Bourdain’s Field Notes
Who are we and where do we come from? To what extent are we the sum of our parts? I wonder about stuff like that. My friend Marcus Samuelsson pondered exactly those things as he and his wife Maya took me back to Ethiopia, to the towns they were born–and told me their fascinating stories.
I’d been meaning and hoping to visit Ethiopia and make a show there for years. But I would never consider doing it without Marcus coming along to put a personal spin on things. It’s always better, I think, when we can see a new or unfamiliar place through a specific set of eyes, to have a particular voice telling us about a place. Marcus, of course, is a very well-known and respected chef with a number of businesses. I had to wait a few years for the schedules of two very busy people to align, but we got there in the end.