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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Travel Channel’s Bourdain has ‘No Reservations’ about Hawaii
Anthony Bourdain, the chef, writer, drinker, recovering whatever and rock-star travel show host -- not necessarily in that order -- arrived in Hawaii last night for a week of dining, drinking and dashing about.
He's here at the persuasion of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau to shoot an hour-long episode of "No Reservations," for the Travel Channel.
"Strategically we've been trying to go after it for well over a year," said Jay Talwar, HVCB senior vice president of marketing.
"He's just a superstar," Talwar said. Far be it for TheBuzz to disagree.
The term "bad-boy chef" shan't be used by your columnist to describe Bourdain, who disdains anything cliché -- though he definitely has a bad-boy thing goin' on.
The adrenaline junkie of the culinary realm once figured, in narrating a Food Network show on Japan, that if the fugu (pufferfish sashimi) of which he was to partake were poisonous, he'd at least get a little buzz from it.
The word "exotic" doesn't begin to cover some of the other uh, foods, he has sampled.
"He may start with an umbrella drink and mac-nut-crusted (fish), but I think he'll get past that," Talwar said.
Bourdain pulls no verbal punches when he hates something. A Mall of America vendor of deep-fried cheesecake he tasted may well have been scarred for life.
He tends to find seedier aspects of places fascinating, but HVCB PR partner McNeil Wilson Communications Inc., is "steering (producers) toward things that are positive," Talwar said.
The "No Reservations" Hawaii show will likely air this spring.
HPA expands online
The Hawaii Publishers Association has revamped and vastly expanded its Web site as a resource for members, the public and the business community. www.hawaiipublishersassociation.com
"This really is our first true interactive site that encourages members to update content," said President Scott Schumaker. He is also vice president and group publisher for PacificBasin Communications LLC.
HPA's addition of a membership category for online publishers became a "catalyst for us to want to improve on the Web site," said Amy Hammond, executive director.
Publishers have been "printing ink on paper for hundreds of years," Schumaker said, but relatively speaking have published online for "hundreds of hours."
Now that the media is evolving, "the association needs to evolve," he said.
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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com