that got heavier as he got more worked up.