Rabid Anthony Bourdain fans take DC by storm
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
Today, celebrity chef/world traveler/incredibly macho dude Anthony Bourdain made an appearance at Olsson’s bookstore in Washington, D.C. Olsson’s is a scant five minute walk from my seafoam green office cubicle, and although I’m not a die-hard Bourdain fan, I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity.
Bourdain was in town today to promote his latest book, No Reservations. It’s basically a collection of food porn-y (and sometimes Bourdain porn-y) photographs collected while on the road for his show on the Travel Channel. I didn’t realize this until after I handed the cashier my credit card and suddenly found that I had paid 36 dollars for a coffee table book. Yikes.
However, my 36 dollars also bought me a little slip of paper with a number on it. This number ensured me a place in line to get my overpriced photo album signed by the man himself. This would become important later, when it turned out that it was so crowded in the store that I couldn’t actually see Mr. Bourdain the entire time he was speaking.
Olsson’s is a small, independent chain, and Bourdain’s celebrity was definitely too large for the tiny row of folding chairs the set up for the audience. While I’ve always known the DC professional population to be unnecessarily competitive and aggressive (this is what happens when you build a city entirely of lawyers), the lack of seating made for some especially nasty interactions. Read the rest of this entry �
