MAY 31, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2015, 2:43 PM
BY ELISA UNG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
tonight, CNN
Globe-trotting chef and Leonia native Anthony Bourdain has brought viewers to his home state before, but this time he wanted to do it differently.
“It’s easy enough to sell New Jersey if you’re going to beautiful farmland and attractive bedroom communities and fine dining,” he said in a recent phone interview. “And I thought, you know what? I’m going to make Jersey look awesome by going to all the places that have been most traditionally screwed.”
So for tonight’s episode of “Parts Unknown,” he features the history and people of Camden, Atlantic City and Asbury Park. And he tries to “make even the refineries look somehow magical,” he said. “That was the challenge — to look at what most people make fun of about New Jersey or look down their noses at, and still sell it as an amazing place brimming with potential and beauty, if you bother to look.”
His first stop? A childhood favorite – the hot dog stand Hiram’s in Fort Lee, where he says he still goes a few times a year with his daughter, Ariane, 8.