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Chef/crankypants Anthony Bourdain, the male flip side in the Rachel Ray world of food stardom, has made it a habit of slamming other celeb chefs. Brilliantly so. During an interview with DCist, Bourdain takes aim at Chez Panisse's Alice Water. Behold:
“Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic.”
Bourdain added:
“I'm a little reluctant to admit that maybe Americans are too stupid to figure out that the food we're eating is killing us. But I don't know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's.”
According to Hugh Merwin over at Gothamist, Bourdain was most likely referring to this recent open letter to the Obamas and her offer to serve as in his "kitchen cabinet." In her defense, every commie pinko tool in the Bay Area assumes they'll be working in the White House over the next four years, so: grain of salt, Anthony.
In the meantime, we eagerly await Bourdain's thoughts on Sandra Lee and the infamous Kwanzaa cake.
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Alice Waters killed a million people? Damn. Now I'm NEVER going to eat at Chez Panisse.
Anthony Bourdain enjoys the smell of his own farts so much I'm surprised he can taste anything at all.
What a douche. It's cheaper for me to buy organic at the Alemany Farmers' Market than it is for me to buy at Safeway or TJ's. If he's talking about the Ferry Building then, yeah he's got a point.
This guy's opinion matters, why exactly?
What does Bourdain have to do with food anymore? Kitchen Confidential (the book) was fun, but that was a long time ago.
I expect he wants you to save money so you can spend it on his books and TV shows.
Anthony Bourdain is fast becoming the Ann Coulter of the celebrity chef universe.
Ha, I was thinking the Rush Limbaugh of the food world, but I think you nailed it.
@dantsea, totally.
I'd bet that eating healthy/organic is in the long run cheaper than eating .99-cent Whaoppers(tm) when you factor in health care, weight loss, well-meaning but never-used gym memberships, etc. And, not all value is monetary, even if health care were free health is priceless, as they say.
...because Bourdain does nothing if not push people to eat more Burger King? Is that about right?
Alice Waters can definitely get a bit tedious and self-important at times but she would still be a better leader than Pol Pot (hey, at least organic rice would be served in the re-education camps).
While I don't really know anything about Bourdain, he's kind of right on this point. I've seen things recently where Alice Waters said it was OK for organic food to go on being as expensive as it is right now because people deserve a fair wage for producing it. OK, I agree with that, but that puts it out of price-reach for many people, and it's not like only some of us need healthy food.
I love Anthony Bourdain, and I absolutely love that he takes celebrity chefs down a few pegs. Now my problem with Alice Waters is in line with what Ziarah said. I aspire to eat at Alice Waters' restaurant or one of her projects, but it's the kind of thing I have to save up for. And especially in these economic times, she shouldn't be surprised that people will gravitate to the cheap, non-organic tomatoes sold at a regular old grocery store instead of the crazy $4/lb organic/heirloom/specialty tomatoes that are being sold (I'm looking squarely at you, Real Foods). And no, just because you can't afford $4/lb. tomatoes does not mean you're eating at McDonald's every day, it just means you don't have a trust fund.
Anthony and Alice will be appearing TOGETHER live in Hartford CT along with Duff Goldman from the Ace of Cakes...check it out at
http://ctforum.org/events/events.asp?event_id=118
Bourdin, who cares what you think. You're grotesque.
I like Bourdain and somewhat agree with what he's saying here but he said it pretty badly.
LOL.. I just love Anthony Bourdain. He’s Smart, literate, funny, and most important, totally willing to speak up when the emperor has no clothes on. Any man who despises Rachel Ray and Sandra Lee is OK by me and on the opposite end, anyone is willing to call out the ignorant, officious, and pretentious – as Waters was here -- is OK by me too.
Waters embarrassed herself with her letter, showing her ignorance of the fact that the white house chef has been serving local and organic for years. And her letter which essentially called for the replacement (e.g. firing) of the white house chef , and offering to replace her with one of Water’s toady’s was just totally classless and smacks of good old fashioned bullying.