Between the drinking and the flames, it's testament to his endurance that Anthony Bourdain managed to cook during a hell-bent tour of Vancouver.

6:45 A.M., NOVEMBER 5 Five of us are standing outside the Opus Hotel. Not for the last time, I yearn for my nice, quiet bed. (And I don't even know about the fire, the stalker, or the drugs yet.) We're holding cardboard containers of chef Don Letendre's cassoulet, which Anthony Bourdain will be nuking for television in a few hours, but first things first. The man needs a cigarette.

If you follow food, you probably know something about him: bad boy of cooking, citizen of the world but staunch New Yorker, former junkie, Food Network celebrity, once ate a beating cobra's heart, hates vegetarians and Emeril Lagasse, et cetera. You might also know he smokes. A lot.

6:46 A.M. Cigarettes lit, Bourdain and personal assistant Beth Aretsky step into the minivan. Bourdain cracks open a window, then the cassoulet, and frowns. The guy's done a lot of TV, and under the lights, this is going to look dry. At least, I'm guessing that's what "Needs brown jizz" means. Aretsky, who's a former cook herself, disappears back into the hotel, returning a few minutes later with a cup of demi-glace and some chervil. Publicist Selina Rajani starts up the Bourdain bus.

6:52 A.M. New Yorkers don't wear seat belts.

6:53 A.M. It's a quiet ride over to Breakfast Television. The night before, some of Vancouver's top chefs cooked Bourdain a gastronomic snapshot of the region. What does one make for the king of exotica? Letendre (Elixir) brought bunderfleish, Tojo Hidekazu (Tojo's) served sablefish, Edward Tuson (Sooke Harbour House) ladled Sicilian seafood soup, Vikram Vij (Vij's) surprised with jackfruit, David Hawksworth (West) lavished with quail and foie gras, Pino Posteraro (Cioppino's) braised wild boar, Alice Spurrell (Les Amis du Fromage) got funky with cheese, and Thomas Haas (Sen5es) popped tarts. Of course, matching wines and sake accompanied... We don't talk.

7:15 A.M. In the green room stands a guy in red leather pants. At this hour! Later, we hear it's Mike Reno. No way: the guy from Loverboy! Sure enough, he does that fingers-crossed-behind-his-back thing, and we can't get "Working for the Weekend" out of our heads for the rest of the day. Loverboy still tours?

7:40 A.M. Bourdain goes on camera to cook frisée aux lardons from Les Halles Cookbook (Raincoast Books, $49.95), his new collection of traditional bistro recipes culled from his Manhattan restaurant, Brasserie Les Halles (www.leshalles.net/). Meanwhile, I recall a chat he had with Scottish mystery novelist Ian Rankin. Rankin: "You're never going to do one of those chef books are you, where it's just all recipes?" Bourdain: "Yeah, I'm going to be doing the Jamie Oliver Christmas special, sitting in a hot tub together, long massages and Santa hats... No I don't think so." (For that matter, he once wrote: "Recipes are a prison. I hate fucking recipes.")

8 A.M. Back in the van, we compare food movies (Big Night, Mostly Martha, Dinner Rush, Eat Drink Man Woman, Tampopo). His fave is La Grande Bouffe. We also talk about the films he ripped off for the two seasons of his Cook's Tour series on Food TV--Apocalypse Now (Vietnam), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Australia)--and poser writers who dramatize heroin: Michael Marshall, Jim Carroll. Bourdain: "I mean, I wanted to become a heroin addict. You have to work pretty hard. You've got, like, a good month."

8:20 A.M. We arrive at Shaw Cable in North Vancouver. It turns out there are waffles in those cardboard boxes, too. Breakfast! War historian Gwynne Dyer is Fanny Kiefer's other guest, and he and Bourdain and their posses briefly collide. When Bourdain gets on camera, Kiefer asks the usual questions: is there anything you wouldn't eat, are you such a bad boy, what country makes the best food. Then one about his wife, Nancy. Silence. "Next question." Meanwhile, an epiphany hits me. "You're not the Grill Bitch, are you?" I ask Aretsky. She is! Bourdain wrote about her in Kitchen Confidential: "A long-time associate, Beth, who likes to refer to herself as the 'Grill Bitch', excelled at putting loudmouths and fools into their proper place....One sorry Moroccan cook who pinched her ass found himself suddenly bent over a cutting board with Beth dry-humping him from behind, saying, 'How do you like it, bitch?' The guy almost died of shame."

9:25 A.M. Cigarettes light before the doors are shut.

9:26 A.M. It's been a while since Bourdain cooked and Vancouver is day one of a 20-day, 14-city North American tour. He reviews cheat sheets, though Adrienne O'Callaghan, a professional cook (and contributor to this page), is at the Citytv studio, prepping what he'll demo on CityCooks. The cell rings. Someone needs his help sourcing foie gras. Calls are made.

10:10 A.M. Filming starts and stops for three segments: leeks vinaigrette, moules Normandes, steak tartare. He's flawless, and clearly practised in front of the camera. He's a consummate writer, too, in both Goodfellas-type fiction and foodie nonfiction. He once said, "There's a lot of similarities between cooking and writing. Both require endurance and consistency, and both are show business."

11:01 A.M. The floor crew falls on the food. We're surrounded by French cooking, there are at least three professional chefs in this room, and I've had nothing but cardboard coffee and half an Elixir waffle for over three hours.

11:20 A.M. Barbara-jo McIntosh, owner of Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks, joins us at Phnom Penh. This is a tricky moment. I'm vegetarian and Bourdain is...not. From Kitchen Confidential: "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for." Lunch is much-enjoyed hot-and-sour soup with prawns, crab rolls with beef, a deep-fried seafood dish, and steamed lotus root. I focus on a number of megawatt coffees with condensed milk.

11:50 A.M. Discussing Cambodia and Vietnam, Bourdain reveals he's planning to move for a year to "a little fishing village in south-central Vietnam".

12:20 P.M. We arrive at CBC for an interview with The Roundup. A camera crew from ZeD joins us and he's surrounded. The Grill Bitch and I need a break, though Bourdain's going strong. I go off in search of a power shake.

1:59 P.M. We converge on the VCC loading bay. The crowd out front is huge, between 300 and 350 people.

2:14 P.M. We have coffee in a private dining room. Students drift through and request signings. Bourdain obliges. He receives an honourary diploma.

2:30 P.M. Event host Sheryl MacKay and I do the book club. A demure-looking student comes up to the mike halfway through and tells Bourdain, "You don't seem like such an asshole." I watch him encourage a young guy to boost a copy of Les Halles Cookbook. The many VCC students are enthusiastic, and Bourdain, who started as a dishwasher, is stern but loving. Practise, he tells them. Work for good chefs anywhere, for any money. A woman asks if constant smoking has dulled his palate. "Yes, that's why God made salt." An odd fellow tries to get up for three questions; he seems unsteady on his feet...

3:51 P.M. Signings, many photos with smiling students.

4:08 P.M. Bourdain spots a bunch of kids in kitchen whites outside. We stop to chat; knife wounds are compared.

4:15 P.M. We duck into the Marine Club for a beer. The place is near-deserted, and perhaps the most inept drug deal I've ever witnessed unravels at a nearby table. We laugh.

5:01 P.M. An interview in Bourdain's suite. He discusses the new version of A Cook's Tour, which he's about to begin shooting for the Travel Network. The plan is more touring, more eating, no script. He'd take himself off-camera if he could. "The weakest part of the show is when I'm in it. It should ideally be an expensive home movie" of the native cultures.

5:58 P.M. Downstairs, 172 people have paid $95 to get a signed copy of Les Halles. We begin to drink, for which Bourdain has a legendary capacity. It becomes clear the GB is no slouch either. We drink vodka and tonics, though some rowdy fans bring him tequila shooters. Each guest has 90 seconds; everyone seems happy to have shaken his hand. A woman tells me she left North Delta at 2:30 to get here in time.

7:32 P.M. Upstairs, a small reception (champagne, not part of the vodka strategy) brings travel and lifestyle writers from the U.K. We smell smoke and all eyes turn to Bourdain. "It's not me! For once, it's not me!" A benighted local journalist has managed to light his jacket on fire. Again, we laugh.

8:28 P.M. A signing at Bar None goes on. Vodka and tonic. Other B.C. specialties. Grill Bitch tells the DJ to stop playing that irritating music. (She's right.) Two hundred people line up. One of them is the swaying fellow we saw at VCC. Security is alerted. Fans bring Bourdain scotch, more shooters. He switches to Red Bull.

10:20 P.M. Dinner! Hosted by Hamilton Street Grill owner-chef Neil Wyles are dozens of local members of eGullet, an international on-line group devoted to food. (Menu and reports on-line at forums.egullet.org/index.php?show
topic=48066.) Bourdain is swarmed. I switch from vodka to red wine. (Screw the strategy.) Some Vancouver magazine promo video starts up, and we bolt.

11:30 P.M. (?) Back to Bar None for a last beer. Walking down the street, he's recognized. In the club, he's recognized. Twenty-eight years of standing in kitchen obscurity, and now he's suddenly...famous.

12:10 A.M. (?) Back to Elixir. Being sensible, we stick to one last vodka. Okay, two.

12:50 A.M. In the cab home, I open my copy of Kitchen Confidential. He's inscribed it: "To John, a guy with the endurance of a cook." I earned that.