Kitchen Confidential Quotes

• 

  your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Amusement, Body

  Anthony Bourdain (2010). “Kitchen Confidential”, p.73, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Life, Change, Travel

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• If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Travel, Sleep, Two

  Anthony Bourdain (2010). “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”, p.56, A&C Black

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• Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans ... are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Cooking, Enemy

  Anthony Bourdain (2013). “Kitchen Confidential”, p.78, A&C Black

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• 

  Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Character, Skills, Taught

  "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly". Book by Anthony Bourdain, 2000.

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• The 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 Bourdain

  Travel, Journey, Expression

  "A Cook's Tour". Book by Anthony Bourdain, 2001.

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• If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Travel, Ocean, Moving

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• Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Jobs, Self, Assuming

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.276, A&C Black

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• [When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Hurt, Regret, Opportunity

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.251, A&C Black

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• The way you make an omelet reveals your character.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Character, Cooking, Way

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. October 13, 2011.

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• Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain

  Anthony Bourdain

  Mind, Enlightenment, Finals

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• Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Oil, Lazy

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.77, A&C Black

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• For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we've all had to become disappears, when we're confronted with something as simple as a plate of food.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Cutting, Simple, Expression

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.281, A&C Black

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• I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Adventure, Oysters

  Anthony Bourdain (2013). “Kitchen Confidential”, p.6, A&C Black

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• Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime...Please, treat your garlic with respect...Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Oil, Lazy, Cost

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• Margarine? That's not food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I can. If you're planning on using margarine in anything, you can stop reading now, because I won't be able to help you.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Believe, Reading, Able

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.76, A&C Black

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• No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Dream, Hard Work, Appreciate

  Anthony Bourdain (2001). “Kitchen Confidential”, p.56, A&C Black

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• To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Cooking, Cheese

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.65, A&C Black

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• Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Simple, Fabulous

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.78, A&C Black

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• You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Cheesy, Cheese

  Anthony Bourdain (2010). “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”, p.156, A&C Black

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• Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Food, Humble, Rocks

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• As you move through this life...you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Travel, Moving, Return

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• We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Suicide, Baby, Blow

  Anthony Bourdain (2010). “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”, p.87, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Don't lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don't do it again. Ever

  Anthony Bourdain

  Mistake, Lying, Moving

  Anthony Bourdain (2010). “Kitchen Confidential”, p.298, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• They're professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don't forget that the Russians - any Russian - can drink you under the table.

  Anthony Bourdain

  College, Thinking, Russia

  "A Cook's Tour". Book by Anthony Bourdain, 2001.

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