Spending the night with Anthony Bourdain

The food devotees are out in full force.

John Gundy, photog extraordinaire, Matt from Parts & Labour, Zane from Caplansky’s and it ramps up as the night goes on. Vikram Vij is here all the way from Vancouver, David Rocco has stopped in and while the crowd started out reverent and polite, it is soon a frenzy of camera flashes and people vying to get close to Mr. Bourdain.

In town to promote his latest book, Medium Raw, Ivy Knight – resplendent in a 60′s style gold dress, patterned shawl and towering wedges – has held this night at The Drake Hotel to fete her good friend and TV star.

The energy high, the food flowing – Anthony Rose (pictured above, on the right) has roasted not just 1, but 2 pigs, to make sure that we are well fed ( there’s nothing worse than chefs and food writers going hungry). He warns Zane about the hot sauce. It’s really hot, he says. Zane takes some anyway.

That’s the thing about food folks. We tend to be pretty fearless.

There comes a point in the evening, after the president of HaperCollins and Ivy have introduced Mr. B., and after he has charmed the entire crowd with his speech, that many of us try to get our picture with him. I stand right  next to him for close to half an hour, but the more famous of the crowd step in, shutters whirring, Anthony smiling politely for what must be a good two hours. You can tell he’s tired, but he’s such a good sport.

I see veteran journalists and TV folks staring. Smiling. Swooning.We can’t stop looking at him. You can’t believe your dumb luck that you get to be this close to such a towering genius, to the man who brought verve, ferocity and badly-needed humour to food writing and food TV.

The room is clearly awestruck, and considering that TIFF ended just a few weeks back, you know that we don’t do this for just anybody.

But Anthony Bourdain isn’t just anybody.

The book signing portion of the evening is announced. And while people try and act casual about it, I am planning what I’m going to say. This is my chance to impart my own food wisdom, to bond with another food-obsessed writer.

The person ahead of me is done. I make my approach. I can’t feel my feet and I have to say “hold onto the book” over in my head so I don’t drop it. I stare at him the whole time as I make my way to the table because I don’t want to be the jerkface that isn’t paying attention to him when he looks up.

He looks up.

I welcome him to the city and ask if he’s eaten.

He hasn’t.

I ask if I can get him something.

No, he’s okay.

I want to make him a roast chicken and vegetables, the most comforting dinner there is. I want to take him to Chinatown, because I know he likes cheap, but tasty fare. I want him to know how much great food there is here. That we may not be New York in size, but we have the same heart and determination.

He signs my book and I thank him.

I make my way down the steps to the doorway. The crowd is electric with excitement, the drinks are flowing, but I slip outside and walk for a long time before catching the streetcar.

I just want to be alone, in the quiet of the night.

I have met and interviewed a lot of celebrities, and they don’t always live up to your expectations.

Anthony Bourdain exceeded mine. And then some.

Photo op

I have gone and added photos to the blog.

I wasn’t going to. After all, I wanted it to be about the writing and the food. And there are so many food blogs that do that step-by-step pic of each dish.

I want to stand out from the rest.

But now that I’m taking so many photos for each food story I’m doing, I thought I might as well throw some on up here too.

I hope you enjoy them.

One things for sure – if my writing doesn’t make you hungry, the photos will.

From the garden

Every Saturday, I get together with my Dad and we go to Phil’s Organic Market or the St. Lawrence Market or some food-related place where we get a few things to cook up during the week.

In the summer, he greets me with a little bag of goodies from his garden – tomatoes, purple basil, green onions, lettuce and various herbs that get all blended together on his way to meet me.

At the beginning of summer, my fab friend Diana took me to her allotment garden (pictured above) and shared her bounty. I took home this bulging bag of lettuce, chard, herbs and other wonders that I would have ordinarily cooked up, but instead made into a salad due to the intense heat and humidity.

Last week, I got to see Diana after way too long and she had just gone through her garden to tidy it up and had saved me some beautiful ingredients for supper.

I had a friend over for dinner that night, but it was still too muggy to cook much.  So I took Diana’s fresh, fragrant basil, crisp green and purple beans and various tomatoes and created:

Chicken pasta salad with fresh basil and tomatoes

10 Bean salad

Green Salad (with Diana’s tomatoes)

It was perfect.

I am grateful to these amateur farmers as well as the professional folks who work so hard to put good food on my plate.

Watch for Poetry of Food’s next issue launching next week for my story about one very special farmer.

A job suited for type a people

Speaking of food styling, I recently finished reading Food Styling: The Art of Preparing Food for the Camera by the foremost expert in the field, Delores Custer.

While I have absolutely no interest in ever doing food styling for a living, it’s incredibly fascinating to read about.

Delores spills the beans on the shoot with Paul Newman and how she came up with the dishes for the James Beard Awards poster. Oh, she has had to bake many a pie and a chicken (and usually undercook them and then finish the “baked” colour with various products and chemicals.

Really.

I think the fact that it is both a job of ultimate precision and perfection and also a world where much is faked for the camera, makes for a fascinating dichotomy to work in.

The book is a fun textbook that really includes everything you ever need to know about the field. Why read another tome when you’ve got this beauty at your side?

I knew about stylists using mashed potatoes in the place of ice cream, but the extremes that they go to!

Like I said, I don’t ever want to do this kind of work (I’m a Nigella kind of gal – just bung it together with good, fresh ingredients and a ton of love), but I am so glad to have read this for 3 reasons:

1. Food stylists are some of the hardest-working, most underappreciated and almost never credited for their work kind of folks. I will never take them or their skills for granted.

2. The food that they produce is often so manufactured by ingredients and methods that would kill you if you ingested them. So finally I can feel okay by my food not being able to live up to pictures in ads and magazines.

Phew.

3. I think, for the next little while at least, the presentation of my dishes will be of a higher caliber. Just because I’m not a perfectionist doesn’t mean I shouldn’t step up my game a little bit.

Thank you Delores, for showing me your extraordinary talent, dedication and work. I am forever grateful.

And now I’m off to shop for ingredients for tonight’s dinner.

My imperfect, but tasty dinner.

Oh Nigella

I recently got The Best of Omnivoire, hosted by Jane Farrow on CD.

Anthony Bourdain talks about militant foodies looking for purity and there’s a whole segment about what customs officers see people try and sneak through.

But my favourite part was hearing Nigella Lawson.

I have read all of her cookbooks and yes, I think she is stunning and sexy, but I didn’t really fall in love with her completely until this interview.

She tells us that she writes the recipe and then prepares the dish, often having it photographed despite its imperfections.

Ahem, what was that?

You mean, she doesn’t have a food stylist working away to make her dishes look other-worldly?

Nope.

Nigella just wants to cook something good that people will enjoy.

This isn’t how celebrity chefs do things, Nigella.  They might just kick you out of the club for that kind of behaviour!

My favourite part of the interview is when she says in her sexy British-lilt, that she just “bungs” things together.

That’s how I cook, Nigella! That’s what I do.

Sigh.

It’s so nice that in this world of better/prettier, Nigella tops the list on both counts, and yet something tells me that she has dust bunnies under her bed and isn’t too worried if she gets some tomato sauce on her dress.

Eating and living with abandon? Oh Nigella, where have you been all my life!