josh posted this great interview (from the chicago tribune, no less) by anthony bourdain. read through it, it will make you laugh. if you’re not watching his show on the travel channel or reading one of his books, you’re missing out. anthony is raw, unedited and witty. his show, as you’ll read in the article, is unlike most shows on tv. they push the boundary in both content and production. and i think his ability to be nothing but himself is refreshing. 100% authentic. the show isn’t shot like most shows on tv, which is what makes it visually appealing. and he’s the host, which makes it appealing and also perpetuates my love for him on a weekly basis.

some of my favorite bits:

“I don’t like deep dish pizza, except for Burt’s Place (in Morton Grove) which was quite wonderful. Most deep dish is awful and not pizza, I don’t know what it is. It’s ugly stuff…I love Chicago. Chicago’s one of the few American cities that’s big enough to support a large number of high end restaurants. A lot of cities cannot support restaurants like Charlie Trotter or Alinea or Blackbird. There just aren’t enough wealthy people. It’s a big town, it’s got great food on the high end and low end. And I’m on record admitting the Chicago hot dog is far superior than the New York hot dog.”

re: michael pollan: “I really liked “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” I really like the bits with him in it in “Food, Inc.” which I thought was a terrific movie. But I worry about orthodoxy. There’s a real danger of appearing elitist. It’s probably a good thing when he terrifies people about high fructose corn syrup and the evils of fast food. I think it’s useful. But bludgeoning us, insisting that we move to 100 percent organic, becomes kind of ridiculous.”

on how he would run the food network: “I would make sure Sandra Lee was never allowed near any cooking utensil or food item.”

“I have traveled around the world so many times now that we’ll sit around and think about places that will be fun and interesting to explore, but more so, how we’re going to make a show, technically: how the show will look, the tone, the sound; how will we make it different than anything we’ve done?…We deliberately set up difficult things to do. Using new lenses, constantly experimenting with new equipment to give it a more cinematic look — letterboxes, widescreen, gyros, cheap do-it-yourself kind of innovation. The editing styles.”

re: jamie oliver’s revolution: “I admire him for it, I really do. He is to be complimented. Like Grant (Achatz), he’s doing the difficult thing. Jamie can just do Naked Chef forever and open cynical, exploitative Jamie Oliver-branded restaurants and make gazillions of dollars and die a billionaire. But instead, he’s chosen to annoy the sh– out of us by telling us what we don’t want to hear in the interest of goodness. I really respect and admire it. It’s never proven to be a good business model to be the bearer of bad news, tell people again and again what they don’t want to hear. I admire him for it.”