Balance of Food

Making tomato bread a worthy dish at home

You may have been to Spain and had one of the better tapas dishes: Pan de cristal con tomatoe. Otherwise, the dish is known as tomato bread.

You can't readily find the local Spanish bread or the amazing Spanish tomatoes. Yet you can replicate the dish in a decent manner and save a bunch of money.

The ingredient list is simple: tomatoes, bread, a garlic clove, kosher salt, and extra virgin olive oil. This is why quality is so crucial.

Ideally, you have a local source for tomatoes and crusty bread. You can even find local garlic this time of the year.

Cut the bread into thick slices. Toast said bread. When lightly toasted, cut a garlic clove in half. Rub the halved garlic clove on the toasted part of the bread.

Cut the tomato in half down the equator of the tomato. Grate the tomato. I mix the kosher salt and olive oil into the tomato mixture.

Spoon the tomato mixture on the toasted bread. Eat.

Pan de cristal con tomatoe is one of the best known Spanish tapas. This menu is from the Jose Andres restaurant Jaleo in Chicago. The $14 price tag is reduced to $7 if you go during the Sangria Hour as defined by 4-6 pm local time. We don't know if the portion size is reduced as well.

The Spanish tomatoes and the wonderful bread do make a difference. Still, you can replicate this dish at home, especially with local tomatoes still in bloom.

The beauty of pan de cristal con tomatoe is that you are experiencing amazing local ingredients simply prepared. If you can make toast, you can make tomato bread. This can be a local dish, whether you are in Seville, Madrid, or Barcelona as well as Toledo, Spain, er, Ohio.

Your local version will likely not be as good as getting the same version late at night in a tapas place in Spain. Your local version will taste better than a lot of foods you can get anywhere in the world.

Eating local is easier and better in California than in New Hampshire. Tomato season is a lot shorter in New Hampshire than California. Yet everywhere in the United States has a local tomato season, however short that might be.

This is an ideal time for local tomatoes. Savor them while they are here. Throw a tapas party and serve pan de cristal con tomatoe aka tomato bread. They might think you went to Spain instead of the local farmers market.

Food shows downplay the wonderful impact garlic could have in a dish

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With rising costs for restaurants and buying items in the grocery store, fancy dishes such as this one can be made for relative pennies. You can freeze the sliced bread you don't use. You can even save the cut garlic gloves for a later dish so you aren't wasting the garlic.

A baguette at the farmers market isn't that much more than a regular, lesser quality loaf of bread in a grocery store. Tomatoes at the local farmers market taste way better than what you find at a grocery store. More of your money goes to local vendors who keep the money in the community.

If you are a relative novice cook, making tomato bread can boost your confidence with little risk of messing up the dish.

photo credits: me; Jaleo restaurant in Chicago

The Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles is losing a famous neighbor in CBS

If you got a new job back in the day where people went physically to a work location, you might be excited if your new job was located next to a farmers market. For many years, the folks who worked at CBS in Los Angeles had such a luxury.

The Original Farmers Market is on West 3rd Street on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. CBS is at Beverly Blvd. (7800) with West 3rd Street being its southern border.

If you watched The Price Is Right, Match Game, The Carol Burnett Show, Tattletales, or any of the countless shows produced at CBS, you could have a sense of the history of that building.

Unfortunately, the Original Farmers Market is losing its most famous neighbor. CBS sold the building and is moving production of its shows out to Glendale in northeast Los Angeles.

The Original Farmers Market is not a traditional farmers market like you may visit on a regular basis. The location mostly has restaurants and a cute gourmet grocery store.

Still, the neighbors were a good fit. People in television who want to eat well. A farmers market that might get more business because of being located right next to a broadcast network.

CBS sold Television City to Los Angeles real estate investment company Hackman Capital Partners for $750 million in 2018. The company announced a $1.25 billion redevelopment of the facility, which is why the shows are leaving Television City. We don't know if those shows will return to West Hollywood, much less 7800 Beverly Blvd.

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In January 2019, I took the 720 bus from Santa Monica that went down Wilshire Boulevard to the Original Farmers Market. I got off at Fairfax, where the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures now stands. I walked 0.6 miles up Fairfax. People who live in Los Angeles would likely be shocked I walked that far. LA is very car-reliant.

While I was at the Original Farmers Market, someone mentioned how close we were to CBS. Since I walked in from the south, I hadn't noticed the large complex just to the north of the market. After a wonderful stay at the market, longer than I expected because it actually rains in Southern California, I walked north and crossed West 3rd Street to the southwest corner of what was CBS.

The tourists were more likely to notice a farmers market on their quest to see CBS where I approached the trip in the complete opposite vantage point. I was happy with my bonus. I remember Johnny Olson distinctly telling people if they wanted to be on The Price Is Right that the address was 7800 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles. There I was at the place with all those shows I watched as a child.

I've seen Match Game reruns where they mentioned the nearby farmers market. They joked about mugging the audience members in the parking lot after the show. You can't see the parking lot from Fairfax Avenue.

I can imagine CBS stars shopping at the Original Farmers Market maybe in a simpler time when that was more prevalent. Fresh, local produce is usually incentive enough to go shopping but a celebrity sighting could boost your interest in going to a farmers market. Unfortunately, that is less likely now that those shows will be in Glendale and not West Hollywood.

We could look at the arrangement as a blessing for multiple decades to have the entities close to each other. Yet we are sad that the relationship will not continue. You can visit the Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax and imagine that Carol Burnett and Richard Dawson went there on a lunch break, imagining what they might have bought.

photo credits: me
map credit: Google

Mourning the loss of your favorite restaurant

Ouch. Surprised at how much this hurts. An end to decades of The. Best. Smoked. Meat. In. Montreal. https://t.co/BQsZWjSNEt

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 9, 2023

The funny part in Canadian politics is that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn't often give his personal opinion on matters. Yet Trudeau declares the best smoked meat in Montréal as The Main comes to a close on St. Laurent Boulevard.

Canada has a parliamentary democracy so even the prime minister represents a riding. The deli was in the Laurier--Sainte-Marie riding, south of the Papineau riding Trudeau represents in the House of Commons in the federal capital of Ottawa.

Your humble narrator has eaten at The Main at 3864 St. Laurent Boulevard, a prominent north-south running street. (Technically, north-south in relation to the St. Lawrence River. Trust me, when you are in Montréal, you have to follow that logic.)

The smoked meat was quite good. I need more practice to know which smoked meat is the best, something I won't get to do at The Main anymore.

I have also had the smoked meat at Schwartz's at 3895 St. Laurent Boulevard. The famous Schwartz's can be spotted if you are sitting in The Main. You can see the much longer lines at Schwartz's than you saw at The Main. Yet the prime minister of Canada has officially gone on the record as saying The Main had better smoked meat than Schwartz's.

The smoked meat is also very good at Schwartz's. There is more of a carnival atmosphere at Schwartz's as you may have seen on food TV shows or perhaps a trip to Schwartz's.

If you spent enough time in Montréal, you could sample smoked meat from both places. Maybe one for lunch and the other for dinner.

Trudeau isn't the only major celebrity who loved The Main. The late Leonard Cohen was also a big fan of The Main.

Montréal has a bagel battle: you get asked which bagel you prefer between St-Viateur and Fairmount. Your humble narrator is on Team St-Viateur. The Fairmount bagel is better than most bagels you will ever eat, just not a St-Viateur bagel.

If one of those were to go down, eating a Montréal bagel wouldn't be as awesome, even if your place was the survivor.

End of an era with closure of The Main, an iconic Montréal deli (The Current CBC Radio)

Some might think the smoked meat battle isn't confined to the 3800 block of St. Laurent Boulevard. Yet the competition was mostly The Main vs. Schwartz's.

The funny story is how I ended up at The Main. I was in Montréal heading for Schwartz's. There was a small incident involving the fire department. Nothing significant but I wasn't going to eat at Schwartz's that afternoon. I saw The Main across the street and had their smoked meat.

The sandwich and food was very good. So was Schwartz's. That stroke of fate meant I got to try both places.

This report from CBC News gives an all too familiar explanation for the demise of The Main. Things weren't as good as they used to be. Quality allegedly shifted after the death of the long-time owner Peter Varvaro when the deli was then sold off. Like when you are dating a person and that person seems to change and not for the better.

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I hope to get back to Montréal this summer. A city I adore and have not been there in too long. I have a list of favorites in Montréal and plan to try some places where I have never eaten.

Even if you have been somewhere before, that approach is wonderful. Some of your favorites and perhaps, some new favorites. Unfortunately, The Main will not be one of them. I would have trusted the opinion of a Montréal person — the prime minister of Canada. Guess I will settle for the second-best smoked meat in Montréal.

You may not be into smoked meat, bagels, or even Montréal. You can likely adapt this story, like Mad Libs, and use this as a template over one of your favorite restaurants.

Twitter capture: @JustinTrudeau
photo credit: CFCF Montréal/CTV News
video credit: YouTube/Educate@DIYdocufilms

Bourdain Day 2022: Coming out of a worldwide pandemic

Food hasn't been as much fun lately. Anxiety, depression, and a lack of money for travel has reduced my appetite.

I decided to buy some bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. I haven't had as much meat lately so this was a big deal.

I cooked up the chicken thighs from an America's Test Kitchen recipe. I kept the cooked chicken thighs in the fridge.

I decided to do some traveling in the kitchen. I bought sauces for 2 dishes: butter chicken and chicken tikka masala. Both dishes have roots in India but I tend to associate butter chicken (above) from Toronto restaurants and chicken tikka masala (below) in London restaurants.

I cooked ½ cup uncooked brown rice for each meal. I cooked the chicken in the sauce for about 15 minutes and then served over the rice.

Both were quite good. My taste buds had a suitcase packed even if I did not.

A lot of people celebrate Bourdain Day, the fourth since his 2018 death: the legacy of Anthony Bourdain with replicating dishes and drinks from his many TV episodes. The above examples satisfy wanderlust but not copying what Bourdain specifically did.

I am not interested in a Negroni with any meal. A lot of the really tempting meals were in homes where Bourdain and his crew were graciously invited.

As much as I would like to be Anthony Bourdain someday, I can't come close to drinking the way he did. Unless someone does the cooking, I'm not sure I could eat at that level, even with a camera crew.

I had dreams as a child of being the next Johnny Bench. That didn't even come close. I wanted to be the next John Landecker. I was better at that but that didn't happen.

I will not be the next Anthony Bourdain. I'm okay with that.

The thrill was to travel, eat amazing food, and make lots of money. That would be amazing. That is an obvious part of the Anthony Bourdain legacy.

Traveling and talking. Learning perspectives different from my own. Why do Spainards eat late? Why do Tuscans leave the salt out of bread? Why do Scandinavians eat open-faced sandwiches?

Film review: Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

Roadrunner won't be the solution Anthony Bourdain fans want

I wondered during the pandemic how Bourdain would have dealt with all of this. Forced to cut back on travel. Cook more at home. Cook more with his daughter. Maybe Bourdain would have slowed down because he had to do so.

Maybe he would have bought that house in Vietnam he had sought. Or went to Melbourne with his Australian chef friends. Or gone to a place where he never did a TV show, such as Switzerland or Norway.

This assumes that Bourdain would have had a clearer head than most of us during the major portion of the pandemic.

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Our questions about the Spainards, Tuscans, and Scandinavians are starting points to talk of differences and commonalities. One thing I've noticed is that people in those countries want to know how you eat in your own country.

Figure the United States and Canada are next door, speak mostly a common language. Yet compare the different ways Americans and Canadians eat what is know as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Canadians call the food Kraft Dinner or KD. They often chop cooked hot dogs and put ketchup on top of their Kraft Dinner. Americans do not stretch out their macaroni and cheese.

Anthony Bourdain legacy: Find your own food adventure

Anthony Bourdain takes CNN's Parts Unknown to the mysterious land of Newfoundland

Alton Brown had some very nice things to say about Anthony Bourdain and there was mutual admiration. We also admire both of them.

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If you need a taste of Anthony Bourdain, something that doesn't involve a sea urchin off the west coast of Italy, here is something a bit simpler (assuming you live in North America).

This Eater video has them talking about Anthony Bourdain about his favorite restaurant in Los Angeles.

In-N-Out Burger is not limited to LA though the chain is very regional. You could go to San Francisco and find an In-N-Out Burger. If you are on a true burger quest, Los Angeles is the better stop. Upscale burgers and dive burgers.

Bourdain refers to get a burger done Animal style. In-N-Out Burger had a secret menu long before that became a thing.

Happy Bourdain Day!!

photo credits: me (x2); Instagram Anthony Bourdain
video credit: YouTube/Eater

Film review: Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

They say you should never meet your heroes, how you will be disappointed in who they are as opposed to who we imagine them to be.

Roadrunner starts out as a film chronicling how Anthony Bourdain became famous. Even if Bourdain were still alive, this would be a great documentary subject. Bourdain, up until his 40s, led an interesting life that virtually no one knew about.

Kitchen Confidential. Then the videos started: A Cook's Tour. No Reservations (with The Layover). Parts Unknown. Each of those shows under different umbrellas and approaches, showing a more maturing Bourdain along the way. Given that this part of his life started when he was in his 40s, his work got more mature as the shows changed. You could argue they were all food and travel shows. He didn't eat that much in the first and third shows. Parts Unknown was about, as David Chang put it, Bourdain trying to be a better person.

Morgan Neville then steers the documentary boat into the curious yet futile question: "Why did Anthony Bourdain kill himself?" Neville asks the people around Bourdain and they gave their take. Ottavia, his second wife, gives her perspective. People talk about how devoted Bourdain was to his daughter, Ariane Busia-Bourdain.

There are the theories. Bourdain wanted to slow down but didn't know how to make that move. Bourdain's second marriage crumbled. Actor/director Asia Argento stepped in. Was she the reason?

A documentary should be judged on who doesn't get interviewed. Neville made a case for not interviewing Argento. We hear about the Hong Kong episode story. The looks on people's faces change when they talk about that episode. The one person who had an intriguing story about that episode was longtime cinematographer Zach Zamboni. Zamboni was fired during the shoot over a dispute between Zamboni and Argento, who ended up directing the episode.

Neville takes us down this path knowing there won't be a nice neat bow to the story of Bourdain. His addictive personality is on display. Artist David Choe says Bourdain is the only person who gave up heroin without treatment. What made Bourdain great on TV in his food travels was the addiction for something more. Most people making TV aren't getting better. The adaptation to different levels of Bourdain were part of that addiction. Bourdain got involved with jiujitsu in part because his wife competed in the sport.

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Neville has a good reputation as a documentary filmmaker. See the Academy Award winning 20 Feet from Stardom or Best of Enemies on Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley or Won't You Be My Neighbor? about Fred Rogers.

Being curious about why someone killed themselves is worthy of a documentary. Cutting corners to get to that point is a bad sign. The use of Bourdain's voice in an e-mail through AI is a terrible move for a documentary. You don't gain anything from the shortcut. Many other things that Bourdain did say are portrayed in a manipulative fashion.

If you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain and his shows, you know Bourdain has countless mentions of death, especially his own death, on the shows. This doesn't always mean suicide will happen but this is a clue to consider.

We don't learn a lot about Bourdain in the second half of the film, except that he had flaws.

"You don't want his legacy to come off as like somebody who succumbed to this darkness. That wasn't him. Like he created something that was so important — and I want — that really needs to be like — that is the legacy of his life. Not this stupid bullshit that he did at the end." — Lydia Tenaglia, co executive producer of Zero Point Zero Production.

The flaw in Roadrunner is that the film is much more about that "stupid bullshit."

Laurie Woolever interview on Q with Tom Power (CBC Radio One)

Anthony Bourdain legacy: Find your own food adventure

Anthony Bourdain takes CNN's Parts Unknown to the mysterious land of Newfoundland

If you want to learn something about Anthony Bourdain, watch this film until it turns dark. Otherwise, watch No Reservations (we are partial to that version) or Parts Unknown.

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Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is available for rent. The film is scheduled to air again on CNN on Saturday at 10 pm Eastern.

video credit: YouTube/Focus Features
photo credit: Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

The Caesar: a drink that is more like a meal

We don't usually mention alcoholic drinks in this blog because they generally aren't food, which is our primary focus. The Caesar from Canada can definitely be a grand exception.

Americans have a similar drink called a Bloody Mary, mostly tomato juice with spices and maybe a stalk of celery. The Caesar has a lot more flavor (flavour?) and more garnishes. Between the tomato juice, clam juice, and garnishes, you have a decent appetizer.

Baroness von Sketch Show (from Canada) had a sketch about living it up at the cottage with Caesars. IFC, which carried the show in the United States, freaked out the idea of a Caesar and made them change the drink from Caesar to a Bloody Mary.

Letterkenny decided to do an episode of the brilliance of the Caesar, offering multiple options for the base, booze, rimmers, boosters, and garnishes. CanadianCrossing.com, our sibling blog, devoted its space today to the Caesar. 

Letterkenny shows the U.S. audience the different ways to make a Caesar

We have written about the Caesar a few times. We acknowledge though that the Letterkenny episode Season 10, Episode 2 Dealership does a better job of explaining the Caesar by going through the multiple categories in different variations.

In our version, we used clam juice with tomato juice instead of Clamato juice to avoid high-fructose corn syrup. 

Knowing the basics of a Caesar makes experimenting more fun since you know the starting point.

What's Tempting: Distinctively Canadian foods

Searching for Canadian food in the U.S.

Temptation of the Week: Homemade Clamato in your Caesar

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Hard to see a Caesar and not want a Caesar.

— Letterkenny Problems (@LetterkennyProb) May 18, 2019

This is Dry January for some people: Nothing wrong with doing a virgin Caesar if alcohol does not fit into your life. The non-alcoholic version tastes really good, unlike some mocktails.

If you aren't in Canada, getting there is more difficult. Making a homemade Caesar can make you feel a bit like you are in Canada.

Letterkenny is available on Crave in Canada and Hulu in the United States.

Twitter captures: @LetterkennyProb
photo credit: Letterkenny/Bell Media

Stanley Tucci shows the diversity of Italy and the common theme of cucina povera

In Rome, pasta is like a way of life. You eat it every day. Enjoy the iconic dishes on the new @CNN Original Series, Stanley Tucci #SearchingforItaly. Sunday at 9p ET/PT pic.twitter.com/3Aw4hfjf9x

— CNN Original Series (@CNNOriginals) February 20, 2021

Italian cuisine is very different depending on where you are in the country. The distance between Rome and Florence is about 174 miles or 280 kilometres; that distance is not as long as the difference between salted bread and unsalted bread.

Stanley Tucci's recent CNN series Searching for Italy strove to illustrate the food contrasts between regions. The show covered Naples and the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Bologna, Milan, Tuscany, and Sicily.

Milan stood out as northern Italian cuisine (think polenta instead of pasta). The difference in southern Italy exists but is a bit more subtle. Bologna (Emilia-Romagna) was more about ingredients than dishes. The Tuscany episode was filled with his personal experiences about living there for a year as a child.

Italian cuisine is so different because of the history of Italy, the relatively brief time brought together as a country and the centuries that preceded that time. Regional cuisine existed getting to another part of Italy was a lot more difficult back in the time.

Even in the different parts of Italy, the common theme is cucina povera aka poor kitchen. They didn't always get the best of the animals to use. Tripe is a sandwich filling in Tuscany. The guanciale craved in Rome for amatriciana sauce is bacon made from the pig jowl. The cappelletti pasta in Emilia-Romagna made from flour and water since the priests often kept the eggs for themselves. The saga of unsalted bread in Florence has many paths; salt was rather valuable in long ago times.

Ethnic food aisles should be seen as an opportunity without stigma

What's Tempting: Making Italian pasta your own

Celebrating Amatrice through bucatini all' Amatriciana

Italy has very high standards for food labels. The common practice is to list the foods from highest to lowest content. Italy goes a step further to give percentages for how much of something is in a can or a jar.

Italians have learned to do a lot with a little. Tucci visited SantoPalato in Rome. The offal restaurant from chef Sarah Cicolini featured "a frittata with mashed chicken offal; Roman tripe cooked in tomatoes; wagyu heart tartare; and oxtail meatball with peanut, wild celery and cocoa powder sauce." Mmmmm?

Restaurants featured on the show (CNN)

Classic Italian dishes (CNN)

The mercatos (markets) are crucial for the Italian home cook to put together the simple ingredients into fabulous dishes. Tucci visited Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio and Mercato Centrale in Florence.

Emilia-Romagna does have balsamic vinegar, prosciutto di Parma, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, so not all of the food is cucina povera. Tucci did a segment on a scandal of fake proscuitto and talked about the "fake cans" of San Marzano tomatoes. Italy cares about authenticity because there are so many people wanting to do shortcuts. Tucci didn't mention the issue with some "olive oils" not being as authentic.

What's Tempting: Eating real cheese

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If you haven't thought about the difference between northern and southern Italian cuisine, watching the veal cutlets in Milan might have made you think about Austria or Bavaria in southern Germany more than Italy. You should not be shocked to find out that your humble narrator found the Milan episode to be the least likely to stir an appetite.

Italian food, food in Italy is simple ingredients, a strive for quality, and care in putting them all together. Maybe you will go to see for yourself when the pandemic subsides.

The Stanley Tucci series ran earlier this year on CNN. You can access episodes on demand through CNN. There will be a Season 2 in 2022.

Twitter capture: @CNNOriginals
photos credit: Searching for Italy/CNN

Know your food, even if it comes from a truck

"Those restaurants that get their food from Sysco and GFS where the food tastes the same."

That is the gist of what a farmer friend of mine said about certain restaurants. That felt like an inside joke, unless you know how most restaurants work.

Owning a restaurant is hard. If you have read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, you have some sense of what goes into food ordering in New York City with a lot more resources to get quality food into a restaurant.

In a small town where we both were (she lives there, I was visiting), there are not huge markets where chefs in restaurants can go to find local, quality food. Ordering food is easier if you can get large trucks to deliver basic supplies. This is where Sysco and Gordon Food Service (GFS) have made their mark.

You might have even gone to the GFS stores. A great place to get takeaway cups and dispensers. Not the best place to buy ketchup.

Sysco and GFS and other similar companies provide food to restaurants, cafeterias, and other food places. The food is safe, clean, and cheap. Restaurants cite costs as a burden. If they think the customers won't care about an item, they will likely find the cheapest version.

The standard American palette likely doesn't care, or not enough to voice concern. They may not care that certain foods taste the same no matter where they might go. The fast food industry relies on the idea that you will get the same food, regardless of location. Sysco and GFS likely service more restaurants than McDonald's has locations.

My first food working experience was at the gone but not forgotten Bill Knapp's. Bill Knapp's was a regional, family restaurant chain with its food trucks. The food came about 75 miles down the highway; proprietary food to be a Bill Knapp's location. Food trucks, in this incarnation, are quite valuable to restaurants.

You might react by citing this story as yet another example of food snobbery. "You said the food is safe, clean, and cheap. So what?" We cite "know your farmer, know your food" so the similar cry would be "know the truck, know your food." Information is power.

The customers who eat at the places serviced by Sysco and GFS should know where their food comes from. They aren't likely to care but they should know. They might like the idea of uniformity and presentation in the spirit of their favorite fast food chains.

Knowing can be a sign to reconsider decisions or doubling down on them. You give information to people and let them decide what they want to do with that information.

Putting Canadian ketchups to the taste test: French's vs. Heinz

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You likely cooked at home for most of the time for over a year. You used better ingredients or had access to better ingredients. Ketchup is a good example: you can buy a better ketchup in a grocery store than you will likely find in most restaurants.

We set higher standards at home where you pay less for each meal with the same ingredients. We pay more to eat out because of time and convenience, quality of their ingredients, and because they can cook certain foods better than we do.

If you reward restaurants that order from Sysco and Gordon Food Service, you are announcing that you don't care about what they serve you. Ideally, those companies would still serve their customers (restaurants) but with improved quality food demanded by the customers of the customers.

Most Americans won't care. Do you?

photos credit: me

Roadrunner won't be the solution Anthony Bourdain fans want

Roadrunner is going to disappoint you if you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain. The film, that debuts today in theatres, comes from Morgan Neville, a filmmaker known for quality documentaries such as 20 Feet from Stardom and Won't You Be My Neighbor?. There are critiques about how Neville approached this film but that isn't why fans will be disappointed.

Fans will be disappointed because they are searching for a solution or solutions they will not find. They think they knew Anthony Bourdain. Their logic, understandably, is there a reason for what happened at the tail end of the life of Anthony Bourdain.

If you want to understand Anthony Bourdain, you have multiple books. Several TV series. Countless interviews.

Talking about one's death is something Bourdain did quite a bit on his shows, particularly No Reservations. This doesn't mean one will snuff it, the words used in A Clockwork Orange. Talking about one's death shows signs of curiosity and intelligence, traits fans love about Bourdain.

Monty Python had a bit of fun with this idea in The Meaning of Life (1983), choosing how one dies.

Comparing a human being to Jesus has huge ramifications and we are not making a comparison. The general divide between how you might feel about Jesus, provided you are a believer, is whether you focus on his death or how he lived his life.

Roadrunner focuses on Anthony Bourdain as a famous person, putting off to the side his first 43 years or so and concentrating on the final 18 years. Not as a comparison, again, but the Bible focuses mostly on the last 3 years of the life of Jesus.

The documentary spends a lot of time on the life of Anthony Bourdain, the public life we saw and read about, and the private life within that time. Bourdain was a complicated person; traits that made him attractive to watch him travel the world and eat amazing food.

Fans will go to see Roadrunner even if they will be disappointed. Some people hate watch; this will be watched out of love. Go to see the film to get a broader picture of someone rather special. This film, no film, will present a scenario where people will truly understand Bourdain.

Your humble narrator is definitely in the mindset of approaching how someone lived their life as opposed to how they died. We could argue that Bourdain would have been an inspiration to keep living in similar ways to Robin Williams. We don't get to decide such things.

Bourdain Day 3: How Anthony Bourdain helped me get through a pandemic

On the second Bourdain Day, how Anthony Bourdain would handle a worldwide pandemic

Bourdain Day is a way to celebrate the love of food and food cultures

Anthony Bourdain legacy: Find your own food adventure

BalanceofFood.com travel coverage

Appreciate how Anthony Bourdain approached the world, how we are similar to each other even if we have different colors, cultures, genders, and approaches. Be kind to others, eat well, value yourself, have some fun: this is what we should remember about Anthony Bourdain.

If you choose to wait, Roadrunner will air on HBO Max and CNN after the theatrical run. Then again, you might be the one who sits in the center about 5 rows from the top of the theatre at the first showing today.

video credit: YouTube/Focus Features
photos credit: Roadrunner film

Bourdain Day 3: How Anthony Bourdain helped me get through a pandemic

The Vietnam episode when he thought about living near a rice field. The San Francisco episode where he managed to hit every old school joint. The Thailand episode where he arrives at a moment of political unrest. The Jamaica episode exploring the food element of being a Rastafarian. How his Sichuan obsession made its way to Melbourne.

I watched a lot of Anthony Bourdain during the pandemic. Places I've been. Places I want to go. Food I want to eat.

These episodes came from Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, the best known of the Bourdain TV library. The Layover felt like a spinoff of sorts late in that era. A Cook's Tour ran on the Food Network from 2002-2003. This is the saga Bourdain refers to when approaching a place with a more mature outlook.

The even more mature approach came with Parts Unknown, Bourdain's final series. You might have your favorite chapter of Bourdain's TV work or you enjoy all of them.

You want to travel but can't, literally can't. You want to eat this food over what you are actually eating.

On the second Bourdain Day, how Anthony Bourdain would handle a worldwide pandemic

Bourdain Day is a way to celebrate the love of food and food cultures

"Where do you want to go today?" Like virtual reality but TV and streaming your way around the world. Last year, we focused on what Bourdain might do during the pandemic. Watching Bourdain was about what you would do if you could travel like it was 2019, not 2020 or even 2021.

Watching him travel and eat his way through the world was fun but frustrating in that you couldn't be there. You could make an analogy of watching porn vs. having sex but quite frankly, I would rather travel and eat in the Anthony Bourdain way than ever have sex or watch sex again.

The episodes did fill up time and gave some solace in a world where we couldn't just escape with a new travel and food adventure.

Hope is relative but watching Bourdain travel and eat around the world offered up hope for a better world.

Laurie Woolever interview on Q with Tom Power (CBC Radio One)

There are new projects, chances to get a final sense of Anthony Bourdain. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide from Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain comes from Bourdain's long-time assistant. The project started before Bourdain's death in 2018. The book is more about travel than food.

Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain is a documentary from Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and 20 Feet From Stardom). The documentary features Bourdain clips and interviews with those who knew him well.

The film already debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. The theatrical release is set for July 16. If you aren't ready for theaters, the documentary will run on HBO Max and CNN.

Tom Vitale, a long-time producer and director, will have a book out this fall. In The Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain has a release date of October 12.

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Bourdain talked a lot about death, his death in a lot of episodes. That wouldn't be as much of a surprise, even if he were still alive.

Andrew Zimmern came up a few times. I like Zimmern and also enjoyed the nudges Bourdain gave him. Zimmern does a very different perspective even if they both travel with food in mind.

A part of me still wants to have the kind of life he had: travel and eat. There is a need for such programming, though television isn't my strong suit. I am not as brave as he was for eating certain foods. His love for sea urchin is enough to get me to try some, eventually. I have some talents as a writer but Bourdain's ability to communicate the high-end and low-end in food is a tremendous gift.

Be a Traveler, not a Tourist

This is reportedly one of Bourdain's quotes. We might get a second chance to travel and appreciate other places on this planet. Go for neighborhoods; go for what is special where you are. Appreciate what you have and where you are.

photo credit: Instagram Anthony Bourdain
video credit: YouTube/Focus Features