20 Years of Kitchen Confidential

I don't remember exactly when I read Anthony Bourdain's classic Kitchen Confidential, but it had to be before THIS POST since it's the first time I mentioned him on this blog. Over at The Ringer they're unwrapping some of what was good - and bad - about the man himself:

Bourdain’s overarching hypothesis—that political and social inequality could be both better understood and significantly redressed through an investigation of what and how we eat—has become so widely accepted that it can be strange to reflect that just two decades previous these ideas were largely alien. 

GQ food writer Brett Martin, who also authored the excellent 2013 survey of the early days of prestige television Difficult Men, reflects on this through the lens of two decades of hindsight: “I think people forget, in the sanctification that’s followed Bourdain’s death, that his persona early on was really sort of an asshole, shot through with this adolescent, faux-gonzo narcissism. He and [creator of The Wire] David Simon shared that weakness. But they also shared a clarity of vision and this jubilance and brilliance.”

Whole thing is definitely a must-read.

Here he is visiting my bff Gordon Ramsay a million years ago.