WELCH, W.Va. (AP) - Anticipation built up last Sunday evening as Linda and Bob McKinney watched their television and waited for a special show to come on. Thanks to a guest they had over for dinner last October, millions of people were about to visit their home and get a look at McDowell County.

The reason for their anticipation was easy to understand. Television personality Anthony Bourdain and the crew of his show “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” visited the McKinney home in October 2017 to shoot part of a season premiere featuring West Virginia.

The CNN show’s producers had learned about Linda McKinney’s Italian heritage and how she fed people not only with her cooking skills, but with her work at the Five Loaves and Two Fishes Food Bank in nearby Kimball, so they asked if Bourdain could visit her home and have dinner.

The house was busy as 8 p.m. arrived. Linda and Bob’s son Joel and girlfriend Melissa were getting ready to leave with their 3-month-old son, Xavier. Son-in-law J.D. Belcher pointed out that, technically, Xavier was on the show, too. Melissa was pregnant with him when Bourdain visited the home.

Linda and Bob’s daughter Jina, J.D., and their 3-year-old daughter Norah were getting ready to leave, too, but they planned to watch the show. Norah was filmed at the food bank’s greenhouse, and she told her friends about it. All the family planned to watch the show somewhere; everybody had to be at work or in school Monday.

Linda was excited as she served her guests cake and other treats. She told the story of how Bourdain borrowed and then lost Bob’s miners lunch bucket. Bob had worked 32 years in coal mines. Bourdain wanted to have a bucket with him when he went into a coal mine.

“It was an old one, anyway, but he wanted one that looked kind of old,” Bob recalled. “The producer came back the next day or the day after that and said that he lost it. I said he could autograph my bucket, but he lost it.”

But Bourdain did make a good impression.

“This guy, he was down home. When he came in the door, he looked like anybody else. He warmed up real quick,” Bob remarked.

Norah got ready to leave. “Come over here and give Poppy some love,” Bob said. She hugged Bob and soon they were on their way.

“Bye, baby doll!” Linda told Norah.

“Bye!” Norah chimed happily. She hoped to see herself picking “tommy toes” or little tomatoes on television.

“I’m anxious to see what actually got on here,” Bob said as he glanced at the television.

Then 9 p.m. approached. Linda and Bob watched the television from the same dining room table where they ate with Bourdain. The show’s crew was there for two hours, and after Bourdain left, they stayed behind to clean up and ate the leftovers, Linda recalled.

The show started. It opened with a high school football game.

“That’s Mount View homecoming,” Linda noted.

Bourdain talked about negativity and drug abuse. A Veterans Day parade was shown going down a street. Then the screen went to Bourdain eating food and scenes of him in other countries.

“He looks young there,” Linda said.

Bourdain started his West Virginia visit in McDowell County. He spoke about how there was a world 600 miles away from downtown Manhattan, and that place was McDowell County.

Linda’s cellphone rang suddenly. She answered it and smiled. It was U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

“Hi, Senator Manchin, How are you? Yea, I’m excited. He better make me look good. They better offer me a cooking show . well, thank you, it really means a lot for you to call me.” She hung up. “He’s my buddy.”

“He’s got her cell number and she’s got his,” Bob said.

Bourdain told viewers that what he found in McDowell County was heartbreaking and beautiful, everything wrong and everything wonderful about America.

Then Bourdain quickly pointed out that he wasn’t presenting “a poverty porn show.” He spoke of the billions of dollars taken out of the mountains and McDowell County’s past. Soon Bourdain was in Bob and Linda’s home, watching as Linda, who he described as a true coal miner’s daughter, cooked a chicken dish.

Linda and Bob watched intently. Soon Bourdain had spaghetti pizza and heard about Joel’s work in hydroponics. He heard about the entrepreneurs working in the state to solve local problems.

The show paid a visit to the Five Loaves and Two Fishes during a food distribution. Bob led a prayer as people lined up. Soon the show was back at Linda and Bob’s table, and they were saying grace.

“This is our home, we love it here, we’re very close to our church,” Linda told Bourdain.

The show returned to Mount View High School. Linda and Bob recognized school bus driver Thomas Bell, and Bourdain talked to students. One young man hoped to be a journalist and another wanted a career in engineering.

“Can you see okay?” Bob asked Linda.

“Yes,” Linda assured him.

“Very good so far, nothing but positive,” Bob said of the show.

A local musician, Alan Johnson of Premier, also known as Cathead, sang for the show. Bob and Linda knew him.

“Alan’s an awesome writer, singer,” Linda said. “He can play almost any instrument.”

While touring West Virginia, Bourdain visited a coal mine, observed a demolition derby-like sport called rock-bouncing, and enjoyed “signature Appalachian dishes” according to the show’s website.

Linda said she would have Bourdain back in her home again.

“He’s welcome here anytime. Anyone is welcome. We always welcome people to eat in our home,” Linda said.

But one part gave them pause. A stripper did a dance while a woman read a poem about the mines.

“Where are those girls, they sure ain’t here!” Linda remarked.

“That’s not any in McDowell,” Bob said.

Linda got a text from one of her children and she laughs. “They followed prayer with strippers?” she said, reading the text. It seems her children knew about the stripper, but she was from Charleston. McDowell County doesn’t have any strip clubs, Bob and Linda said.

The show went into guns around West Virginia and gun ownership. Linda and Bob watched as Bourdain descended into a coal mine. Bob watched for his lost bucket.

“Anthony, bring back Bob’s bucket!” Linda said with a laugh.

Bob said that the show was 95 percent positive so far. Linda watched her cellphone as texts arrived. Bourdain was soon on a squirrel hunt with two women. The show focused on the mountain’s beauty. Soon he was eating squirrel, gravy, biscuits and other local foods. Bourdain was told about efforts to grow things on old strip mine land. One woman recalled shooting a deer, dressing and cooking it.

“We’re not a bunch of pregnant women with no teeth,” she remarked.

Then the show returned to McDowell County and the town of Gary, then Mount View High School was back. A shot of Bob and Linda’s house flashed on the screen.

“It’s been very positive to me,” Linda said, but the stripper was a jarring note. “That was a stunner. I think the poem was about McDowell County.”

“They’ve showed life in West Virginia the way it is,” Bob said. “They showed it just like it is.”

Viewers saw McDowell County, Mercer County, Logan County and other parts of the region, and it was shown in an overall good light.

The show wrapped up with the Mount View homecoming game. Linda and Bob watched the ceremonies, cheerleaders, the game and the cheering fans. The show drew to a close as Mount View came back from behind and won.

“This is southern West Virginia, and it’s been positive,” Linda concluded.

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Information from: Bluefield Daily Telegraph, http://www.bdtonline.com

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