Said to be written by Bourdain — his longtime assistant Laurie Wooleveractually only had one meeting about this book with her boss before he killed himself at the age of 61 in June 2018.
A shocking end to one of our favourite travel and food gurus.
But Bourdain had long talked about writing a summing-up travel book, highlighting his favourite foods, cultures, meals and destinations. Woolever made it happen.
The book includes short summaries of 43 destinations from his many years filming Parts UnknownandNo Reservations.
Profane, opinionated and often hilarious.
Bourdain was a tough guy. But travel opened his eyes. He wanted to tell the truth, to challenge the powerful, to expose wrongdoing. He’d call out racism at every opportunity.
He championed industrious Spanish-speaking immigrants—from Mexico, Ecuador, and other Central and South American countries—who are cooks and chefs in many United States restaurants,
I really like Salmon. Try to avoid thinking about how they are killed for my pleasure. 😐
But my Dad and brother have always been keen fishermen. I’ve joined them on charters a few times in Canada and Mexico.
Many times found reasons to avoid those trips in the past. I really fear sea sickness. 🤮
Since my Dad sold his boat, they’ve done two charters a year, most recently out of Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island.
As Pacific salmon numbers decline, it’s gotten increasingly more difficult.
June 2021 they decided to try a new guide in a new area. An interesting and entertaining character.
Captain PETE with my Uncle
We stayed in Port McNeill for 2 nights as Pete lives there. He made the final decision whether to fish out of Port Hardy or Port Alice.
Fishing had been better out of Hardy, so that was the final decision.
It was about a 3.5 hour drive from Parksville to McNeill. Another half hour to Hardy.
We headed north at 6am on the hottest day in thousands of years (at least).
I’ve been to the north of Vancouver Island a few times — but feel I don’t really know the remote, unique area. I’m planning for a couple of weeks bicycle touring. Some day.
It was an hour at full throttle to get to the open fishing area. Seas at the north tip of the island are dangerous. Weather often horrific.
Our day was dead calm, compared to normal.
My family likes to fish for salmon first. Switch to halibut next. We had our limit of 8 Chinook (Spring) salmon (2 / licence) by about 12:30pm.
Pete took us further out about 5 miles to a spot he calls his butthole. It’s a shallow, sandy bottom area.
We ended up catching 4 halibut. They were bigger and much more of a challenge to murder than salmon. The largest halibut required Pete to use his harpoon.
Cost for 4 was about $1600 including 2 nights hotel, charter, fuel.
We brought home well over $1600 worth of fish.
I’d go again. Did not get sea sick.
On return to town we found all restaurants closed. Power failure.
Happily our motel had a huge, noisy generator.
related – Canada has budgeted $647M over 5 years to try to save declining Pacific salmon.
Jude Law is the conspiracy theorist flogging a fake cure.
… The film has received renewed popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are many parallels between the fictitious MEV-1 and COVID-19.
But MEV-1 is much more severe. More like the 1918 Flu.
In a flashback, a bulldozer razes palm trees while clearing a rainforest in China that disturbs the natural habitat of some bats. One bat finds shelter in a pig farm and drops an infected piece of banana, which is eaten by a pig. The pig is slaughtered and prepared by a chef in a Macau casino, who transmits the virus to Beth (Paltrow) in a handshake.
