RIP - Anthony Bourdain

[Edward64]

Sad to hear. More of a Andrew Zimmern fan on Bizarre Foods but still enjoyed Bourdain.

Anthony Bourdain: Celebrity chef found dead at 61 - BBC News

US celebrity chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain has been found dead in his hotel room, aged 61, of a suspected suicide, CNN reports.

Bourdain was in France working on a shoot for his series, Parts Unknown, on the cable network CNN.

"It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain," CNN said in a statement on Friday morning.

Bourdain was a best-selling food, fiction and nonfiction author.

[Edward64]

Sorry for the dupe post Breeze, you just beat me to it !!

[Breeze]

no problem...I deleted mine...

[albionmoonlight]

Fuck you, mental illness.

[Warhammer]

Sad to see him go, but it does not surprise me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Dude could flat out tell a story, an undeniable talent.

[Scoobz0202]

Oh wow.. this one hurts.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Sad to see him go, but it does not surprise me.

Man this is a shocker, it seemed like he had what most would consider an ideal life. Which is why I am quoting you WH as apparently there are things I don't know about him. Did he have a documented history of depression or something?

[Scoobz0202]

I don't know if this is what he is referring to but he had history of substance abuse and addiction.

[molson]

One of our prep steps for traveling to a foreign country was always to check if Bourdain had done a show about it.

[CrimsonFox]

[Edward64]

Obviously he had personal demons to deal with but outwardly he seemed to live the life I would want - lots of travel, eating different food, meeting interesting people, experiencing different cultures etc.

In a perfect world, I would be a junior foodie partner and travel with Zimmern or Bourdain.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Man this is a shocker, it seemed like he had what most would consider an ideal life. Which is why I am quoting you WH as apparently there are things I don't know about him. Did he have a documented history of depression or something?

It wasn't that for me. As someone who was diagnosed with depression 25 years ago and has traveled extensively for work, there was something about him that I could tell he was fighting something internally. In my case, even my close friends were shocked when I was diagnosed. Some of my friends never knew.

However, when you are on the go, constantly traveling, it isn't the work that runs you down. You have a job to do. The struggle is when the lights are off, when you are sitting alone over dinner, in the hotel room, etc. What doubts, insecurities, demons come to roost. You're isolated and you do not want to burden anyone with your thoughts. Why saddle your loved ones with a burden? Its better to put on a facade when you talk to them and hide or bury the pain. When you see them in person, the lights are on, you can do the show, the act, etc. But, is that really you? Does anyone actually KNOW you? You are living the life, traveling for a living, seeing the world, eating the best food, etc. Why should I have any issues? If I have issues with all this, what if I didn't have it? Its insidious and it sucks.

It was not every appearance, but there were enough isolated appearances I saw him where I could tell he had inner demons.

Heck, my depression is well controlled, no meds, but I know my triggers, and I have my own personal coping mechanisms. But, its there hovering on the edges of my mind. If there is a weak point, it comes in, and I have a rough stretch of 3-4 days typically. I should be secure in who I am and what I have accomplished, but its still there, even after all these years.

[JPhillips]

I didn't realize he wrote the foreward to the collection of reviews by the woman from North Dakota. He really appreciated earnest people regardless of their sophistication.

Anthony Bourdain's Foreword to Grand Forks:
If you're looking for the kind of rapturous food porn you'd find in a book by M.F.K. Fisher, or lusty descriptions of sizzling kidneys a la Liebling—or even the knife-edged criticism of an AA Gill or a Sam Sifton—you will not find it here.

The territory covered here is not New York or Paris or London or San Francisco. And Marilyn Hagerty is none of those people.

For 27 years, Marilyn Hagerty has been covering the restaurant scene in and around the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota, population 52,000. She also, it should be pointed out, writes a total of five columns a week, about history and local personalities and events, in addition to her writing about restaurants and food. As one might expect, she knows personally many of her subjects. Given the size of her territory, it is not unusual for her to write about the same restaurant two or more times in a single year. In short, she is writing about a community that she is very much a part of.

If you knew her name before picking up this book, it was probably because of her infamously guileless Olive Garden review which went viral, caused first a tidal wave of snarky derision--followed by an even stronger anti-snark backlash--followed by invitations to appear on Anderson Cooper and The TODAY Show, dinner at Le Bernardin, an appearance on Top Chef, an Al Neuharth Award, a publishing deal--a sudden and unexpected elevation to media darling.

Why was that?

What is it about the 86-year old Ms. Hagerty that inspired such attention and affection?

Why should you read this book?

Of the 7,000 pages of articles and reviews I read while assembling this collection, there is little of what one would call pyrotechnical prose. Ms. Hagerty's choices of food are shockingly consistent: A "Clubhouse sandwich," coleslaw, wild rice soup, salads assembled from a salad bar, baked potatoes. She is not what you'd call an adventurous diner, exploring the dark recesses of menus. Far from it. Of one lunch, she writes:

"There were signs saying the luncheon special was soup and a Denver sandwich for $2.25. In places where food service is limited, I tend to take the special. I wasn't born yesterday."

She is never mean—even when circumstances would clearly excuse a sharp elbow, a cruel remark. In fact, watching Marilyn struggle to find something nice to say about a place she clearly loathes is part of the fun. She is, unfailingly, a good neighbor and good citizen first—and entertainer second.

But what she HAS given us, over all these years, is a fascinating picture of dining in America, a gradual, cumulative overview of how we got from there... to here.

Grand Forks is NOT New York City. We forget that—until we read her earlier reviews and remember, some of us, when you'd find sloppy Joe, steak Diane, turkey noodle soup, three bean salad, red Jell-o in OUR neighborhoods. When the tuft of curly parsley and lemon wedge, or a leaf of lettuce and an orange segment, or three spears of asparagus fashioned into a wagon wheel, were state of the art garnishes. When you could order a half sandwich, a cup of soup. A pre-hipster world where lefse, potato dumplings and walleye were far more likely to appear on a menu than pork belly.

Reading these reviews, we can see, we can watch over the course of time, who makes it and who doesn't. Which bold, undercapitalized pioneers survived—and who, no matter how ahead of their time, just couldn't hang on until the neighborhood caught up. You will get to know the names of owners and chefs like Warren LeClerc, whose homey lunch restaurant, The Pantry, turned down the lights to become the sophisticated French restaurant Le Pantre by night. And Chef Nardane of Touch of Magic Ballroom who, in his 6,200-square foot ballroom, served cheesecakes inspired by Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor, and envisioned an exclusive private membership club with frequent celebrity entertainment. And Steve Novak of Beaver's Family Restaurant, who when Marilyn visited his establishment, spoke of reviving his beaver act, complete with costume, for birthday parties.

And you will understand why the opening of an Olive Garden might be earnestly anticipated as an exciting and much welcome event.

Ms. Hagerty is not naïve about her work, her newfound fame, or the world. She has travelled widely in her life.

In person, she has a flinty, dry, very sharp sense of humor. She misses nothing. I would not want to play poker with her for money.

This is a straightforward account of what people have been eating—still ARE eating—in much of America. As related by a kind, good-hearted reporter looking to pass along as much useful information as she can—while hurting no one.

Anyone who comes away from this work anything less than charmed by Ms. Hagerty—and the places and characters she describes—has a heart of stone.

This book kills snark dead.

[ISiddiqui]

Very very sad.

I echo this tweet, which indicated what made Bourdain's travel shows so special:

Anthony Bourdain had one of the only shows on tv that tried with all its might to teach Americans not to be scared of other people.

— Allison F.🦉 (@ablington) June 8, 2018

[Comey]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Heck, my depression is well controlled, no meds, but I know my triggers, and I have my own personal coping mechanisms. But, its there hovering on the edges of my mind. If there is a weak point, it comes in, and I have a rough stretch of 3-4 days typically. I should be secure in who I am and what I have accomplished, but its still there, even after all these years.

I just came out of a time that has taken over the last three days. I wanted to quote this for truth.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Man this is a shocker, it seemed like he had what most would consider an ideal life. Which is why I am quoting you WH as apparently there are things I don't know about him. Did he have a documented history of depression or something?

He always struck me as one of those people with the type of brilliance that could only be fueled by mental demons.

[chinaski]

This one hurts real bad. I've watched and read everything he's done. He lived my dream life, and did it with such humility and style. One of the best storytellers and journalists ever. Rest in power.

[Ksyrup]

I don't know whether he had depression or not, but he definitely had a different way of looking at life and had such a general contrarian attitude about things that - while it made him extremely cool and interesting as a public personality - it doesn't surprise me that one of the "side effects" of that type of personality is deciding one morning that you don't want to live anymore.

There's always more to these things, and I'm sure it will come out, but this really isn't much of a shock. It sucks, but I can totally believe he would do it.

[Ksyrup]

According to the Fox News headline article, he discussed depression and contemplated suicide but kept living at least in part out of an obligation to his daughter. Sad.

[digamma]

I'm bummed.

[Arles]

I can't imagine the personal stress you have if you are forced to constantly put on a "happy" persona for the world while you are struggling daily with Anxiety/Depression. That just has to be exhausting. I have my own bouts that I deal with from time to time, but I couldn't imagine then going on TV, acting happy to millions and then coming home to an empty hotel room after. It's really heartbreaking and I wish there were more socially accepted ways in society for people (especially celebrities) to deal with this type of situation. But, with social media and the pressure to always show people how happy you are, I just don't see how someone could do it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

My own favorite Bourdain moment -- the one that made him forever relatable to me despite the distinct possibility that the only other thing we had in common might just be the need for oyxgen -- was one that I haven't been able to find on YouTube or anything.

Almost had to be in the No Reservations era, he was in some far-flung local somewhere or another (most likely Asia based on what I recall of it), and had made his way to the top of some mountain or another, via a sort of hiking trail or whatever.

Winded, questioning his decision making for doing such a hike, you can imagine his monologue. But upon reaching the top the first thing he did was light a smoke, and he explained something that maybe only dedicated smokers would truly understand: that in certain situations you breathe better during/after a smoke than you can without one.

It was such a perfectly & immediately recognizable thing to me, but he was the first person I'd ever heard articulate it.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

It wasn't that for me. As someone who was diagnosed with depression 25 years ago and has traveled extensively for work, there was something about him that I could tell he was fighting something internally. In my case, even my close friends were shocked when I was diagnosed. Some of my friends never knew.

However, when you are on the go, constantly traveling, it isn't the work that runs you down. You have a job to do. The struggle is when the lights are off, when you are sitting alone over dinner, in the hotel room, etc. What doubts, insecurities, demons come to roost. You're isolated and you do not want to burden anyone with your thoughts. Why saddle your loved ones with a burden? Its better to put on a facade when you talk to them and hide or bury the pain. When you see them in person, the lights are on, you can do the show, the act, etc. But, is that really you? Does anyone actually KNOW you? You are living the life, traveling for a living, seeing the world, eating the best food, etc. Why should I have any issues? If I have issues with all this, what if I didn't have it? Its insidious and it sucks.

It was not every appearance, but there were enough isolated appearances I saw him where I could tell he had inner demons.

Heck, my depression is well controlled, no meds, but I know my triggers, and I have my own personal coping mechanisms. But, its there hovering on the edges of my mind. If there is a weak point, it comes in, and I have a rough stretch of 3-4 days typically. I should be secure in who I am and what I have accomplished, but its still there, even after all these years.

Very good, and sobering insight. You make great points about the isolation of travel that I could only imagine could completely diminish the positives. And on a side note I wish you all the best my friend.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

The struggle is when the lights are off, when you are sitting alone over dinner, in the hotel room, etc. What doubts, insecurities, demons come to roost. You're isolated and you do not want to burden anyone with your thoughts. Why saddle your loved ones with a burden? Its better to put on a facade when you talk to them and hide or bury the pain. When you see them in person, the lights are on, you can do the show, the act, etc. But, is that really you? Does anyone actually KNOW you? You are living the life, traveling for a living, seeing the world, eating the best food, etc. Why should I have any issues? If I have issues with all this, what if I didn't have it? Its insidious and it sucks.

I'd wager that this is familiar ground to people who have really irregular sleep habits. Sounds like you travel more in a year (month?) than I do in a decade ... yet I recognize a lot of it perfectly well.

[RainMaker]

I think what was great about him is he didn't want to screw up your city, country, or culture. Every place he visited he showed in a positive light.

If you haven't seen it, the recent episode on West Virginia is really good.

[NobodyHere]

I'll be honest and admit I never liked the guy's personality. But it is always sad when someone commits suicide. It's usually preceded by years of mental anguish.

[QuikSand]

Magary on Bourdain

https://www.gq.com/story/rip-anthony-bourdain

[RainMaker]

This place was down the street from me. Was a big deal when he went.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I'd wager that this is familiar ground to people who have really irregular sleep habits. Sounds like you travel more in a year (month?) than I do in a decade ... yet I recognize a lot of it perfectly well.

Up until last year, I was traveling 3 weeks a month.

My sleep pattern gets more irregular when the bouts occur.

[Ksyrup]

I have no idea what this means or whether we'll ever know if it was tied to his death in any way, but I found this interesting given the timing:



Just three hours before Bourdain was found dead, Argento shared a photo on her Instagram story that showed her wearing a shirt that read “F--- EVERYONE.”

“You know who you are,” she captioned the post, according to People.

[MacroGuru]

Bourdain was an icon to me as he helped me grow into my love of cooking and studying the industry and even trying lots of new foods.

After reading "Kitchen Confidential" you learned that not only did he deal with depression, but he had a severe drug addiction that was always around the corner.

He never said in the book outright, I have depression, but his stories he told relayed that a lot.

I am with Warhammer with the travel and depression, for me to battle the 8 years I worked on the road non-stop, I started to turn to alcohol and once I had the sleep issues...Ambien.

This one hurts, not as bad as Robin Williams, but it is pretty close.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

My own favorite Bourdain moment -- the one that made him forever relatable to me despite the distinct possibility that the only other thing we had in common might just be the need for oyxgen -- was one that I haven't been able to find on YouTube or anything.

Almost had to be in the No Reservations era, he was in some far-flung local somewhere or another (most likely Asia based on what I recall of it), and had made his way to the top of some mountain or another, via a sort of hiking trail or whatever.

Winded, questioning his decision making for doing such a hike, you can imagine his monologue. But upon reaching the top the first thing he did was light a smoke, and he explained something that maybe only dedicated smokers would truly understand: that in certain situations you breathe better during/after a smoke than you can without one.

It was such a perfectly & immediately recognizable thing to me, but he was the first person I'd ever heard articulate it.

Now you are taking me back to high school when my baseball coach made us run a seven-mile eco challenge. My buddy and I finished first and third on the team. What did we do as soon as we were out of coach's sight? Lit up a cigarette. And when that one was done we lit another.

[Edward64]

Catching up on some Parts Unknown on Hulu.

It's made me miss Bourdain and wish he was still producing, eating, and sharing stories & cultures.

[CrimsonFox]

I adored No Reservations!

[molson]

I've always enjoyed his stuff, and in the last couple of years we've been able to hit a couple spots he recommended. I kind of half-expected them to be overrun by American tourists, but we were the only white people in a few places he recommended in Toykyo and Istanbul, well off the normal tourist routes. But yet I was also sure that the staff there had seen just enough tourists so they would still be welcoming and accessible to polite and respectful (but maybe naïve) tourists like us wandering into where the locals eat.

[Edward64]

There was only one place that I ate at where he filmed. Ordered the exact same dish and, to be honest, it was lacking.

Gone way too soon. I wish he had that support structure to see him out of it.

[GrantDawg]

I still can't. I don't know why his death affected me so badly, but it did. I suffered severe depression through most of my youth. That might have something to do with it. I love watching him explore the world, but I just can't now.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[BillyNYC]

As a kid, I'd look at maps or globes and wonder what were in all these weird places. Sure, everyone knew London and Paris, but what's in swaths of Africa and Eastern Europe and...

Along with being an adventurous eater, his shows were must-watch. And they opened up the world and made it accessible. Sure, he has producers and so forth, but why can't *I* explore these places? And so over the last decade or so, I have. Sometimes directly inspired by an episode (finding the woman in the cowboy hat in Thailand who sells braised pork leg), and sometimes less directly ("OK, I'm in Kosovo. What would Bourdain do?")

Living in Germany now, I am confidently researching a trip to Moldova (and one to the more "normal" Portugal) when COVID ends. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that most of the great experiences I have had...and the confidence to go out and experience the world...would not have happened without Anthony Bourdain.

[Lathum]

Portugal is great, we went 2 years ago and loved it.

Supposed to do Amsterdam this year but I guess we will see.

[molson]

Originally Posted by BillyNYC

As a kid, I'd look at maps or globes and wonder what were in all these weird places. Sure, everyone knew London and Paris, but what's in swaths of Africa and Eastern Europe and...

Along with being an adventurous eater, his shows were must-watch. And they opened up the world and made it accessible. Sure, he has producers and so forth, but why can't *I* explore these places? And so over the last decade or so, I have. Sometimes directly inspired by an episode (finding the woman in the cowboy hat in Thailand who sells braised pork leg), and sometimes less directly ("OK, I'm in Kosovo. What would Bourdain do?")

Living in Germany now, I am confidently researching a trip to Moldova (and one to the more "normal" Portugal) when COVID ends. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that most of the great experiences I have had...and the confidence to go out and experience the world...would not have happened without Anthony Bourdain.

There's kind of a "travel high" you get visiting a place that maybe not a lot of your friends have gone or would think to go. That feeling of adventure, maybe a little danger. And once you start down that road, you have to push the envelope further and further. I never really thought of it, but I think it's true for us too that Anthony Bourdain helped made all of it feel possible. And food is the great unifying thing in travel. Wherever you are, you need food, and you can find people willing to sell it to you. And it's the very most accessible and authentic thing you can do to truly be somewhere else, in this faraway place. Most of us can't easily do most the other stuff people do on travel shows, like "today we're meeting up with a local family and working on their ostrich farm", unless it's part of some tacky tourist experience. But anyone can find real local experiences through food and booze, and through the process of finding those places to experience that food on those streets.

In the last 10 years we've been to Serbia, Turkey, Japan, Montenegro, Croatia, Budapest, Belgium, Amsterdam, and a few other places. We had a trip to Estonia and Denmark wiped out last year. And that was after a childhood of never leaving New England, and not getting further than New York until my mid-20s when I went away to law school. To push the travel high further from there, we've been looking at the middle east, which is necessarily inspired to some extent by Anthony Bourdain's greatest TV moments there. And beyond that, I've researched, kind of for fun, some of the even further far-flung destinations, like islands in the pacific that take some serious planning to get to. I love reading travel journals and blogs about even more dangerous travel that I don't think I would do personally - but which I definitely now understand the appeal of. It all feels possible. Before it felt that way, I just never thought of that kind of travel as a thing that was for people like me.

[Lathum]

If we didn't have kids we would travel so much more.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I still can't. I don't know why his death affected me so badly, but it did. I suffered severe depression through most of my youth. That might have something to do with it. I love watching him explore the world, but I just can't now.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

The same, it's too hard to watch.

I think part is yes due to the tragedy (I mean if you read some of his books, he doesn't gloss over his instability at times.) of leaving a young child behind, being found by one of his good friends (Eric Ripert from what I've read and seen is an impossibly decent human being), as just the loss of his life for something really beyond his control.

He seemed to be very much a humanist at the end, curtailing what I saw and read as a pretty snarky overconfident cook into someone who advocated for the less fortunate, globalist and pro-feminist.

I think his mantra was we could all sit down and eat and talk and not be so divided (see his Ted Nugent episode, or his West Virginia one).

And I think that theme of enjoying life and food and friends and family, and perhaps sitting down with a stranger who looks so different and yet you could bond or daresay just be decent to each other kind of curdled due to his demise.

I'll never forget his tagline "Be a traveler, not a tourist"

[Edward64]

Watched the Macau episode last night and his bungee jumping. There is no freaking way I would do that. And if I did, you would see a wet spot in my crotch.

[molson]

I saw the Bourdain documentary that premiered at theaters tonight. Very compelling stuff, a must watch if you were a fan, though it could be a difficult watch for those who get emotional about his whole story. His inner circle participated, it was not exploitive, it was more about his life than his death. But it did address his last year in a way that was kind of surprising to me. Weird to have spoilers for a documentary, but, just to be safe:

Spoiler

There was no overt accusations or criticism, but, the timing and tone and order of how things was presented very much pointed to Asia Argento basically upending the dynamic of his show and his life, making everything weird in the last year. (Or at least, that was the perspective of one of his producers). That producer described his final days and final Instagram post saying it "was all there" implying that the tabloid photos of Argento with another man being the thing that pushed him over the edge. I didn't know anything about her going in, and didn't know anything about his life he didn't share on his shows, so that was all surprising to see at least one person close to him pretty clearly pushing that narrative. Now I'm going down the rabbit hole of Bourdain paying off someone who accused Argento of sexually abusing him (which is not mentioned in the film). But all that wasn't what even that last part of the film was about. It was more about the people around him trying to come to terms with what happened, and all of them dealing with it different ways, but none of them really understanding. I liked that there was no narrator whatsoever, every word was spoken by the people around him, or Bourdain himself, and the story was entirely told through those people and what you saw.

[thesloppy]

I have not seen the Bourdain doc yet, but have read a couple articles that were focused on that last year, as it's getting hyped hard. Seems like it comes to the conclusion(s) that everybody jumped to almost immediately after his death, for better or worse.

[GrantDawg]

I hope I can steel myself up to watch it. I have no idea why is death is still so raw to me. My wife and I are re-watching all of Top Chief right now, and every time he is on makes me smile and feel pain at the same time.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by molson

I saw the Bourdain documentary that premiered at theaters tonight. Very compelling stuff, a must watch if you were a fan, though it could be a difficult watch for those who get emotional about his whole story. His inner circle participated, it was not exploitive, it was more about his life than his death. But it did address his last year in a way that was kind of surprising to me. Weird to have spoilers for a documentary, but, just to be safe:

Spoiler

There was no overt accusations or criticism, but, the timing and tone and order of how things was presented very much pointed to Asia Argento basically upending the dynamic of his show and his life, making everything weird in the last year. (Or at least, that was the perspective of one of his producers). That producer described his final days and final Instagram post saying it "was all there" implying that the tabloid photos of Argento with another man being the thing that pushed him over the edge. I didn't know anything about her going in, and didn't know anything about his life he didn't share on his shows, so that was all surprising to see at least one person close to him pretty clearly pushing that narrative. Now I'm going down the rabbit hole of Bourdain paying off someone who accused Argento of sexually abusing him (which is not mentioned in the film). But all that wasn't what even that last part of the film was about. It was more about the people around him trying to come to terms with what happened, and all of them dealing with it different ways, but none of them really understanding. I liked that there was no narrator whatsoever, every word was spoken by the people around him, or Bourdain himself, and the story was entirely told through those people and what you saw.

One weird thing is they made an AI-generated voice that sounds like Bourdain. Parts of it where he reads letters are not actually him reading it.

Director of Anthony Bourdain admits to using A.I. voice-over

Not sure how I feel about that.

[korme]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

One weird thing is they made an AI-generated voice that sounds like Bourdain. Parts of it where he reads letters are not actually him reading it.

Director of Anthony Bourdain admits to using A.I. voice-over

Not sure how I feel about that.

Seeing it in about 30 minutes, but I've heard this is completely overblown.