Anthony Bourdain Speaks

Anthony Bourdain has once again expressed his opinions on a variety of topics.
We like Anthony, we enjoy reading his views on the world and everyone in it, so here goes:

His thoughts on vegetarians: "They make for bad travelers and bad guests. The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, 'I'm not interested,' or you're unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don't understand that, and I think it's rude. You're at Grandma's house, you eat what Grandma serves you."

His feelings toward vegans: "I don't have any understanding of it. Being a vegan is a first-world phenomenon, completely self-indulgent."

As far as to why he only smokes marijuana on the road: "When I'm in New York, I'm a dad. I'm with my daughter, or I have to be available for her, and I want to keep an active brain. If somebody suddenly calls up and says, 'Your daughter needs you,' and I'm in a position to do something about it, I'm not going to be, like, 'Oh, dude, wow, what do I do?' If I'm sitting in the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Desert, though, and it's two in the morning, we've finished shooting with a tribe of bedouins and my crew and I want to stagger up a dune and smoke some hash and look at the moon, that's a nice thing. Who is it hurting?"

On why he'll never do hard drugs again: "I had a long and extraordinarily painful relationship with heroin and, following that, methadone. Having physically kicked it, I would greatly prefer not to have to go through that again. When I remember the good times and the good feelings on heroin, sure, but when I think about the bad, it hurts and I don't ever want to go through that again. I'm clear about it. Same with cocaine. Honestly, it's not a day-to-day struggle. No. It's (effing) bad. I don't want to do it again. It was humiliating; it brought me low."

How about his fellow celeb chefs?




Emeril Lagasse: "As I've said to him many times, 'I hated your show, dude.' I made my career making fun of the poor b*stard. I miss him now. He has good restaurants and is a good chef, but the stuff he made on TV was ridiculous."



Bobby Flay: "Again, an accomplished restaurateur. But I don't understand why these guys would make this candy-colored sort of crowd-pleasing television. Why would they compromise themselves so much?"



Wolfgang Puck: "Listen, I'm not eating in his (crummy) pizza restaurants. I think it's bull----, and it breaks my heart to see him on QVC or whatever, but the fact is he paid his dues. He's an important guy. It's an Orson Welles thing: He made Citizen Kane, so it doesn't matter what he does after that. If Wolfgang Puck wants to open crappy pizzerias in airports all over America, that's (effing) fine. Wolfgang was a guy who changed things for chefs. You don't have to be on TV—everybody knew who Wolfgang was. It was about the chef now."



Mario Batali: "He's a monster of rock and roll. He's done everything right from the beginning. Mario's managed to balance making a lot of money, opening a lot of restaurants, world domination and his personal happiness and quality of life in a remarkable way. He's the smartest chef there is. There is no chef smarter or funnier or faster."

Vegan couple sentenced to life over baby's death

Charged: Lamont Thomas and Jade Sanders

The Vegan couple who only fed their newborn son soy milk and apple juice have lost out trying to have their murder convictions overturned.

Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, had appealed against their conviction four years ago over the death of their six-week-old son who starved to death.

The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of these two who claimed they were sticking to their beliefs over food.

The two parents had rushed their malnourished son to hospital after he began to have trouble breathing back in 2005.
Doctors declared him dead on arrival after failing to resuscitate him.

When police searched the couple's flat in Fulton County, Georgia, they found a soy milk bottle, an apple juice bottle and a rancid-smelling baby bottle caked with debris.

As a result of their lifestyle, their son weighed only three-and-a-half pounds when he died, aged six months

Prosecutors said an investigation revealed the two only fed their baby soy milk and apple juice, and had failed to seek medical treatment when their young son was wasting away.

In her appeal, Sanders' lawyer argued the evidence wasn't strong enough to support the verdict.

And Thomas' lawyer claimed his trial attorney was ineffective because he failed to call an expert to support his theory that his son's death was linked to cystic fibrosis and not starvation.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeal and said the conviction was a go.

Bill Clinton, The Vegan

President Bill Clinton, 65, says he only eats a plant-based diet these days.

The former president has gone from a meat eater to a vegan, the strictest form of a vegetarian diet. He says he eats fruits, vegetables and beans, but no red meat, chicken or dairy.

He talked about his plant-based diet last year, saying he lost 24 pounds on it for his daughter's wedding.

He says,"It's turning a ship around before it hits the iceberg, but I think we're beginning to turn it around."

Actually, we think he looks more like Bob Barker (photo below left) than he does Bill Clinton in the photo above.

But Bob Barker doesn't eat meat either, so it's all the same to us.

Vegan parents charged in child's death

Some of our readers insist on repeating the mantra, "Go Vegan" in hopes to inspire the Vegan lifestyle.

Well, two vegans who fed their 11-month-old daughter only mother's milk went on trial in northern France charged with neglect after their baby died suffering from vitamin deficiency.

Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou, (Sergine in the photo above) whose vegan diet forbids consuming any animal product including eggs and cow's milk, called the emergency services in March 2008 after becoming worried about their baby Louise's lack of energy.

When the ambulance arrived at their home the baby was already dead.

The ambulance workers called the police because the child was pale and thin, weighing 5.7 kilos (12.5 pounds) compared to an average eight kilos for her age.

The baby was fed only her milk from her mother, and the autopsy showed that Louise was suffering from a vitamin A and B12 deficiency which experts say increases a child's sensitivity to infection and can be due to an unbalanced diet.

"The problem of vitamin B12 deficiency could be linked to the mother's diet," said Anne-Laure Sandretto, deputy prosecutor in the city of Amiens where the trial is taking place.

The parents became vegan after seeing "a television program about how cattle were taken to abattoirs," said the mother's lawyer.

 It seems they distrust traditional medicine and prefer to treat their children using their own methods, which they read in books.

"The couple did not follow the doctor's advice to hospitalize the baby who was suffering from bronchitis and was losing weight when they went for the nine-month check-up,"

"They preferred applying clay or cabbage poultices whose recipes they found in their books. These are people who read the wrong thing at the wrong time," the lawyer said..

The parents are still vegan and "are completely aware of the mistake they made," said the father's lawyer.

The couple has been charged with "neglect or food deprivation followed by death" and face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Pumpkins - Vegetable or Fruit?

With Halloween just around the corner it's time we once again ask the important question:

Is your Halloween pumpkin is a vegetable or a fruit?

We went over this last year, but for those of you that weren't around, let's explore once again.

The answer is the same as a tomato, and that's because pumpkins and tomatoes have something in common?

Here's a hint, it's in the above photo.

They both have seeds, right?

This, of course, makes pumpkins and tomatoes both fruit.

But wait there's more...

It also makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and walnuts all fruits as well. Right?

The answer is also based on the parts of the plant involved.

Besides the seeds, basically, fruits are developed from flowers, vegetables are not.

Vegetables are not made from flowers; instead, they are the plant's roots (carrots), stems (celery), leaves (cabbage) and other edible parts of a plant.

It's common to refer to these fruits as vegetables:

* Pumpkin

* Squash

* Tomato

* Cucumbers

* Green beans

* Hot peppers

* Bell peppers

If you are speaking in culinary terms, you can call these fruits vegetables, even though  they are actually fruits.

The United States Supreme Court back in 1883 had some extra time on their hands and entered a legal verdict on whether a tomato should be classified as a vegetable or a fruit.

They decided unanimously, in Nix versus Hedden, that a tomato is a vegetable, even though it is still a fruit.

Another way to determine whether it is a vegetable or a fruit is after being picked a Fruit will ripen, and a vegetable will rot.

Prove you're not anti vegan

After the interesting debate following the post: "Plants like everything else fights to survive," we received a few orchestrated suggestions from our vegan friends to watch someone named Elaine on youtube.
The offer was for us to make a video proving we don't hate vegans or vegetarians.
We don't recall ever saying we hated vegans or vegetarians, but not to be bothered with minor details, the emails still challenged us to decide what kind of people we are.
Apparently we need to prove if we are kind or if  we are killers.
It seems the debate unnerved a few people and now some vegetarians want us to explain ourselves.
We watched the video and sorry people, we aren't sure what Elaine is talking about, she was all over the place.
She make one thing clear however, debate is forbidden unless we compromise our standards and make a video proving we aren't anti vegan.
Really, what does she care?
But, here's our suggestion instead:
Elaine needs to read the post "Plants like everything else fights to survive,"and all the comments, then she needs to make a coherent video.

Here she is: