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"When I saw Anthony Bourdain speak last weekend at the Gourmet Institute, someone asked him to talk about the challenges of traveling the world while his wife and small child remain at home. He admitted that it&amp;#039;s hard, and is exactly why shows like &amp;quot;At the Table,&amp;quot; (which aired this past Monday, October 20) get made. Five friends sitting around a table at the Lower East Side restaurant WD-50 talking about food, ethics, economy, experience and celebrity \u2014 this was a close-to-home production, and was surely a much shorter commute to work than the Laos episode.  I wonder if this whole episode was too inside baseball, too food-world snobby? Tony was incendiary, and was unsatisfied with everyone&amp;#039;s answers, while Amy Sacco didn&amp;#039;t do much to prove her worth by coming off as vapid and kooky with her six-pack-a-day voice. Ted Allen, who I like very much, seemed nervous and on-guard, and Chris Wilson was looking so rough-and-tumble I wanted a PA to come out with Visine and save the guy. It was the always brilliant Bill Buford who made the most sense throughout, offering some perspective and analysis to the proceedings.  One thing struck me as very odd: the production values, especially the lighting and background activity, were very distracting! I&amp;#039;m hardly a tech nerd, but there were crazy shadows being thrown around, random dudes (production people, bodyguards?) in the background of every shot, and the whole thing looked weirdly rigged. Considering what those guys pull off in jungles, rivers and souks, I found it strange that the show looked so amateur.  And one more pint of contention (geez, what&amp;#039;s wrong with me?). On the show, Bourdain went on for a bit about street food around the world, and how there&amp;#039;s no good street food in NYC. Well, immediately after I left his talk at the Gourmet Institute, I went to the Vendy Awards, which is a great event sponsored by the Street Vendor Project. At the Vendys I sampled kati rolls, falafel, jerk chicken, tacos, cookies, papusas, ice cream, ginger tea and more, all from New York City street carts. So there! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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