This past week it happened, I actually met Anthony Bourdain! Well if you consider a brief exchange as actually meeting someone. Nonetheless I met him. After standing on line for over an hour it was my turn to get my book signed. I’m sort of a novice when it comes to book signings, so I can’t help but feel a little awkward when meeting a complete stranger whose books I’ve read. It’s like that episode of Modern Family (great tv show!) when Phil Dunphy was yelling like crazy to get Kobe Bryant’s attention. He didn’t actually believe that Kobe would turn around and listen to what he had to say. When Kobe finally did turn around Phil was shocked. He merely stood there looking like an idiot. That’s exactly how I felt… mute, standing there like an idiot. All my plans to slyly mention that it would be a great idea if he went to Galicia for his show No Reservations ruined in the brief moment of stage fright.
Just when I thought my hopes of seeing Bourdain and friends slurping over a bowl of goose barnacles were shattered, my friend Monica who accompanied me to the event spoke up. She told him, in her carefree manner, that I wanted to tell him to visit Galicia. Of course I’m sure this isn’t the first time he’s heard this piece of advice. I am not naive enough to think that I’m the first one to bring this to his attention, however I did want to show my support for my little piece of the Spanish map so often forgotten by tourists who’d rather sip sangria and watch flamenco. And I was right. This did get his attention. He smiled and told me that he had every intention to go to Galicia for the show. I was relieved and managed to mumble a few words about quiemadas and other strange Celtic rituals before the Barnes & Noble employee shooed us off the stage.
So No Reservations in Galicia, what a great show that would be. All his other Spanish episodes focused a lot on the new haute cuisine and molecular gatronomy that has been taking Spain by storm and revolutionizing the food world, however the Galicia episode could be about regular people eating extraordinarily regular and delicious food. He’d be drinking Albariño and other Rias Baixas wines, eating freshly caught sea creatures like octopus served a la Gallega and percebes those funny looking goose barnacles, the best of which can be found on Galician shores.
