Why I’d Have Trouble Making It As a Real Magazine Writer

I’d have trouble writing lines like this one from Washingtonian‘s profile of Anthony Bourdain:

Despite his undying hatred of celebrity-chef culture, Bourdain, still affiliated with French bistro chainlet Les Halles, has reached Emeril-like levels of popularity. Tickets to what was essentially a book-promo talk on Wednesday night sold for $28 a pop, and most of the 1,490 seats at Lisner Auditorium were full. Known best for Kitchen Confidential, his best-selling 2001 exposé on the knife-flinging, drug-addled subculture of restaurant kitchens, Bourdain now eats his way around the world for Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, his show on the Travel Channel. (A picture-heavy book based on the series was just released.)

He hates celebrity chef culture, but he’s a chef who’s written a best-selling book, has a cable television series, lectures to audiences of over a thousand, and sits down for magazine profiles in which he riffs on Nigella Lawson and the Barefoot Contessa. Plus: he appears on Top Chef. But he’s managed to achieve all this despite his hatred for celebrity chef culture, a truly remarkable achievement!

It seems to me, though, that eight-five percent of celebrity profiles I read feature some line about how much the being-profiled celebrity loathes the limelight.

UPDATE: Look, I like Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential is a great fun book, I watch No Reservations sometimes and Top Chef always, etc., but we just shouldn’t take his affected disdain for celebrity chefs all that seriously.