Anthony Bourdain's Worst Meal Ever!

It was another Sunday when I caught Anthony Bourdain in Namibia. This should be good, anything in Africa promises to be an adventure in dining. Here Tony and the bushman are hunting for their breakfast. No quick stop to the local Starbucks or Mickey D's. Nope, it's dry as dust, what could they possibly be hunting for? Why ostrich eggs of course. Tony has a pang of sympathy (for their meager find) which probably should have lasted a lot longer so he could have come to his senses and bowed out of breakfast with the Bushman, leaving them to consume their precious find, but where's the adventure in that? The Bushman tell Tony that they are going to make breakfast right there on the spot. Humm, says Tony? Right here? Not a kettle or pot within 200 miles. Patience, wait for it. Apparently the Bushman are experts at the spontaneous. They quickly heat the ground with their coals. Carefully they make a hole at the top of the ostrich egg, poke a stick through it to scramble the contents. After the sand is sufficiently hot, they flatten the dirt out in a nice circle. Yikes, where's the fry pan I gasp! The Bushman dump the contents of the egg onto the dirt and then proceed to cover the eggs with more dirt and wood. Ugh! Tony is amazing calm during all this dirt cooking. I would be retching in the bush. What seems like an interminable amount of time to cook, for god sakes, it's just eggs Tony says, the Bushman uncover their meal, a baked dirt frittata. They pry pieces of the ash covered eggs, never you mind that it is covered in ash, dirt and whatever dung might be on the land and eat with relish. Tony however is trying to dust his piece off, what's a little grit among friends? Arguably possibly the worst meal I have ever seen on this show! But wait there's more. A warthog dinner is next to what Tony calls his worst meal ever. How quickly he forgets the baked dirt frittata! Tony goes hunting again, a lot of hunting on this episode, where he actually kills the poor creature. Here he gets to sample some of the more juicy parts of the warthog, namely the rectum and brains. When Tony says the tree beetles were the best thing he ate all day, you know it had to be bad. We don't get to see Tony puke his guts, but I'm sure it was on his mind. And when Tony says it's bad, it's got to be bad. Move over Andrew Zimmern!

The Things My Mother Taught Me

My mother adopted me when she was well into her forties. She was raised in the Great Depression era. Her mother died at an early age. I remember her telling the story of when her mother died and how her lifeless body was put on the dining room table until they were able to take her away and in those days it was not a expedient process. She was fourteen. She married my dad, whom she saw at a USO club and told her girlfriend that she was going to marry that short guy over there. Years later after she had tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant, they were station in Japan and there they went to an orphanage where I was adopted. Their first look at my picture elicited the words, "but I thought we were adopting a girl." "Hai, Hai" said the orphanage director. I was all of three, barefoot, in overalls, and had a bowl haircut. My mom said that when they brought me home, I could speak to the Japanese maid, but I was still terrified of the strange people that brought me there. She said when she went to get me in my room I was no where to be found. They eventually found me hiding in the closet, with my nap sack with my clothes from the orphanage and my one sole possession, a ball. My mother is gone now and I have followed in her footsteps, adopting a little girl from China, paying it forward and on this Mother's Day these are the things my mother taught me.
Always take a sweater in case you get cold

Always pee before you leave the house for a long car trip

A love for all animals

Keeping an open mind and exercise tolerance

Her love of adventure and travel

and most importantly

And her love of home and family

Happy Mother's Day Mom, always in our memories, always in our hearts.