Journal Entry 1 by editorgrrl from New Haven, Connecticut USA on Tuesday, December 06, 2005

I just bought a bunch of audiobooks to "read" while I knit. Read by the author on 6 CDs. Abridged; approximately 6.5 hours. Listen to an excerpt at harpercollins.com. Reading guide available at readinggroupguides.com.

From the back of the box
The only thing Tony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling, and A Cook's Tour is the shotgun marriage of his two greatest passions. Inspired by the question, 'What would be the perfect meal?', Tony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail.

Our adventurous chef starts out in Japan, where he eats traditional Fugu, a poisonous blowfish which can be prepared only by specially licensed chefs. He then travels to Cambodia, up the mine-studded road to Pailin into autonomous Khmer Rouge territory and to Phnom Penh's Gun Club, where local fare is served up alongside a menu of available firearms. In Saigon, he's treated to a sustaining meal of live Cobra heart before moving on to savor a snack with the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta. Further west, Kitchen Confidential fans will recognize the Gironde of Tony's youth, the first stop on his European itinerary. And from France, it's on to Portugal, where an entire village has been fattening a pig for months in anticipation of his arrival. And we're only halfway around the globe...

A Cook's Tour recounts, in Bourdain's inimitable style, the adventures and misadventures of America's favorite chef.

From AudioFile
Dodging minefeilds in Cambodia, diving into the icy waters outside a Russian bath, chef Bourdian travels the world over in search of the ultimate meal.

If anyone could sell you on the idea of drinking cobra bile, it's this flamboyant chef. His con gusto reading of his second book (the first was Kitchen Confidential) may alternately delight and dismay you. As he eats and drinks his way around the globe, Bourdain describes the slaughter of a pig in Portugal with almost the same enthusiasm as he has for the makings of near ideal repasts in Vietnam or the Napa Valley. Nothing about his reporting is half-baked; he bestows praise (upon Scotland's native foods) and disdain (upon vegans) with equal vigor. So much of his personality comes through that you can't imagine anyone else in the performing role. The abridged itinerary jumps from one continent to another--more pauses would help. Not for the faint of heart--or stomach. 

Journal Entry 2 by editorgrrl from New Haven, Connecticut USA on Friday, April 28, 2006

I listened to several chapters over & over again, so this took me a while to get through. Spit-milk-out-your-nose funny, in a snarky sort of way. (Tony even cracks himself up sometimes -- at the French Laundry, for one.)