An Evening with Anthony Bourdain: Delaware Style

Back in November, my Mom and I bought tickets to spend an evening with somebody you may have heard of if you're a traveler: Anthony Bourdain. The former chef spends most of his time these days hosting the Travel Channel's smash hit "No Reservations," as well as promoting his latest book, "Medium Raw," a followup to his breakout bestseller "Kitchen Confidential," which originally put him on the map.

I became an earnest viewer of the show about three years ago, when I had returned from my semester in England in a state of borderline depression, the bottoms of my feet itching to go somewhere, anywhere, new. That's when I began living vicariously through the show and through Anthony. I've followed him around Vietnam, Russia, India, the Pacific Northwest (which is still my favorite episode), Ireland, France, Italy, and so many other places.

When he's got the time, Tony blogs about his experiences traveling for No Reservations, and this season serves as a judge on Top Chef: Masters. And by the way, if you're a fan of Top Chef, you have got to read Anthony's blog on the show, which can be found on Bravo.com. Insightful, yet still hilarious.

But anyway, the event we attended began Tuesday evening just after 8 PM, and Tony talked straight through to nearly 10:00. After that, there were 20 minutes of questions before the audience was dismissed. Questions ranged from the predictable ("Where's the best place you've ever been?" [Vietnam]) to the bizarre ("You never seem to gain any weight on the show; have any tips?" ["No."])

My Mom and I with Anthony Bourdain! DuPont Theater 2/22

 

Those of us with VIP tickets stayed in our seats to "await further instruction." Once the rest of the crowd had dispersed, Mr. Bordain came back out for what had been advertised to we buyers as a "meet and greet and book signing." It was mostly the latter, though; we were blown past the table with such speed that there was barely time for a picture and a handshake. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why they would want to get him out of there quickly; the guy was driving back to Manhattan right afterward, for God's sake; but it really shouldn't have been advertised as a meet and greet. We didn't even have the opportunity to tell him our names. If we wanted a book personalized, we had to use a "personalization form," onto which we copied our names exactly as we wanted them to appear on the title page. He still spelled Mom's wrong, which we both got a kick out of. Now, maybe I'm just naive, because this was my first event of the kind, but I thought I'd be getting more than ten seconds with the guy. I didn't even get to tell him that I want to be him when I grow up!

The seconds that I did get with Anthony were somewhat awkward on my end. He was smiling and obliging and shook our hands and thanked us for coming. Mom introduced us as "a mother and daughter who enjoy his snarky humor," and I chipped in "yeah, emerging snarkologist here." When he chuckled it and said "oh yeah?" I immediately regretted it. Why am I such an idiot around famous people? But hey, I'll show him. I'll be snarky. Cynical bastard.

But in all, snark-free honesty, I had a great time. If you're a fan of his writing or of the show and he's coming to your area, I highly suggest that you go and see him. He'll make fun of various Food Network personalities, give some insight into Top Chef, give you some obvious travel tips, brag about his wife and daughter and his parenting style, and have you laughing the whole way through. You won't regret it.