RIP Anthony Bourdain…
This one is tough. A gifted Chef, Writer and TV Host, Bourdain’s suicide has stunned his fans all around the world.
There have been many clips online from his various TV shows, all of which are terrific, but I wanted to share his other legacy: Bourdain was also the Author of a variety of non-fiction AND fiction books, as well as two cookbooks…I may have missed some, but here goes:
Kitchen Confidential
The non-fiction book that started it all, an expansion of his hilariously profane and investigative piece for The New Yorker.
As Vox reports:
“Bourdain’s writing career truly began to take off with a 1999 essay for the New Yorker. Titled “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” the piece forms the basis of what would later become Kitchen Confidential — and in its pages, you can see all the elements of Bourdain’s distinctive, charismatic persona already in place.
The essay is framed as advice to a restaurant-goer from someone who knows: Order fish on Tuesday, when it’s fresh and the chef is well-rested from his day off. Never order your food well done, because that’s where kitchen staffs get rid of the worst of their meat. (“The philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam,” Bourdain explains.) Chicken is for people who can’t make up their minds, but pork is fantastic. At a good restaurant, there will be a stick of butter in every meal.”
He followed with more memoirs and inside stories about the restaurant business, food and travel, as well as anything else that scratches his mind:
He even published a slender volume telling the true story of the infamous “Typhoid Mary” –
Bourdain also published two novel in the 90’s.
In 1995, he published “Bone in the Throat”, a crime novel set in the restaurant world, and in 1997 a follow-up, “Gone Bamboo”.
Of course he also published cookbooks, including one from his stint at Les Halles, the New York restaurant he was working in when he published his first book…
Boudain was doing all of this while also hosting shows: first for The Food Network, then The Travel Channel, and finally CNN. He even had time to publish two graphic novels about food:
Sorry if I missed any, but I wanted to celebrate his written word, because as great a TV Host as he was, his prose was superlative as well…you can read more about his graphic novel “Get Jiro” by clicking here:
RIP Anthony Bourdain…
