Anthony Bourdain, by his own account, dove deeply into the experience of life, so deeply he couldn’t find the surface at times. Reading his book, Kitchen Confidential, and watching his show, Parts Unknown, he is an authentic participant in the blurred edges of life and a reverent witness to the experience of others at those blurred edges. To read Bourdain’s description of life as a chef in New York restaurants is to be both horrified and tantalized. How someone can make an experience seem simultaneously soul sucking and life giving is beyond me, but Bourdain does just that. On his show, he visits countries that are in the throes of dictatorship, countries that are steeped in ancient rituals and customs that reject the Western Capitalist Ideal. Rather than comment on his subjects, he bears witness to their experience. He dances with his personas of participant and witness, without the self-consciousness of a journalist or a TV personality. He is simply himself and he doesn’t hide it. Spending time seeing the world from Bourdain’s perspective has me wondering how he would have seen the scent work experience. Would he have dismissed it as shallow play, or would he have detected the presence of blurred edges, authenticity, messiness and chaos? We’ll never know, but I’m resolved to seek out the kind of scent work experience that Bourdain would have felt right at home in, the real kitchen, the true unknown, the tantalizingly horrific beauty of real world scent work.
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The Meez – Iron Chef or Kitchen Confidential
Bourdain describes a Chef’s ingredients, tools and work space as ‘mise-en-place’ or ‘meez’. In the real world, every kitchen is set up differently – some are roomy, some are cramped, some force kitchen staff to constantly cross paths, some are well mapped out. You never know what you’re going to get. Further, in real kitchens, the ingredients are not always stocked – a delivery may be late, a rush may temporarily deplete supplies and no one has time to get to the restock area.
Game show kitchens, like the Iron Chef set, are aesthetically and practically perfect when it comes to ‘meez’ – the chef has a generous footprint from which to prep, cook, plate, etc. There are no traffic jams, no concerns over sharing space. The ingredients are plentiful and guaranteed to be in stock – and conveniently located.
In Bourdain’s real world kitchen, time is of the essence, and quality food must be served, but the battle being fought is for the opportunity to cook again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. To win that battle, many sacrifices will be made and there may even be some outright losses, resulting in a complete reset with a new kitchen and a whole new set of real world variables. Problem-solving and survival are prized above all else.
In the game show world, time is of the essence and quality food must be served. Full stop. That’s what’s happening. You try to cook fast and cook well and hope you’re judged to be the best of the fast cooks with well cooked food. You’re not slinging 600 meals, contending with myriad unseen problems, enduring less than ideal conditions, all to return tomorrow and do it again. You’re handling one challenge at a time in ideal conditions – under pressure, yes – likely not returning until a later date with plenty of prep time.
At first glance, the Iron Chef, game show version of cooking seems like the preferred experience. But, to go along with Bourdain on the ride of real world kitchen life is to see the game show for what it is: a scripted experience with very little chance of risk and reward. The real world kitchen is intense and exhausting, foreboding and opaque, yet exhilarating and life giving – life changing. Playing games is all well and good, but somehow, the juice of life has to be there or the game seems like an affront to the players.
Your Scent Work Meez For The Day: Try a multi-level parking garage with an open staircase (bonus points for a staircase located in the center of the garage) and place a hide one level up from wherever you plan to start your search. Let your dog work from the car. This kind of search has you feeling the heat, but not getting out of the kitchen. Like a garde-manger who has run out of tomatoes for the salad, your dog will have to make it to the stock room to re-up on cherry reds – no matter how long it takes.
Bonus Meez: Using the same parking garage (same or different day) place 4 hides all within 10ft of each other around the vehicle you keep your dog in. Without holding your dog in the area of the 4 hides, go on the journey of navigating a crowded kitchen of sources with him. Can he hang on to each scent trail, source after source? Or does he have to get outta the kitchen for a “smoke break”? Take as much time as you need. Unlike a game show, where the time eventually runs out, you gotta work this search until it’s plated and ready for service.
The Queez – Tools of the Trade
The first food processors to be in wide use in real world kitchens were made by Cuisinart, and just like Kleenex, all food processors became known as Queez, regardless of brand. According to Bourdain, a chef can enhance his performance and experience with quality tools. A good Chef’s knife, an offset serrated knife, thick bottomed pots and pans, a useful low boy refrigerator at your station – all things equal, it’s nice to have nice things. That said, in the real world, these items are not always affordable or in working order or available at all times. One needs to be well-versed in the art of making do.
In the game show world, you get all the tools of the trade and then some. You have so much optionality you are enticed to create new and different dishes. This is a great feature of the game show kitchen. Yet, this does not guarantee creative success. Quite the opposite. Too many available options can be overwhelming. It’s often better to have creativity forced through necessity.
In scent work, the training realm is a great place to play with lots of tools of the trade. Use drills, exercises, shaping techniques, etc. See if something creative can come from optionality. If you’re not experiencing creative, exciting results in your teamwork, let the real world work its magic. Make it harder to use your training tools, allow for the environment to dictate the choices you need to make. Let creativity come from necessity.
Search challenge – What if your favorite queez breaks down?: The “what if? game is best played with friends and involves a known search environment and hide locations. Just before your search begins, you’re dealt a handicap, like, “what if you couldn’t use your leash, but you had to be physically connected to your dog?” You need to come up with a solution on the spot, like using your belt or your shoelaces, or just hanging onto your dog’s collar for the whole search.
La Puta Vida! – This Bitch of a Life
A game show can be a struggle, it can be a failure, it can just feel like an awful experience. But, it’s a game. It’s over when it’s over. Struggle and failure in a real world kitchen can mean game over in a literal sense. The restaurant may fold, you may get fired, there may be an urgent need to reinvent yourself. Bourdain touches on the highs and lows of the real world kitchen and the ways in which kitchen staff use gallows humor to process the very real possibility that everything as they know it will end today. When he uses the phrase, ‘This Bitch of a Life’, he is using it to loving describe the best and worst of the real world kitchen experience. If it were truly a miserable existence, he wouldn’t return day after day. It’s a real existence. One with true risk and reward.
In scent work, we want the competition experience, but we don’t want the true risk reward of ‘This Bitch of a Life’. Maybe there are good reasons for some of us to look to scent work as a candy coated escape, but the majority of us would admit that we like the reward when it’s earned in an environment of true risk. It’s a real art to bring the real world kitchen experience to the scripted set of the game show. The risk is worth the reward.
Your scent work dish of the day: reduction of teamwork on a plank of pine wood… find yourself adjoining rooms and place two hides in one of the rooms. place a bench or chair just outside of the room you place the hides in. When you bring your dog to search, proceed directly to the bench or chair, sit down and release your dog to search. Stay seated until your dog finds a hide (get up, pay and return to the bench, or have a friend pay).
Note what it’s like to have your teamwork disrupted. Does your dog hang in the room without hides because that’s where you are? Does your dog work odor, but not proceed to sourcing and indicating? Or, does your dog go about business as usual?
Extra credit, dessert dish: odor with a side of schmear. Have a friend take some of your reward and drag it along a surface in the search area (up the side of a cabinet, along a seam in the concrete, across a car bumper), then have your friend place a hide somewhere in the same search area. See if you can observe your dog correctly and read your dog in odor and indicating source vs getting a whiff essence of liver treat. Make sure to check with your friend before you reward your dog.
There are many other ways that teamwork can be tested, trampled, energized, fortified, rebirthed, etc. It’s all about setting aside aspirations of perfection and bringing some life to the game of scent work.
On June 8, 2018, Anthony Bourdain took his own life. Through his cooking, his books, and his television work, he allowed those of us who don’t have the stomach for the grit and danger of cutthroat kitchens, unstable countries, and unknown cuisines to ride on his shoulder as he boldly, humbly, lovingly revealed to us that real people live in every part of the world; that food connects us all and that you should love the hell out of whatever you love.
Barack Obama said of a meal he shared with Bourdain in Vietnam:
“‘Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer.’ This is how I’ll remember Tony. He taught us about food – but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him.”
Do Anthony Bourdain a solid, be a little less afraid of the unknown parts of the scent work experience. Connect with your dog, with your environment, with the people you meet in your classes, trials, and practice outings to parking garages. Be thankful for La Puta Vida.
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