Anthony Bourdain

“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” 
― Anthony Bourdain. Anthony Bourdain: one of the most influential, adventurous and opinionated people in the culinary world. Not only is he the author of many famous books/articles like “Don’t Eat Before Reading this,” and Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly but he is also an award-winning TV personality on A Cook’s Tour and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. According to the article”5 of the Most Influential Chefs in the World” by Justine Leonhardt, [Bourdain] has contribute to the cool quotient of exploring new food. Bourdain cooking career started after trying an oyster on a family trip to France. From there he dropped out of college to pursue his culinary dreams at the Culinary Institute of America. After few jobs as a cook and working in restaurants, he became the executive chef at the bistro Brasserie Les Halles. His importance in cooking comes from his collection of variety of recipes, techniques, and spices.  Bourdain travels to different cultures to try there foods and implement them into his own cooking. Bourdain wasn’t always the famous chef that everyone looked to; he had a savvier drug and drinking problem for a short period of time during his life. Also, he had fallout with the Food Network for wanting to stretch his cooking forte by studying/filming the renowned elBulli chef Ferran Adria cook. Besides some of Anthony Bourdain’s stumbles in life, he shall remain the face of TV personality for worldwide cooking.

 http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-influential/5-of-the-most-influential-chefs-in-the-world/
 http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2016/01/04/quirky-facts-never-knew-about-anthony-bourdain/
 http://www.biography.com/people/anthony-bourdain-20693995

Carnophobia?????

During my process of learning the art of cooking I’ve came to a realization that cooking has many pros and cons. Pros include introducing myself to a variety of food made by many diverse cultures, expanding my taste palette, and eating the food (of course). The cons, on the other hand include eating something that has went bad, smelling very weird things, and most importantly; touching raw meat with your bare hands. I think the main reason I haven’t learned how to cook at an earlier age is not only because I was lazy but because ever since I was a kid I never liked to touch meat because it had a weird liquid-but-solid texture to it.  Every time I would see my mother cooking I would get discussed by the sound, smell and texture of the meat she put in our meals. To continue my learning I had to move pass my tiny phobia, escape my comfort zone and get down-and-dirty with all types of meat. It wasn’t hard getting over this weird fear because at the end of the day: that slimy, bloody, and smelly chicken/beef would eventually become a delicious meal that I eat on a daily occasion.

The Begining Pt.2

My curiosity for cooking stretches from New York to California. To begin my studies, I wanted to find out the actual importance of learning how to cook; besides the fact that food is our source of energy etc. The history of cooking itself seems to be a very different thing to think about because it’s so natural and not really questioned at all by anyone, but I wanted to get a better understanding. “Cooking is the art and science of preparing food for eating by the application of heat,” states the authors of the article History of Cooking from the website All That Cooking. The article featured a timeline of events that supposedly shaped the way we cook foods today. The timeline dates all the way from B.C. to present times, and include facts like “Archestratus, a Greek, wrote the first cookbook, Hedypathia (Pleasant Living), in the 4th century BC,” and “The first sugar cane mill is established in the Americas.” The information I gathered from this website really gave me insight on the history of cooking. While gathering this information, I noticed that cooking isn’t only for feeding people but it also represents culture and origins of the person cooking it. Just by seeing certain spices and ingredients a person uses can show you were they are from or their family origins. Look at my pantry….. can you tell where I am from?http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-activities/why-kids-should-learn-to-cook/

The Begining

When I was growing up I loved to eat. If I wasn’t outside or playing video games I was asking my grandmother for a taste of her food; she cooked while my mom went to work. My grandma is one of the best cooks I know: she always made a variety of dishes that stretched our food pallet to its fullest extent. She always pressured me to learn how to cook so that if anything was too happen to her I could always be reminded of her by making/eating her food. This project would be the perfect time to dive right into moderate cooking and start from there. My knowledge of cooking is very small. I follow the directions to a T and don’t really ascend out of my comfort zone. I couldn’t make a dish out of scratch even if someone paid me to do it. I want to learn how to make meals like chicken breast, Alfredo, turkey, etc., something I could survive from. Of course I can’t start off by making these things; one must start off small then work their way up. My plan to learn how to cook is by going to the master cook herself. I shall be by my grandma’s side every time she cooks in the kitchen. I will also study and gather recipes to make a feast for good-size group of people. I will assist her in the kitchen and ask questions about cooking. Then I shall test my studies by feeding my family. Problems to face ahead are to worry if I put too much of a certain ingredient in a dish and ruin the whole thing, also under cooking something and getting my whole family sick, etc. I will video tape me cooking and serving the food to my family and then ask for their criticism.