This story was in the Buffalo News earlier today
Bourdain’s Buffalo segment to air in July on Travel Channel
By Alan Pergament
NEWS TV CRITIC
Travel Channel host Anthony Bourdain’s visit to Western New York to sample the culinary delights here now has an air date.
According to the July programming highlights released by the cable network Friday, Buffalo will be included in a July 27 program that also includes stops in Baltimore and Detroit.Here’s how the network summarizes the episode of Bourdain’s Emmy-nominated series, “No Reservations”: “During the dreary and bleak days of winter, Tony visits Baltimore, Detroit and Buffalo. With his always adventurous sidekick Zamir, Tony samples crab cakes in Baltimore, has a crash-course in Detroit’s pastime, Featherbowling, and meets up with FANatic Nelson Starr to try Buffalo’s signature dish, the beef on weck. Through his travels, Tony learns that these iconic cities have more to offer than just their factories and unique atmospheres. These three cities also hold great people, interesting cultures and amazing food.”
Starr is a local musician who, with filmmaker John Paget, created a three-minute video for a Travel Channel contest in which the prize was a Bourdain visit to the city of the winning entry. Starr was a finalist, which led Bourdain to promise he would eventually come here.
Bourdain, who made good on his promise and reportedly visited Ulrich’s Tavern when he was here, was quoted in January as saying he likes Buffalo.
“Now I see it as a very distinct personality, a very distinct culture with its own architecture, it’s own kinda feel,” he said. “It’s actually a weirdly wonderful place. Even in winter. I think it took me traveling the world to get to that point.”
The fifth season premiere of “No Reservations” is set in Chile and airs at 10 p. m. July 13. The Buffalo episode appears two weeks later.
We'll be organizing a premiere party... details to follow.
JULY 27, set your DVR to record!
Huge article in Buffalo News on our show and website truebluebuffalo.com
03/08/09 10:13 AM
TELEVISION’S POWER TO CAPTIVATE HAS BEEN RECLAIMED BY WESTERN NEW YORKERS IN HOME-GROWN SHOWS FOR INTERNET AND PUBLIC ACCESS CABLE AUDIENCESWestern New York is camera ready for Internet audiences
By Andrew Z. Galarneau
News Staff ReporterTim Tielman is used to being ignored. He’s spent 20 years preaching the virtues of saving empty old buildings in a city with more than its share. “It’s been difficult all these years to convey why a given building is beautiful, or why it should be saved,” said Tielman. “These are concepts that make people’s eyes glaze over.”
The answer, strangely enough, might be Internet television, said Tielman, of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo.
On Tielman’s show “Adventures in Buffaloland,” hosted on the Web site truebluebuffalo.com, the preservationist explains subjects like what the Guaranty Building and St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral can teach you about American architecture.
Showing the viewers archways and other details while Tielman talks, the shows deliver a five-minute dose of insight and banter that avoids information coma, he said. “Infotainment is a derogatory term, but if you don’t convey information in a stimulating or entertaining way, people will not retain it,” he said. “Video can do that.”
Lambasted as an anti-intellectual medium that turns children’s minds to porridge, television’s power to captivate has been reclaimed by Western New Yorkers in home-grown shows for Internet and public access cable audiences. Videos on local newspaper and other media Web sites, as well as talented amateurs and moonlighting professionals, are drawing national attention to Buffalo, helping citizens understand its architectural gems, and to fostering the region’s sense of neighborliness.
In January, television star Anthony Bourdain became the latest to be lured to Buffalo by the power of home-grown television.
With Kenmore musician Nelson Starr in front of the lens, Buffalo documentary filmmaker John Paget crafted a Queen City take on Bourdain’s “No Reservations” franchise. Sardonic asides from Starr, sizzling plates of scrumptious-looking food, and slick editing made an impact in a Travel Channel contest to lure Bourdain and his camera crew.
Starr and Paget’s entry drew more viewers than other contestants, before losing to a Saudi Arabian entry.
But Bourdain still came, as part of a three-city Rust Belt show, landing at Ulrich’s Tavern amid a sea of gawkers.The momentum led Paget to create truebluebuffalo.com, an online channel featuring video podcasts and episodic documentaries for and about Buffalo. His site hosts the food videos made with Starr, Tielman’s preservation primers and other shows to come.
All of which hasn’t made Starr and Paget any money, exactly, unless you count free drinks. Still, when fans are calling for you to be awarded the keys to the city, that couldn’t hurt.
It’s certainly given Starr instant credibility for his online food show, “All-Access Pass,” which dedicated its second, pre-Valentine’s Day episode to the glories of chocolate.
On a frigid February morning, Paget, director of “Alcatraz Reunion” and commercial filmmaker, had arrived at Chow Chocolat early. The Main Street “chocolaterie” had two men playing chess and a handful of chocolate sippers.
“Our point is to try to entertain people,” Paget said. “Beyond that, we want to push people in Buffalo to explore some new, cutting-edge stuff, and sort of reward the people that are doing cool stuff with the publicity our show can give them.”
It’s not a “food critic show,” Paget said. “We’re never going to feature a place that we might end up criticizing. We wouldn’t bother with a restaurant if we didn’t think they were doing cool stuff.”
Starr swept in, in his leather jacket and bangs. “Did you get Zen like shots?” he asked the filmmaker. “Was it an oasis?”
Challenging owner Scott Wisz to produce some chocolate to treat his cold, Starr was handed a demitasse, and sipped as Paget homed in with his hand-held camera.
And again. And again. It’s hard to get it right when you’re trying to convey the sensation of the city’s most luxurious chocolate massaging your palate.
“It’s super, hyper rich,” Starr said of the third cup. “Tastes like you melted down a high quality chocolate bar and made a drink of it.”
He made appropriate noises of appreciation. “This liquid is pouring directly into my bloodstream.”
Later, Starr and Paget headed to the Chocolate Bar on Chippewa Street.
“The whole angle there is we’re going to get drunk on sweets and try to pick up chicks,” said Starr, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. “It’s a chick bar, and chicks love that place.”
Posted Feb. 13, the resulting Valentine’s Day episode, “A Buffalo Love Story,” is laced with slinky tango, decadent chocolate, and shots of Starr swigging a martini as big as his head.
“It looks like I’m going to be alone again on V-day,” Starr says mournfully, offering himself the motivation for chugging the “chocolate megatini.”
“It’s extending my chocolate bender,” Starr offers.
Earlier, Starr headed for Fowler’s Chocolate, to explore the hidden workings of a candy factory, and ogle at sofa-cushion-sized loafs of candy sponge.
Plus, that little swirl on top of chocolates? Ever wonder how they do that?
Well, you’ll just have to watch the show.
Local musician still wooing celebrity chef
By Toni Ruberto
NEWS STAFFNelson Starr is used to having an all-access pass that allows him to go backstage at rock concerts. Now the Buffalo musician is offering others an all-access pass that goes behind the scenes of area restaurants for “a fresh take on Buffalo food and dining” in a new online series.
The series is a spin-off of Starr’s bid to bring the Travel Channel series “Anthony Bourdain — No Reservations” to Buffalo through a contest sponsored by the network. In it, Starr and filmmaker John Paget created a three-minute video touting the culinary delights of Buffalo in the hopes that Bourdain would come to Western New York with his show.
Starr ended up as the runner- up in the contest. Bourdain, however, did promise to come here eventually, and though it hasn’t been confirmed by the network, many sources are reporting that...
I invite EVERYONE to check out the new site that John Paget and I have created:
www.truebluebuffalo.com/tv
Click the link or image above!
Today this article appeared on http://www.buffalorising.com/
Nelson Starr Premiers Local Food Show
Elena Cala Buscarino
January 6, 2009Local musician Nelson Starr made a video plea to the host of the Travel Channel's "Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations" show last March, doing his best to tempt Bourdain here with Buffalo-centric food: Ted's Hot Dogs, Anchor Bar Wings and Beef on Weck at Ulrich's Tavern. Recently, on his own blog, Bourdain said that "some wintry day'" he may make a stop here in Buffalo.
Starr can't say much beyond that the stop will be "soon," completing a triad of events with Starr's stamp on them. Starting this Friday, Starr's own Buffalo-centric food show entitled, All Access Pass with Nelson Starr will be available online, and on Sunday, Starr will make a special musical appearance at 7 PM at Nietzsche's, 248 Allen Street. There's no telling who Starr's special guest(s) might be that day.
Though some balked about Starr's choice of food in the video, thinking he pandered to the lowest common denominator, Starr says, "It's the stuff Buffalo has that others don't. Everyone has pet things, but we had to make the video in 3 minutes or under, and it made sense."
Although music is Starr's life and livelihood--he has a studio, has written compositions for television, co-wrote and published a music book about playing bass and has been inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame--food plays large in his life too.
"I am a passionate foodie kind of guy," Starr says. "It started about 10 to 15 years ago. I cook, but not professionally. I cook for my family every night, explore it--but not too seriously." The inspiration is everywhere for Starr--"We have all of these great restaurants, and then there are these shows, like Iron Chef. I can learn from them, and my cooking has benefited."
Aside from that, Starr has experience with film, and he decided to do All Access Pass in order to incorporate his talents with his favorite subject (next to music). Enter John Paget, an export from Washington State and award-winning filmmaker. Paget's previous films include Almost Elvis and Alcatraz Reunion, for which Starr composed the original score.
"So we're not these green guys who don't know anything about holding up a camera. John's a guy who has done great things in the indie film world. Films come highly respected in that community," Starr said, "and I've been to a lot of film fests. All I can say is that his stuff is really competitive, and I believe in him as an artist. I'm proud and glad to be associated in collaboration with John."
For Starr's debut show, he explored two local favorites: Bistro Europa and Oliver's. "I'm a fan of food shows, into food, and I have a fair amount of respect for peasant food, as Mike from Bistro Europa calls it. I like comfort food and regional cuisine. It has an element of expertise to it, and its reputation is humble, but it's exquisite for what it is."
Starr says he's drawn to "Places doing something singular--things done with an extra bit of uncommon love. I like to see what they have to say to public. We'll also do features on markets and stores. And we plan to focus on cool things. The show will be fun and not just thrown together in a dry, documentary style. It's more modern like No Reservations. Compared to the original tapes for the travel channel, and the footage of the old pink, the new stuff will be longer, more expensive, and done at a much higher level of production."
A large part of the production work went into the animated opening sequence of premier episode.
Only 10 minutes in its entirety, "It's packed with good stuff," Starr says.
Tony's Blog where he explicitly states he'll be doing something with Buffalo and me on No Reservations:
Wrong Again!
By Tony on July 21, 2008 11:06 AM
By Anthony BourdainIt sounded like a truly terrible idea from the get-go -- Solicit video submissions from absolute strangers, pick one of them, and then put myself into said stranger's hands for a week, someplace I've never been. I hadn't been paying attention when the network suggested it, and I looked at the prospect as a far away, slow moving train that would hopefully never arrive and figured that in any case, it could be finessed. If I actually had to go somewhere with a fan, I'd pick someplace close and easy.
But the train was here, now. A decision had to be made. And Buffalo was looking like a mighty strong contender. Out of thousands of often terrifying submissions, dark figures muttering at the camera from blood-freckled cellar rumpus rooms, there were actually a few really good ones. Nelson Starr's admirably deranged ode to Buffalo was a snowy masterpiece -- if limited in its culinary offerings. It had the advantage of being close. And that it kind of "rawked".