WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Anthony Bourdain From 2011

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

From Episode 233, this is Marc's conversation with Anthony Bourdain, conducted in 2011. Anthony died on June 8, 2018, at age 61. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Come on, you're a fucking rock star at this point. I'm still thinking, you know, it's Deep Friar awaits at any moment, you know, it comes to an overnight thing. So, I'm feeling pretty lucky and like I could all evaporate at any minute right well that's what's interesting man i mean because uh you know i'm familiar with your your stuff a bit and i've read your stuff and like the similarities between where you come from and where stand-up comics come from is profound it's gotten closer and stranger because uh at this point you know i started you, one minute I'm standing there next to the deep fryer cooking, then I write this little article for a free newspaper that ends up in the New Yorker.

A day later, I've got a book deal. I write a book. Somehow I end up on television. But at the end of the day, I would say that probably the largest amount of my income comes from live performance, like a speaking gig, which are essentially work in the same rooms that you're probably very familiar with

and have played all over the country. You're probably a little bigger act than me. I know we're playing in the same rooms. It's me standing on stage for an hour and talking to a live on a ticketed audience doing doing q a for another hour but an hour up up there talking one city after another and let's face it you're up on a stage talking for an hour a whole bunch of people there better be a dick joke every 60 seconds or 90 seconds and you better get a laugh but so that's been a steep

learning curve for me but are those the kind of people you're talking to they really expect dick jokes i mean i it would seem to me that you'd uh i guess you attract you know chefs and and and the rabble of the cooking industry but i would think that you you're probably attracting a bit more urbane and audience now the similarities between us are so so you never know what on mondays it'll be the whole room will smell of smoked fish and onions, and it's cooks and restaurant people you'd think would be my constituency. But you never know. You pull into town, and it's all golfers.

Yeah. I've done Palm Springs, Palm Desert. I've done the Shore Room at Harrah's in Reno. Some events. Drunk gamblers. Right. I mean, I've really had to learn. But the weird thing is is like

you know because i worked in in restaurants and there was a time in my life where you know that's what i wanted to do and there was a time in my life where the i'm talking about the immediacy of it when you tell a joke you know right there whether that joke's gonna work or not when you flip a fucking egg or you get a plate out it's that same feeling of immediate gratification it can repeat itself over and over again and there's there's a thrill to it when i worked in a kitchen when i was younger i was just a grill cook i didn't have the chops to do anything else once they put me on a line it was a disaster i i they i was working as a waiter i wanted to do a line i wanted to try the line and it was a disaster because i couldn't do it i felt intimidated i uh my onion rings clumped up and that was the end oh

that's the end that was the end of my cooking career that was the end of my line work but but what i really relate to when i when i read your stuff is that weird mixture like where i don't even get a sense you know from when from where you're coming from and the same with me and this just from from you know reading your books like i know i make people laugh and And I think you know on some level you make people happy. But that cigarette you smoke after you've just gone through a rush and you're covered in grease.

There ain't nothing like it. Right, but it's got nothing to do with making people happy. You really put your finger on it. Doing live, appearing live in front of people, you know right away if this is going well or it's not.

Cooking is all about immediate gratification. Exactly right. You know. There's no argument. It's a meritocracy. You know right away, did I do well or did I not do well? You turn to your right, you turn to your left. You can tell the people you're working with are looking at you a certain way.

You can hear it off the floor. Is food coming back? I mean, you know. There are provable and immediate stats and i think that explains a lot of the sort of personality types you see in stand-up comedy over the years that that are attracted to to any kind of performance uh adrenaline junkies uh of people who need that immediate gratification social misfits but but And social misfits. But, yeah, social misfits, the restaurant business, for sure, cooking. But writing and making television, that's all different. Writing, you know, no matter how well the book sells,

okay, your mom tells you it's good, but is it really good? It sells well. Does that mean it's really good? You don't know. You don't hear that immediate. Well, you're sitting by yourself. Yeah, you're sitting by yourself in a room, second-guessing yourself, going over paragraphs, wondering whether this is good whether people

give a shit or not yeah but i mean how when you started where did you grow up here uh i grew up in jersey what part of jersey uh born here grew up in bergen county like right literally right across the gw bridge oh my family comes my mother comes from pompton lakes wayne you know where that is right sure so you grew up coming into the city you You grew up, you know, but it wasn't your goal to be a cook. My, yeah, I fell into the business. I mean, I was a misfit. I was an angry, pissed off kid. How old are you now?

I hated college. I'm 55. I'm 47. I'm just trying. Okay, so you're- I was 17 years old. I got a job as a dishwasher i i quickly realized i hated college i hated myself i went to vassar so you were a smart kid i mean i

mean doesn't you can't get into an ivy league school i had a good high school education and i was a smart ass i could talk a good game i had good i was good in english class the rest i sort of cruised on who were your guys in in English? Like, who were your writers? Who were you modeling your life after at that time? What was that, like 1969, 70? Yeah. I read How to Rest Thompson in Rolling Stone as it was serializing.

Burroughs? Yes. You're reading me all too well. I quickly, that violent, hyperbolic writing. I mean, first it was Thompson. Quickly fell into Burroughs, always liked Orwell. Were you building?

I like a ripping good, you know, crime novel too. Yeah. But I mean, I was not a guy who was looking to be a writer. I talk about it. I just, like a lot of people, I figured, well, if I did a lot of drugs

and sort of created this Byronic persona, I would somehow automatically then be an artist. I didn't actually do any writing. But you had it in your mind. That's how you were geared. You weren't going to be a math guy. You weren't going to be a- I wanted the smoking jacket and the opium pipe and the girls.

And right then, at that time, when you're in high school, the whole culture is crashing. I mean, everything's changing. Like the wave of the 60s is about then, like at that time, when you're in high school, the whole culture's crashing. I mean, everything's changing. Like the wave of the 60s is about over, but that's... Well, that line of Thompson's about this is where the wave

broke and rolled back. That was exactly when I'm headed off to college. So, you know, Boning, Grace Slick was out, you know,

Free Love, all of the stuff that looked good to me when I was 14. That was already clearly a bad joke at a bunch of like, you know, scabies-infected hippies

who would want to share my yogurt, which is something I definitely didn't want to do. Right. So I knew by the time I arrived at college, I didn't believe in anything. And so when I got my first dishwashing gig, this was a revelation to me. This was the first time in my life

that I wanted anybody else's respect, that I cared about anybody else's respect. That I cared about anybody else's opinion. I liked the fact that you either were good or not. You knew it right away. It was the first time in my life I felt proud of myself. I went home at the end of a busy dishwashing shift. And I felt good about myself.

And I looked at the way the cooks were living. Okay, they didn't have smoking jackets or opium pipes. But they were getting girls. And they were living like rock stars. Even long before the celebrity chef and i'm these these were you know nobody you know part-time carpet they're line cooks but they were living like motley crew and that looked good to me and what what kind of stuff did you grow up with what was the pressure like and when you grew up what were you what was your family like my parents were well-read kennedy democrats uh you know my dad worked for Columbia Records.

He did. The classical music division. But I grew up in a house full of books and records with the Mad Men era. Yeah. Very much buying into what I think we all believed was that automatically, just by virtue of growing up in New Jersey,

you know, middle class, that we were going to all live better lives than our parents lived, that we really wouldn't have to do anything to get that either. And I was quickly disabused of that notion. Were they pissed off at you initially? They were horrified. I was a bad seed. I mean, I was angry, self-destructive, and I defined my entire... I mean, Hunter Thompson was a great writer to want to write like, but as a role model for a 13-year-old, I probably could have done better.

I very much, my entire persona as a 14-year-old was built around the records I listened to and the drugs that I did. Yeah, that was the same way, and I always gravitated towards fucked up people. It was Keith Richards, it was Hunter, it was Morrison, it was Lenny Bruce. Anyone who was fucked up, I was like, that's my guy shelly byron however you know and it was

instinctive it felt natural and and my friends the friends i chose for most of my adult life were the people who did the same drugs that i did or or wanted to do and so it for better or worse is that something I'm proud of or ashamed of in particular, it all worked out in the end after some bumps. But I mean, I was a guy who very much wanted to be

a heroin addict eventually. I mean, my whole life was pointed towards that. Yeah, I felt that, yeah. You know, I was the guy who did more than anybody else. Right. And if I was going to get laid, it was by being badder and more badly behaved and more reckless and self-destructive than the next guy.

It was a very successful strategy for the early 70s. And I stuck with it for a couple of decades. Naturally, as these stories usually do, it ended badly. But that's an interesting sort of trajectory. Because it seems to me that where you're at now and what you're providing people and what you're providing yourself, it came out of nowhere in a way.

It was a surprising manifestation for your life. I wrote a short piece for fellow line cooks and misfits. And that was my highest aspiration was to entertain a few fellow line cooks and restaurant people in new york but at what point did you were you ever gunning to be the best chef no in the world i mean at what point did that dream ever exist at a point early in the 80s having rolled out of culinary institute uh i went through a brief period on the basis of very little reality. I certainly had convinced myself that I was much more talented and creative and important as a chef than I was. But in fact, I was, you know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

And I had just a little knowledge. And I never really worked with any great chefs. I never put in the work. I never held myself to the high standards. I was getting, I had a very easy, I rolled out a culinary institute at a time when not a lot of other cooks and chefs had. And I was instantly a chef and I was getting paid and I was getting laid and life is easy. Well, if you had any originality at that time, I would imagine, or had any flair to yourself, you were probably somewhat of a rock star in your small circles anyways, right? No one cared about chefs back then. And the fact is,

at the end of the day, people didn't want to eat my food because it wasn't that good. I bankrupted many owners who bought my line of shit. What was your line of shit? I'm a fucking genius. I mean, I can read the LaRusse Gastronomique and I know what these words mean. So I just make them feel like idiots by saying oh well this clearly calls for a matignon of vegetables they had no idea what i was talking about but but you know using a few french terms and and and being able to make a pate on crout that went a long way back then yeah not not enough but because there weren't that many people who were coming out of culinary

school that knew that shit that were operating at that level so you could really sort of smart ass who could talk a good game and i survived my friends who i'd come up with were were like me so but at the end of the day it was not food that people wanted to eat and to be honest with myself looking back it it wasn't very good i mean there were know, even then back in the 70s and 80s, there were people out there who had been to France and worked hard in great kitchens and learned their craft. They were really good at it. Yeah.

I never was. Was that because that, you know, the lifestyle was more of a priority? Yeah. That the brotherhood of pirates that is the kitchen and drugs was just more of a priority? Yeah, I changed jobs every couple of years. I bounced from place to place. I could always get a gig, and I was your guy.

If you wanted someone who could crank out 300 brunches competently, I was your guy. But if you want an exciting new restaurant that rich people uh you know rich people are going to go to on a regular basis probably not not that wasn't you well i mean it's it's it's sort of it's sort of mind-blowing to me that like i watched um i don't i don't know when you did the episode but i saw it recently and i thought it was very touching and it was odd because it wasn't an adventure episode it was just you and that uh the guy from the magazine go to that small french restaurant and and there was just some sort of emotional connection you had to this basic french food well i like i like food i mean and i

am uh i am a sentimental guy and i have reached a point in my life where I actually do have respect for my elders and people who did put in their time yeah um and I you know now that I'm older you know I I am sentimental about stuff that I took for granted as a kid you know uh eating French food for the first time so yeah I'm a softy about a lot of that and and uh and I also I know that I'm lucky I found myself in a position to make television anywhere I want, about anything I want, any way I want. And I'm essentially doing what I always did. What I used to do in the kitchen was tell stories or at the bar tell stories. And then I told them in books.

And now I can tell them on television. But I'm basically, it's all part of the same thing. You're telling a story. And just when you make a television, you have a whole bunch of other tools that you can use to get people to feel the way you want them to feel. But it seems to me that your education, coming through what you came through, which was really kind of hellish in a way. I mean, it's a glorious hell.

Because I had a friend who I used to work at a grill with. I worked in college. I was just a grill guy making pancakes and eggs and was very excited when I got through 20 dupes. But doing the line stuff, I couldn't handle. But the guy who I brought in, my roommate, went on to culinary school and is now an industrial chef of some kind.

But it seems that from your cooking and from what you had to learn there, that the way you talk about the kitchen and the way you talk about what you went through, I mean, the education about ethics, morality, politics, relationships, loyalty, and then working in this weird gray area where you're almost a subculture

in between the man and the rabble, that it was almost like its own universe, and that seems to inform your entire life. Well, a lot of things that I think that grownups learn, you know, other people maybe learn in different ways. I learned, you know, for me, the most important thing I learned about anything really was, was as a dishwasher, I learned to show up on time, to show respect for the people I work with. I learned to become a guy who, if I say I'm going to meet you tomorrow at 8 o'clock to see a movie,

I will be there at 8 o'clock. It's a simple lesson. But I really took that to heart. Working hard and enjoying the respect and the camaraderie of the people I work with, that was a big transformation for me as a wastrel kid. Every other part of my life was a mess, but I did have good work habits. I did work hard.

I was competent. You could rely on me to work at grill station. So that was really the only constant in a life that was you know headed to the usual sort of sad conclusion for people who think cocaine's a good idea that you know uh you know heroin's always going to feel good um how strung out did you get i got really strung out were you were you banging it or just yeah you know uh eight years on methadone to to get out uh um it's not it's interesting to me that they like when in some parts of uh some of your stories where that like even when i was driving over here because you know i got 12 years sober and i you know i wasn't a dope

dude but i was definitely a coke dude and a booze dude but like even when i was driving over here and i was queasing the car because i was typing and shit and I didn't know if I was going to make it. I had this fucking nauseousness, but there was something in my brain that says, you know, getting through queasy is easy. That there, that there, there are things you learn that only come from being a drug warrior of some kind where that you can like, you know, well, it's useful actually for me, especially with television, knowing what kind of really disgusting behavior you're capable of prevents you from starting to talk about yourself in the third person at any point in your life. When you know how low you could go well,

when you've hurt and disappointed people and humiliated yourself for many years, you're not going to start complaining about, you know, the wrong bottled water, you know. You know, the smell of the griddle is still pretty fresh in my memory. Is it? And I still remember, you know, what it's like to, you know, all the whiny bullshit stories you use to get by as a junkie.

You know, it wasn't the... It was the humiliation that got me out. I think vanity was my... Vanity saved me from drugs. I was just really embarrassed and humiliated by what I'd see in the mirror every day. And how much did you... What years are we talking here?

Were you like persona non grata? I mean, in the New York restaurant scene? I burned a lot of bridges, for sure. No, there's always a job for somebody who can cook brunch. This is a sad. This is why the smell of French toast is, to this day, something I can bear. Or hollandaise sauce.

I can't. Because those are the bad times for me. I go back to cooking brunch because, you know, people are always desperate for somebody, anybody to at least work the two days a week doing a busy brunch. So what's your bottom looks like is Eggs Benedict. Yeah, that's the bottom. Yeah.

With a little strawberry fan and a little orange twist. That is the smell and feel of utter defeat defeat for me um but you know i burned there weren't a lot of people left who were going to lend me money anytime soon uh how'd you kick it how'd you finally get off a dope and coke uh dope methadone uh and then again you know i was just tired of seeing junkies every day at the clinic and peeing in a in a you know a cup and then coke crack cocaine saved my life actually because like after a lifetime well after a lifetime of of of snorting coke suddenly you know you bought them out so quick on crack i mean i don't know how guys like

george clinton you know it's like how how can you read about these guys who like smoking crack for 20 how can you do it you can feel your heart exploding and your brain exploding every time you take a hit. Yeah, you know, after eight months, you're smoking the paint chips out of the carpet, you know? It's like, oh, it might be a rock. It's like, how can you do that for 20 years?

I just, that's something I hear. Genetics. I guess. So you've actually had those moments where you're like hearing voices and crawling around on the floor and like, you know, thinking about like, like who's listening to you through the wall oh dude you know you know

putting tinfoil in the windows and and uh here's something i really recommend against doing if you if you are still smoking crack don't start buying like uh you know surveillance equipment out of catalogs you know instead of i buy like parabolic microphones and listening devices from some little you know rinky kink security outfit so you know not only am i pretty convinced that the fbi are going to come tunneling through the wall at any minute but i'm i'm ready for them you know i'm stripped naked in a squatting position with my ear against the wall with an ear plug in listening you know and what were you prepared to say to them when they came in i knew it i just wanted advance warning oh man like drug stories are as good as as restaurant stories they hurt though no no restaurant stories are good stories i mean i'm i'm sentimental about those i'm happy about those i

you know i i don't know that if if i could go back in time and talk to myself at 14 or 15 that i would do things differently or listen to myself, but I don't, you know, I wouldn't want to do that again. Yeah, no. I mean,

when, when you were a kid though, I mean like once you got to New York, like 1970, 1971, or whenever you ended up here after culinary school, I mean, punk rock must've been exploding.

The city must've just been on fire with fucking decadence. I mean, were you part of that scene? Did you, did you get, were you able to see like uh uh the new york dolls and yeah i saw all the all the great bands um and of course you know it's you know all the punk bands you know it's worth remembering they were all broke nobody listened to that music uh you know uh it seemed and everybody was high on dope. That was a dope era for me. Yeah, I was listening to a lot of great music.

But I was also vomiting publicly regularly and happy about it. See, that's that weird drug warrior spirit. Because when I read your book, the first book, just because I relate to that fucking moment and I can never understand what it is, is that here you are fucking strung out, you're high, and you're just happy that you didn't fall asleep doing your job. I don't know how I did it, honestly.

I mean, I guess it's a young, you know, you're Superman for a while, but, you know, it comes home eventually. And now, you know, now I'm at the point, I can't even around people on Coke. but it comes home eventually. And now I'm at the point, I can't even around people on coke. I look at them and I'm like, in England, if you go to England,

it's like 1986 there. Everybody's doing Charlie. And it's like, jeez, I hope I never spoke like that. I probably did. It's like every other word out of your mouth is a stream of bullshit. You know, yammering, half-drunk fucking maniacs.

And I can't even, you know, I feel like, you know, I start to pick up this sort of contact paranoia. You know, I'm tweaking and I feel like I, you know, just did a big load of Manitoulin just looking at them. Yeah, you got to shit. Yeah, yeah. I don't know why. Talking to you, I got to go shit right now. Got a drip in the back yeah i don't know why i'm talking to you i

gotta go shit right now drip in the back i don't understand why i got that drip oh man but there was was there something about the continuity uh of food that like through your life i mean like i don't know chefs i know a few you know but like even when like i watched chopped compulsively right only because the way the brain works in organizing food and and the philosophy of food and the basic lessons of food and bringing stuff together like i don't even know the judges names but when i watch these people put shit together and see what they can create just out of the the um the food intelligence and and yeah you look at the guys on top chef for instance i mean these are really talented people like people. At no point in my life as a professional could I have won Top Chef or even made it into the

finals. These are really, really talented, hardworking people who've made a lot of sacrifices to be that good. You have the luxury of feeling that way about food. To me, I fell into the business because I fell in love with the lifestyle. I liked the people. I liked that I was part of a cult. I liked that I was making something with my hands that you were either rewarded or punished

for immediately. Now I guess I'm privileged to be able to travel the world of my stomach and really think about food. And I guess all of my previous life in the life, 28 years, I guess allows me a perspective where I'm always thinking about who cooked this food. It's not just what am I eating. It's who cooked it and why. You know, what drove them to cook this way?

You know, where does this food tradition come from there's always a story and so it's a really interesting and also you can tell like i have found and and i think you'll validate this is that when like even if it's a good restaurant if you go and there's no heart there you you're not gonna you can taste it like there there are restaurants because i never quite understood that where you go to a good restaurant and either the chef is gone or no one gives a fuck about the food anymore and it's just shit. Cynical food doesn't taste good. And irony, you know, is something that's dangerous in food. You know, if it's sort of an ironic riff on something.

You know, you have to be a romantic to cook well. to be a romantic to cook well you know you have to actually like food yourself and and and and appreciate a lot of different types of food to cook well you know you use the word heart yeah you gotta you got essentially if you're a chef a good chef yeah or even a good cook you're you're in the pleasure business you you have to have an understanding of what makes people happy and push those buttons. You're right. Yeah. So, you know, you'll notice. I mean, there are some cooks really, you know, very technically accomplished but eat their food.

It's like, I don't know whether this guy's ever been laid in his life. You know, he understands pleasure or making anybody else happy. It's about, it's too cerebral. Yeah. It's an emotional thing you know um and if you look at how chefs like to eat after work when they're not on the job even really fine dining chefs it's they want somebody's mom's meatloaf yeah yeah yeah what a meatball hero you know a good one it's amazing to me the similarities between you know basic you know

good music rock and roll comedy cooking that there's something very immediate it's something anyone can do with a little bit of of of training to some degree like if you know how to play guitar basically you can probably if you got some heart you're going to be able to pull something out of that it's interesting to see who musicians musicians are right who who people in various industries choose as their sort of favorites, comedians, comedians. Usually the guy's toiling in obscurity. Yeah. There are chefs, chefs for sure.

Who are they? Who are yours? Guys like, I don't know, Wiley Dufresne for sure. That's a guy who doesn't, I don't know to what extent he cooks for the public as much as he's cooking for himself. He's cooking for other chefs. He's asking himself hard questions. He's working the line himself.

He hasn't made that transition, as so many of his peers have, to sort of celebrity chef. He can't help himself. He's got to cook as well as he can. He's got to ask. He's really trying to be as good as he can. Fergus Henderson, a guy in England who's cooking basically simple, traditional English food.

Various people, generally chefs who do very, have focused on a particular area and are just doing that over and over again and trying to get it better and better and better. There's a sushi chef in Japan who's made maybe the same 40 cuts of sushi for 70 years and he's still trying to get it right.

This guy in Spain who does nothing but grill stuff, you know, that's where all the chefs want to eat. Very straightforward, very soulful food that's devoid of bullshit. Yeah. No tricks. There's devoid of bullshit. Yeah. No tricks. There's a lot of bullshit around, isn't there? As with anything.

Yeah. In terms of when you travel and stuff, I had this weird moment when I was at the diner over there, the Neptune Diner, right off of the of the um whatever by the tri-borough bridge when i lived in queens where i'd gone there late night just to get some pie and i saw two dudes in the back of the room that i i swear to you like having seen enough mafia movies i was like they they just dumped a body right you know and they were just sitting there let's go for some pie right but i'm

sitting there eating my pie with my fucking dumb notebook of jokes and maybe a william burroughs book and they're there they probably just washed their hands of blood but the one thing that rises beyond good and evil is fucking pie right that there's some part there's something about food and i know you must sense this when you travel around the world that because i always had this thing about when pakistan got the nuclear bomb in india and pakistan there was 10 there was tension that in my mind having not been to the countries but having loved the food i thought how can they be so upset they both have such great bread you know and and you must sense that the human element and i think it's part of your show and part of the spirit of it that this food and

what food represents culturally transcends almost anything Well, you know It may not be that with either to sit down with people and eat with them and express a little interest in their food Or what makes them happy it may not be the answer to world peace, but it's a start I've been treated so well In places that I never thought I'd be treated well. I've felt kinship with people with whom I have almost nothing in common. I'm constantly sort of

proven wrong about my preconceptions. At places like Saudi Arabia, you know, I mean, there's this tremendous tradition, chances are, of hospitality built around food everywhere. People respond positively to

someone, a stranger who shows up and says, listen, I don't want to talk politics. I don't really give a shit. I'm sure we have some differences. What do you eat? What did your mom make you? What do you eat around here? What do you like? What makes you happy? It's the beginning of a conversation. It's something that I actually bring up a lot when I would talk about the Tea Party, thing that I actually bring up a lot when I would talk about the Tea Party because you know as a lefty democrat it's really easy for me to see all of the things that I find scary and offensive about the Tea Party but I as I realize I guess because I filmed in places like Saudi Arabia in Vietnam you know mainland China mainland China, dictatorships. I've had broken bread with ex-KGB officers, ex-Viet Cong cadre,

with people from very fundamentalist Muslim sects. I started, when traveling around my own country, to say, listen, why can't I be friends with Ted Nugent? You know, why can't I find some common ground here? I mean, they're angry. They're scared. They feel disenfranchised from, they feel the government has let them down.

I don't like how they're manifesting it. I don't agree with what they say, anything. But I definitely understand anger, disenfranchisement. I mean, if they were Egyptian, we'd kind of be rooting for them. We don't even know what they want in Egypt. We know they're unhappy with their government. And Ted Nugent will go out and kill an animal with you.

He's a buddy. Is he? Largely built around food, and we don't have much else in common, but we both, you know, I guess I would say this. What do I have in common with a tea party? I'm guessing we both like beer and we both you know i guess i would say this what do i have in common with with the tea party i'm guessing we both like beer and we both like barbecue that's something it's and hopefully it could be the beginning of some kind of conversation to sneer at each other relentlessly seems counterproductive um and i don't know that we could have a discussion about

the issue a sensible discussion about the issues but i I'm guessing, in fact, I know because I spent a lot of time in gun country and hunt country and red state America. I can have a good time with those people. No, of course. I can. And I even like them. And I respect them. I don't necessarily agree with them. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I've sat down at many tables with people whose political views and view of the world and evolution is completely, insanely over the top.

With some talking head on fox saying it, I would be bleeding from my ears. But you sit down at somebody's table and there they are with their kids and they're feeding you biscuits. It's hard not to find something to love. No, absolutely. I mean, I can make those people laugh. I can entertain those people. But what's interesting is a lot of times when you're sitting across the table enjoying barbecue or biscuits with those people, in their brain, they're like, we'll get him.

He'll come around to the way we think. They're still on a basic level. Well, that's better than the alternative, which is fuck that guy. Absolutely. No, I agree with you. And I, you know, I don't know. I guess by traveling around the world, I just, how come I'm giving all these people a pass?

You know, there are a lot of countries that I love where they have refined, you know, in Southeast Asia, their attitudes are towards race and skin color. East Asia, they've really, their attitudes are towards race and skin color, more extreme and unforgiving than, you know, your most, you know, Ku Klux Klan do. How come it's, how come they get a pass? Well, it's just, you know, this moral cultural relativism that I practice around the world when I'm in foreign cultures, you know, how come I got to bend everybody to my way of thinking here in order to have dinner with them?

I just, I'm, I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to cut my own country a break a little bit in spite of the fact that, you know,

where I come from and the way I, well, I, I think that what you're saying is, is, is something I deal with a lot

in, in, in dealing with, with people in general is that you can see the heart of people you know and and a lot of times people who are wrong-minded are not necessarily bad-hearted people they may be misguided and they may have a belief system that is is malignant and horrible but it's one of those things where you just sit down and you and you eat with somebody you talk to somebody you away going, he's not such a bad guy. Granted, he exterminated the

other way. I mean, the best example is, I cannot tell you how many times I've heard it in Iraq, I've heard it in Turkey, I've heard it Saudi Arabia. You're sitting around, you're having a good time. People are going out of their way to feed you. Your host will, with his hand, pick out the best pieces of lamb and a little bit of this, a little bit of that, constantly making sure you're having a good time, people are going out of their way to feed you, your host will with his hand pick out the best pieces of lamb and a little bit of this, a little bit of that, constantly making sure you're getting the best. Having a great time, you're telling jokes, chances are they watch American television, wherever you are, they like Seinfeld, they like Friends, they've seen all those shows, they grew up with them, they've all got that TV American English.

But then casually over dessert it's like, so, is it true? You know, World Trade Center, inside job, yes. The Jews did it, of course, didn't they? And it's like, oh, God, oh, no, oh, God, again. But what about that moment? I mean, because, like, I've dealt with that moment, too, and how do you deal with it? I mean, do I... With a straight face,

say, no, of course not, that's ridiculous. But, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, a lot of the world, a lot of the not that's ridiculous but you know you what are you going to do i mean a lot of the world a lot of the world that i visit cannot imagine that any occurrence anything it's the cia and the massad working together all powerful they control everything nothing that nothing it couldn't have happened without their nobody because in their in their view, this is who runs the world. I'm not apologizing. It's a deeply discouraging moment to hear.

Again, this sort of sweet-faced, goofy guy who's been literally hugging you all night and feeding you totally guilelessly look you in the face and say something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Jews that are on everything. Yeah. No one's that organized, number one.

Well, you know, the greatest argument against any conspiracy is, of course, in this country, one of the great things about it is we're really bad at that. You know, if four people know about something, that's too many already because one of them will go on to write a memoir.

The other one will end up indicted and ratting everybody else out so i just i i have a very low tolerance for jumbo conspiracies to start with but that one in particular you know if i heard it from a a colleague at work i would like get completely berserko uh and get up in their face you know what the fuck is the matter you sick twisted freak you know unfuck yourself right now and maybe read a book yeah but i guess that's exactly the point you know why do i sit there and smile and say okay i disagree with you you're wrong when i'm sitting you know as a guest at somebody's home in saudi arabia or uzbekistan or or or uh kurdish turkey you know how come you know how come I'm not as angry?

Yeah, it's because you're sitting face to face with somebody that you know on some level has been wired that way. Either they've been told that, they've been misinformed that. And I think that, I guess, do you walk away humiliated or still hopeful for human beings in the future? or still hopeful for human beings in the future? You know, I think, well, you know, they were nice, and, you know, they like, you know. They like me. Yeah, they like me, and they think Seinfeld's funny. I mean, there's hope for the world.

I don't know. Africa gets troubling, too. You see, you know, genital mutilation. Yeah. Wow. You know, you know, genital mutilation. Yeah. Wow. You know, how bad could anything be? But I don't walk around Africa saying, you know, okay, I have a zero tolerance. You've got to stop that right now, young man.

And I totally reject all of your many other practices that I find abhorrent. I don't know. You know, how do you be a good person and travel? I try to – the best I can how do you be a good person and travel? I try. The best I can do is to be a good guest. I talk about the grandma rule a lot, you know. I try to behave when traveling like I'm at my grandmother's house. I may hate her food, and she may be a right-wing crackpot,

but I'm going to have seconds. I'm going to smile and say, thank you, Grandma. I really appreciate it. Right. Well, it's like even today, like I drove up, I've never stayed at this hotel before. We're in the middle of, of Stettel Williamsburg here. You know, I'm a, I'm a third generation Jew, you know, brought up, you know, relatively conservative, but not much pressure. I never was taught how to use God. And when I drive through these, this neighborhood I'm driving,

I was nervous because I'm like, oh, my God, these clowns. I mean, what are you kidding me? And these are people that I'm supposed to be my people, but I couldn't feel more different than them. But I imagine if I sat down with them and ate their strange Polish-Ukrainian weird traditional food, that I'd be okay. I'd feel warm about it. But I think that... You don't want to start talking about the West Bank. Or about...

That ain't gonna happen. Israel's really hard on the Palestinians. I don't know. You know what? I guess instinctively, I'm against certainty more than anything else. I just got this tattoo, actually. It basically says in Greek,

I suspend judgment. And it comes from this whole notion of the early skeptics who talked about their belief was, I know nothing. In fact, I know nothing for sure. And in fact, I'm not even sure about that. I like doubt, and I abhor certainty. So whether it's a religious thing or political,

anybody who's absolutely sure of anything, I'm already very wary of. And when I see doubt... Yeah, even just confidence bothers me. You know, at a meal, you see people get their guard down. And maybe I take that for uncertainty. I'm looking for cracks

in whatever their belief system is. It's just the fact that you can sit down with someone, eat, maybe drink. There's a vulnerability to it. Vulnerability is good. Yeah, definitely. And I think that that's what's interesting about coming from a kitchen is that in the way you portray it, a lot of them are misfits. A lot of them are borderline criminals, and they all have this juice to be in this like this there's something you know almost like you know life that like your life is on the line in the kitchen that there's a camaraderie to it but you also get all these cats that are you know they're just fucking loose screws and they're and they can't help but they can't hide

their vulnerability you know chefs have this particularly chefs have this image of of megalomania and certainty, and they're autocratic. During the shift, you're yelling, you're screaming, it's lead, follow, or get out of the way. But the reason most people became chefs in the first place, I think, or many, is they sensed very early on this either inadequacy or awkwardness with communicating or working in a normal workplace where you'd have to relate with the outside world

and interact in a way that most people who work in banks or traditional businesses can easily. So I think actually most people in the restaurant business, most cooks and certainly most chefs, like me, at root pretty insecure, and they found a safe place where there are other damaged people or refugees or uncertain people who you can band together into a pretty rigid system. You know, there are absolutes. You know, there are certain things you must do, you have to do. You know,

there is good and evil at all times. They're nice and cleanly drawn. This is good, this is bad. But on the other hand, all of their other foibles are tolerated. It's a very forgiving business. It's very open to people from anywhere in the world. It doesn't matter. And at the end of the day, you're still saying, like, here, have some cake. Look, here's this beautiful piece of lamb.

Right. I mean, that's a fucking amazing thing. And you're surrounded by people who understand you. You know, they get this weird, you know, you're working when everybody else is playing. You know, you're playing when everybody else is asleep. I like this whole sort of like no one knows anything idea because, I mean, I've had to come to that.

Were you always at that? I think I certainly went through a period where i was much more hardline ideological you know i you know came out of the american left and i absolutely you know these were the bad guys and these were the good guys uh and where are you with that after you know sharing apple pie with ted nugent and maybe hunting a pig and you know having biscuits with with people who were who are angry and somewhat dangerous. Have you become disillusioned? I thought what you said in the edition of your first book that I read about the class situation in kitchens

and behind celebrities, specifically chefs, was pretty powerful. Well, it used to be a class thing. I mean, the chef's profession used to be a thing for the underclass. It is now not. I mean, people, it's a glamour profession now. But more to your point, one of the joys of my life is getting Ted Nugent to agree with me on something. We agree, he agrees with me reluctantly on the Michelle Obama lunch school lunch initiative. Now he's a guy who thinks that the Obamas are basically, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Satan, at least. I mean, and he said

as inflammatory shit as you could, as anyone ever has, he despises them and sees them as the enemy. despises them and sees them as the enemy. But as I put it to him, how could you be against what she's saying? You know, you're a patriot. You know, this is a military readiness issue. You know, how can we, you know, he's also an environmentalist. So getting him to agree on this one area or at least see merit to an argument, okay, maybe I'm overst overstating the case but we've actually appeared on tv and i've gotten him to come down and decide that that you know he agrees with her and thinks that what she's doing is good i think that's quite for me it's a tiny victory plus i got him to drink

a beer and i think it was like the second of his life so you know i don't know whether i'm going to bring him around any further than that but you know it it it feels good right you're not going to stop him from going to the militia meetings i don't think we're going to be you know you know hugging it out at the democratic national convention anytime soon right but but like in in in terms of of how you see like what you said there is essentially that the real people that run, in all of your experience I see this to be true, that the people that really run the restaurant business or make the food happen is not the chefs. Well, they can't do it without, I mean, if you're a chef is a cook who leads. A chef is a cook who leads.

And so the qualities that make a chef a good chef are not just talent with food and creativity and good standards and technical skills. It's the ability to lead a lot of people from very different backgrounds. And the fact is that the backbone of the restaurant business, a very large and steady part of that, that the business as a whole cannot do without, are Latinos, principally Mexicans

and Central Americans. I mean, in 25 years or 20 years as an employer, as a chef employer, never, never once in that entire time did an American-born kid ever walk into my restaurant and ask for a dishwasher job, a night cleanup job, or even a prep job. Those jobs are filled. I started as a seasonal help. But in New York City, never. Right.

So my feeling is, I had this conversation with Nugent, there's plenty of room for honest disagreement over who we're going to let in and how many. But who's here now and what they're doing, I don't think there's any question about that. The restaurant business in America cannot survive. The backbone, the real workers, the people who are there year after year who are training, you know,

overeducated white boys like me who rolled out of the Culinary Institute. When I arrive at a kitchen in New York, the guy who's taking me under his wing and showing me my job is a Mexican guy who worked his way up from dishwasher and has been there steady doing it year after year. That's just the way it is, and it's something of an issue with me as far as, you know, let's at least recognize and cut a break for, you know, at very least for the people who've been doing it all these years.

How's your spite factor? I mean, now that you're comfortable and you seem to have found a way for yourself, I mean, very least for the people who've been doing it all these years how's your spite factor i mean i mean now that you're you're comfortable and you seem to have found a way for yourself i mean like i know you know as a comic and and i feel like we're kindred spirits in some ways that you know i i was driven by a certain sense of entitlement in that you know in that i you know i felt like certain people didn't deserve the recognition that they have. And I have to assume that because do you feel like you're still an outsider in the world of chefs? No. Honestly, when Kitchen Confidential hit and it was an overnight success, all the chefs, it was nothing but like love and free food from that point on.

And all the chefs I've spoken to were like, well, you know, it's nice to see one of us kind of make it out. Telling the truth. And it was, you know, it helped that, you know, the book was funny. Yeah. I hope it was, you know, true. A lot of chefs who had very little in common

with my particularly undistinguished career at least had worked at some, you know, they knew that life, you know. Even the old guard French guys were really, really good to me. So I didn't get any of that. I got no spite out of chefs. And because success came so late to me, I was not sort of spoiling. I didn't feel that way.

I mean, I was shocked to still be alive and gainfully employed in a restaurant at 44. I felt like I was all my second life. So to suddenly get a third one, especially a third one this good, I feel pretty damn good about that. But like along with politics, I mean, do you ever watch the Food Network and go, fucking come on?

Well, yeah, I still, I look at that. I mean, I like food and I respect food and I respect people who make food well. And I even respect people who make food, do the best they can to make it badly. But to deliberately make bad food, to make it your shtick, to just sort of wallow in really horrendous food and portray it as a... Yeah, it makes me angry. I do yell at my TV a lot.

It's like, oh my God, I can't believe you're doing that. That is a lie. You do not have to buy a pre-chopped onion. It takes another second and a half. Don't tell me that that is down-home cooking. Putting a fucking double cheeseburger bacon, two eggs beneath a,

between two Krispy Kreme donuts, that is just no kind of Southern cooking, and that's no kind of responsible. That's just bad. It's going to get you a lot of attention, but it's morally indefensible. I mean, I'm a guy who likes butter. Feel free to kill yourself with food.

I'm hardly a role model for healthy eating or even an advocate for one. But, you know, if you give me half, you know, if you offered me $100,000 to be a spokesman for, you know, Cargill or Smithfield or told me that I could make a lot more money if I encouraged people to eat, you know, a cheeseburger between crispy green donuts. I wouldn't. I don't know whether it's integrity that keeps me from doing that

or just vanity, you know. I would feel bad about myself if I did that. Well, you know what's interesting is that we don't get good food a lot of times. I was in Denver. I'm not a big pizza guy you know i eat kind of the same thing all the time but i like good food but there's so little of it that i come and count that's why when i tweeted you about cleveland and you sent me over to uh to simon's

restaurant and his his old sous chef jonathan who runs that greenhouse tavern they're like right there and they're the only vital yeah i mean, I went to both of them. And the food was fucking mind-blowing. There's a lot of good food in Cleveland, actually. Yeah. It's sort of the point. This notion that you gotta be wealthy or live in a major city to eat well,

it's nonsense. It is, completely. So where I get angry is that, you know, if people are working just as hard or even harder to make bad food, when it's easier and often cheaper to make something decent, I get cranky about that. It just requires attention and a little more thoughtfulness

and maybe buying something that's a little better. Or just there's that attitude of, you know, I know what I know. I don't care. Spaghetti and red sauce it's like 20 minutes man you can make it like an italian so i went i go to this place in denver it's called the i think it's called the stereo marco or something and apparently i didn't know this going in but i yeah i i i'm not a huge burrata guy. Oh, yeah, I like that, yeah. Right, but I got it, and it was like, when I put it in my mouth, I felt like a rush. I'm like, what's the magic in this?

Yeah. And apparently this guy had gotten into a little trouble, I don't know if he's still doing it, from buying unpasteurized milk from local farmers. So that was the first time as an American I'd ever experienced the way it's supposed to taste right because of regulations oh when you if you're lucky enough to get like farm fresh eggs when you never had one it's you know this is something poor people all over the south have been having you know for years they know we don't know you know in the city we you know it was wow this is the way it's supposed to be yeah um you know it's easy for me i instinctively i see

something like a chicken caesar you know i get cranky or like a pasta like olive garden you know it's like you know i am a snob sure you know about some things why would people settle for that and a lot of times they don't have access to other things but you might as well cook at home right but the only reason people don't cook at home is they don't want to do fucking dishes yeah i try i try not to be a snob it's something i'm at war with with myself i i i try not to but there's some things i see that just really really really cry it's easy for me to be condescending corporate food is not snobbery yeah but you know if i go to a restaurant and they're like making uh you know like i'm a sushi purist you know if you're putting you know barbecue pork inside a

nori roll i i you know it's snobby of me, but I get cranky, and I probably will make a rude remark. It's an ugly side of me, but there it is. And the foundation of that is what? Just I've had good sushi, and it's a simple three or four ingredient thing. So don't clutter it. It's like when you've had a properly cooked spaghetti

and fresh tomato sauce. It doesn't clutter it. It's like when you've had a properly cooked spaghetti and fresh tomato sauce. It doesn't even have to be fresh tomatoes. Just canned plum tomatoes, a sliver of garlic, a leaf of basil, properly cooked pasta, 20 minutes, thank you very much.

And then you go to some place where it took them 45 minutes and 12 ingredients to completely fuck up a bowl of pasta. Yeah, I get really cranky about it. But you know exactly how that happens, right? Yeah. Or when you've been lucky enough to have somebody's Mexican mom yeah i get really cranky but you know exactly how that happens right or yeah and or or when i'm you

know you've had them when you've been lucky enough to have somebody's mexican mom make you a a taco and then you you eat one of these you know cheese whiz varieties uh yeah i just i feel angry for all humanity so what do you think is what is that missing piece if these people know the basic idea of what good food is and there's so much bad food out there, is it just that it becomes heartless? Well, there's a heartless cynical thing. It's like this has worked for us so far. So let's just reproduce that.

I mean, it's the same with television or the record business. It's something I fight about or think about a lot on my show. If I just did a show last week that's sort of a heartwarming family show, as happens, and it's a huge rating success, and critically everybody loves it, I'm going to make damn sure not to do that again this week. I'm going to do everything I can to subvert that. I just, to try it, well, gee, clearly they like this.

Let's reproduce that again and again and again. I'm just not wired to be able to do that. But you have done it. I'm not wired to be, no, I will not. No, but like when you're working in a kitchen, you've got to do 300 brunches. Oh, well, that's your, yeah, absolutely. And listen, I mean,

a lot of people don't have the luxury of doing what they want. No, right. But I'm instinctively against, you know, if you're doing something cynically, meaning I know this is crap, but I know it's crap. Right. People like it. I mean, I've worked in restaurants for much of my career where I was cooking food I didn't like

for people I didn't care about, for bosses I hated. I was as big a whore as a person could be. Maybe that's why I look at an outfit that could do better but chooses not to. Maybe it's a professional in me. Maybe it's the snob in me. Maybe it's a bit of both. But yeah, I'm just saying I'm cranky. I'm evangelical about it.

I wish I could grab everybody the ear and say, listen, this is how easy it is to do this dish. It's not as hard as they'd have you believe. They're not doing you any favor giving you this. Anybody's mom 50 years ago could do better than this. Right. And how has the industry changed for the better for i mean like are you nostalgic for for the camaraderie of all the insanity that you went through i miss being able to scratch your balls in a kitchen you know back in the day you know they didn't have

open kitchens because somebody gave a shit what went on in there the last person they wanted to see or hear from was the chef right um sure i miss the you know, now, a lot of that activity. But the fact is, you know, I had my time. I had my 28 years. You know, I don't miss, you know, snorting Coke through penne because, you know, I don't miss snorting Coke. Yeah. I miss the, you know, like anything, you look back on your younger, stupider years and I miss that. But I'm happy for the industry and I'm happy for the people working in it because now people care about what the chef thinks. You know, there are real chances, real opportunities for a limited number of people to actually make some kind of a success and maybe even have a life someday,

you know, outside of the restaurant business. You know, chefs have power. You know, in the old days, no one, you know, you go in, you tell the chef what you want. I like this and I like it this way, my good man. It's not too much. They're a chef boyardee. Now people are more likely than ever to go and say, what does the chef think is good? Really?

I haven't had that before. I'll try that. So you see people like Mario Batali who create their own markets and create an appetite for dishes that no one, everyone had forgotten how to eat. You know, no one had, you know, all those oily little fishes and bone marrow and hooves and scouts and cheeks and, you know, that's, people like me, most chefs, they know that to be the good stuff. Yeah.

So when you get somebody like Mario who uses their new power and celebrity to coerce and seduce people into eating these things or show an interest in them, that's surely good for the world. I'll eat just about anything. I'll try just about anything. But in terms of everywhere you've traveled, what is the one stream? You've eaten shit that you probably didn't like. Yeah.

But it's made properly. Well, I've eaten a lot of bad food that's cooked badly too, but I've eaten a lot of poor people food that's using basically hooves and snouts and scraps. There are food traditions that grew up around poverty, deprivation, interrupted supply trains, tough seasons, military situations.

And a lot of people in this world, all of the great cooking cultures, develop the great cuisines and the enduring dishes because they had to. And I think this is something that kind of gets lost. We're at this weird point now. Because chefs are more empowered, they're convincing their public to eat all of these peasant dishes that they love. they're convincing their public to eat all of these peasant dishes that they love. So the working poor are saving up to eat at Red Lobster or to get a steak.

Whereas in the fine dining restaurants, people are paying top dollar for stuff that the poor used to have to eat. What are the hot menu items now? Pork belly, cheeks, organ meat, pig head. You see that everywhere now in one form or another. This is all the stuff of dirt poor. But the French would look down on it. That's the heart and soul of French cooking and of Italian cooking and of Chinese cooking and Brazilian and Spanish. It's the heart and soul of French cooking and of Italian cooking and of Chinese cooking and Brazilian and Spanish.

It's the heart and soul of it. Absolutely. You go to those countries, you talk to any of the chefs, that's the stuff that they grew up eating more often than not. And the stuff they're eating more than ever now, the difference is now they're putting it on their menus. Now, in terms of – because I have a – like I spent a little time in China. I have – I've been to Australia. I haven't been to a lot of the Asian countries. But the one thing that fascinates me about watching cooking is that there's a philosophy behind it and a logic behind all these different cuisines.

Can you explain how Chinese food works to me? Well, I mean, it depends. Can they use anything? Well, they had an imp remember they had like the french in some respects uh they had the food of the poor meaning whatever we had you know we better find out how to it may not be so good now but we're going to figure out a way to cook it to make it good because we don't have the the luxury so you had hunger as a driving engine for that cuisine and you also had this huge imperial, centralized

aristocracy where a lot of people were working 24-7 trying to figure out new ways to impress and delight and amuse the super-rich. So there are two engines at work. One, it's, okay, this chicken leg,

it sucks. I've got to figure out how to make it good. The other one would be, this chicken leg, it sucks. I've got to figure out how to make it good. The other one would be this chicken leg. I have to figure out. Maybe there's something really great in there that I just haven't figured it out yet. Give me a couple hundred years and I will figure it out. So those are two really principal engines of gastronomy.

And the old joke that the Chinese will eat anything is kind of true, but that's why they're also, know that is the mother cuisine of of the world and probably the greatest and most diverse and and amazing and and the french sort of define modern cooking well certainly they ran with they took they took a lot of traditions from from all over europe and and you know they developed a lot of dishes like farm people do or did all over Europe and they were find it and again for an aristocracy they had a they had a working-class cuisine it was pretty cool and they developed it and refined it for you know their cruel overlords right and what was your problem with Italian cuisine I'd love to was there are two

Italian I'm really big into you know i'm happiest eating a bowl of yeah a bowl of some you know cripes or but early on you had a problem with it because i in the book i i thought that you sort of were like you know i couldn't cook it i wasn't going to do it and that you went through a transition well my you know my dad was french uh and like that was what I knew. Yeah. Well, born there. But an American guy. Yeah. I mean, I came up in a French system.

Right. And when you went to culinary school back in the day, I mean, that was the system. You learned French first. So, I mean, I'm just a product of that. learn French first. So I mean, I'm just a product of that. But these days, I'm happiest eating basically cheap Italian wine and a sloppy bowl of pasta just about anywhere in Italy. Yeah, is that your favorite cuisine? I don't know if it's my favorite cuisine, but I mean, I'm just generally happiest with a big crust of bread, a bowl of you know or some some some sausage

and drinking some rough local wine you know one of these one of these places where you know you're at you ask the owner you know gee this this wine is good you know who made this wine and he points at some old guy at the bars as he made it you know yeah i like that how about eastern european food you know communism not good for food and the so The Soviets really just, if they didn't kill the chefs, they just, they had a very, they saw enjoying yourself at the table as bourgeois and possibly treacherous, you know, just bad for the revolution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they managed to suffocate it.

So a lot of Eastern Europe, they really obliterated what cuisine was there. And there are a lot of places where it really hasn't come back. It's tough. Now, in terms of your past and how you live now, like you still, well, you're not smoking now, but you did for a long time.

Yeah, 38 years. Yeah, I'm taking these nicotine lozenges. Well, I was, Chantix, you know, I was taking the, you know, that makes some people stabby. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah and or or suicidal uh you know works for me if i start cheating i go you know go back on yeah i haven't smoked in like 10 years but how do you reconcile you're able to uh to manage you know booze and you know mild shit i mean obviously when you come through

coke and dope i mean i'm a freak in that regard um i i never stopped drinking um i was a guy like you know and i i drink a lot on the show um if i go into a restaurant i i drink uh but i've just i've never had liquor at home or i've never i never you know i've never sat on tv with a beer it's not the thing that's gonna kill you it was just not um it was never my thing right i like it it's part of my life but for whatever reason i i i've had a i've drank too much in my life i mean meaning if i was in a work situation you know i'd come home drunk every night yeah um but once i'm out of the work situation and left my own devices i'm not going to be not going to have a problem with alcohol.

I don't know what to say about that because generally, if you've had a problem with cocaine and heroin, as I did, they tell you, you know, that's it for you, pal. You know, you're... No, I know. Yeah, I know a lot of dudes who have had to pledge, and that's the only way that... Basically, I don't know anyone else like me. I know a lot of ex-dopers that me i know i know a lot of uh ex-dopers that that do

alcohol i know a lot of them everybody i know who's in coke and heroin they don't drink at all now you know they had it completely stop um but you got you i was a pothead for my whole life but you know i'm a dad now you know i kind of need the way i see it i kind of i might need my brain at any moment you know like you know my daughter skins her knee or splits her lip. It's like, I'm not going to be like, oh, wow, what am I going to do? I really can't handle this, man. You've got to show up. You've got to show up.

I've got to show up. So maybe if I'm on the road, if I'm in the empty quarter of the desert someplace with my crew and we finish shooting, I'll climb up on a dune and smoke to the local. But again, we just shot in Amsterdam. And of course, we go to the coffee house and we're shooting a dope scene. And they're bringing out all these brands

and I'm not allowed to smoke on camera. You can't see me take a huff on camera, but you can certainly see me talk about it. You can see the smoke coming. It's clear what I'm doing. But of course, i'm getting high and you know how you know when you when you smoke and weed suddenly you start feeling like wow i'm like everyone's looking at me yeah yeah well everyone was you know there's like i look up i'm like i'm wow i'm having a hard time handling this it's like everyone's looking at me and there's people three cameras looking at me

waiting for me to say something and i'm just kind of crawling inside myself i just want to slither away not not comfortable that's a good episode to look forward to what's the most layered you know cuisine that you've come in contact with where the history like deep yeah wow i don't know i mean brazil's pretty interesting uh because you've got the af, the indigenous, the Portuguese, all of these influences. Like Singapore, Malaysia, China, Straits, really interesting area because you've got Indian, Malay, and many different types of Chinese and Western,

all who've been living together and intermarrying and cooking together for centuries. See, that's the fascinating thing. So it's really layered and deep, and people grow up cooking all three of those cuisines in those areas. And if you know about cooking, which you do, and if you – like some people are freaks for food history and for where things know where things are sourced from that you can really appreciate that the depth of a single dish of food can you know run centuries and multi-cultures well look at all these dishes like uh you know coq au vin or um you know a lot of these dishes that you look at like slow cooked dishes yeah man i i taste those and i look at those and i think about man it took a lot of time for them to figure out how to make this good.

A lot of people suffered to get to this point. A lot of these dishes were created by working people, farmers mostly, who really didn't have time to cook. Maybe they'd have a tough rooster, and that was about it. If they had a chicken, they'd sell the chicken. All they had was a tough rooster, and that was about it. If they had a chicken, they'd sell the chicken. All they had was a tough rooster. So a dish like coq au vin sounds fancy, but really it was a means to throw a pot on the leftovers, the coals, throw a tough bird in there with some cheap wine or some water,

some onions and some starch from the farm. They'd go out, work the fields all day, and you'd come back and you got something that hopefully is delicious. It's about as simple as it gets, and it's answering some really tough problems. So a lot of times when I'm eating things abroad, I'm thinking, what were the problems that they solved with this dish?

Yeah, that's interesting, huh? So Coco Van's one thing, but I mean, you must be able to experience that in any culture. Well, Escargot, another one. You really think it was a gourmet

who invented, you know, the first guy to eat a snail? Desperation. What a hungry motherfucker, right? Problem,

all I've got is snails. Solution, maybe if I put enough garlic butter on that thing, you know, I could eat it. What other places

haven't you gone? Haven't been to Israel yet, want to go. Myanmar, Burma, but we're kind of waiting for the government to change there. Iran, again, I'd like the government situation to change a little before I go there. You don't want to be doing your show as a hostage? I don't want to give money to people who are possibly building IEDs. I feel there's an arbitrary.

I go to a lot of countries where they do bad things, arguably, but you've got to draw a line somewhere. And for me, I've heard nothing but wonderful things about, if you go to Iran, apparently the people are great. The food is supposed to be spectacular. It's an amazing history, beautiful country, but it's not an attractive government. Yeah.

And so you've gone to most of the Asian countries. Yeah. Haven't been to Burma, Myanmar. And, I mean, China's big. I could make TV in China for the rest of my life and still die pig ignorant, you know? I would know nothing. That's part of the fun, actually,

is you know how when you go someplace, you go, holy shit, I will never know anything about this country. I mean, so even just when you teach yourself to order breakfast alone in a new country, it's deeply satisfying. But the sense that I will die ignorant, never really fully understanding China or Chinese cuisine

or even one province of China, that's both discouraging and thrilling. Yeah. Well, I think that's what life is, huh? I like being wrong about stuff. I like being surprised. I don't mind looking. I really don't mind looking i really don't mind you know looking

like an idiot on my on my show or just being you know going and thinking something's really going to suck and then having it uh you know turn out the other way i think that vulnerability that takes some uh you know that's uh that's some serious maturity to be you know to make i wouldn't go that far i'm just i feel open to it i mean i'm not a humble guy, but I've gotten used to, because I'm lucky enough to travel and go to all these places, I'm used to being humbled. Well, it was great talking to you, man.

And have safe travels. Thank you.