In his travels, Bourdain expertly relates feasts that simultaneously make your mouth water and your head spin.
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Shawn Roarke is a freelance writer in Keyport, NJ.
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July 2005
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A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines
By Anthony Bourdain
Using his celebrity and riches from the highly successful Kitchen Confidential a year earlier, Bourdain was able to travel the world in a search of the perfect meal—a loosely defined concept that does little more than give the author the freedom to go where he pleases and eat what he wants. Still, the concept works astoundingly well as Bourdain shows that his unique writing style can handle such a demanding task. It doesn't hurt that Bourdain picks some of the most exotic locales and foods to form the basis of his chapters. Still-beating cobra heart in Saigon, sheep testicles in the deserts of Morocco and soft-boiled duck embryo in the outreaches of Vietnam are among the more memorable meals described by Bourdain. But, to fully appreciate Bourdain’s grasp of the importance of uniting good food and good company to make unforgettable meals, the chapters on tapas bar-hopping in Spain and the tasting menu at the legendary French Laundry in Napa Valley, Calif., are the most poignant offerings in the book.
—A favorite book of Shawn Roarke
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