Anthony Bourdain.......

[Lusciouslush Profile]

Has died, how very sad - apparently suicide.

His ' Kitchen Confidential' was brilliant - I always think of his 'Feed the mother f***er' when I ever think of sour dough starters!

Behind closed doors & all that.......................

[Sakkarin Profile]

Oh dear, what a shame. I just grabbed "Kitchen Confidential" off the shelf and a couple of the comments on the cover are worthy of his epitaph:

"Elizabeth David written by Quentin Tarentino"
A.A. Gill (diied age 62, lasted 1 year longer than AB)

"A man whose inate debauchery exposes Jamie Oliver for the choirboy that he is"
Glasgow Herald


EDIT:

and
"It's not exactly Delia..."
The Grauniad

[Alexandria Profile]

All our most profound condolences to the family and dear ones.

[Luca Profile]

Has died, how very sad - apparently suicide.

His ' Kitchen Confidential' was brilliant - I always think of his 'Feed the mother f***er' when I ever think of sour dough starters!

Behind closed doors & all that.......................

Hi Lush,

I was terribly sad to read your thread. I am a huge fan of both his foodie books Kitchen Confidential and also A Cook's Tour. I loved watching him on some of the shows. How sad that he took the decision, if that is the case, to do it in France where he had so many happy childhood memories. Mind you, when he revisited France, as an adult with his brother, he did seem to be feeling rather maudlin about being back.

I hope he is somewhere sampling something wonderful and my condolences to his family. He's the only person who has made me want to slice into a crispy lamb's testicle, baked in situ so to speak. He reveals the story in A Cook's Tour.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

It's very sad
Only 61 and yes, I remeber reading Kitchen Confidential alternating between and

[jeral Profile]

I've been watching Anthony's enjoyable The Layover touring programme on Food Network each week (finished now).

He clearly wanted to, and did, pack as much as he could into life and seemed to have calmed a bit after his kid was born. Very sad.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

So clever, so entertaining, so knowledgable and so utterly irreverent. What a great loss to the Food business and the world in general.

[Joanbunting Profile]

I was so sad when I heard this yesterday. Whe i first read Kitchen Confidential, it seems a long time ago, I struck me thta he was someone who was so in tune to what exactly goes on in top kitchens it should be compulsory reading for any aspiring chefs.

He didn't take prisoners but in the end I think he may have become one.

[Alexandria Profile]

Commiting Suicide ..

This is a very complex topic as to why the large growing number of top Chefs have decided to take this road, at relatively successful points in their Michelin Star careers. Boudaire is not the 1st.

Benoit Violier, quite a bit younger, was another incredible loss to the hospitality sector just 2 years ago ..

Terribly saddening ..

[Lusciouslush Profile]

Cannot believe anyone comes out with this c&ap any more.....

David Leavitt

‏More
If you’re religious, then you believe there’s a special place in hell or purgatory for people like Anthony Bourdain who take their own lives.
9:42 AM - 8 Jun 2018 from Boston, MA

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

Okay, so I'm going to be a bit controversial here. Believe me, my heart goes out to those left behind when anyone decides to take their own life. However, as far as the head chefs of Michelin starred restaurants are concerned, it's not that surprising. I think there are several reasons why, as below:

1. Getting the star in the first place must be pretty stressful, as is retaining one, knowing that one or all of them could be stripped away from you at any time.

2. Working in a hot kitchen is difficult at the best of times (I have been there done that!)

3. The percentage of people who can afford to eat in one on a regular basis is incredibly small, and it's a very competitive market when there are several such establishments in one location. There is also probably a very slightly larger number of those who save up for a once-in-a-lifetime fine dining experience for a milestone birthday or whatever.

4. Making a work of art on a plate is time consuming and may take a team of chefs to create one dish (I'm not sure how realistic the fine dining restaurant round on Masterchef is re the mise en place tbh)

5. I for one am not interested in eating in such a place. Thanks to my late dad, I have been in a few aspiring Michelin style restaurants and have always felt very out of place there. Therefore eating in a a place that has even one Michelin star would be my idea of food hell, even if I could afford it. Somehow I don't think I am alone in this.

6. Most of the world's population can't even afford to dine there, even if they would like to.

7. The popularity of social media now means that everyone's a critic, which can seriously damage reputations of such places.

Also, didn't the renowned Head Chef of El Bulli either leave the restaurant or sold it on because he got fed up with the complexity of the Michelin style?

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Sorry Clare, I think you are way out of order - not controversial, just wrong here

Whatever your feelings about Michelin star restaurants, this thread is to mourn the loss of Anthony Bourdain, a chef, writer and TV presenter. Your feelings about posh restaurants are not relevant particularly as it reveals you are not familiar in any depth with his body of work, which did not focus on Michelin star restaurants, although he worked in some, but on the whole eating culture of people, usually within a specific location; what I particularly liked about The Layover for example was that he covered everything from expensive restaurants, to dive bars, to street food, acknowledging that all could be good of their kind and many people found each of them enjoyable.


It's clearly a shock to many personal friends that he committed suicide, I didn't know him, but no surprise that he suffered from depression having read quite a lot of his writing, which just possibly explains his attempts to self-medicate with street drugs (I don't know, but it read like that in Kitchen Confidential to me).. He did a lot to improve the working conditions of kitchen staff, and he was a great supporter of Me Too, his partner Asia Argento is one of the complainants against Harvey Weinstein, poor woman

David Leavitt and others who have focussed on the suicide rather than person, have set Twitter ablaze, I'm glad to say that both Catholic and Anglican clergy have condemned his post in the strongest of terms

[Lusciouslush Profile]

Well said Sue.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

I apologise for my remarks. I seem to have put them on the wrong thread. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that Mr Bourdain was a different kind of celebrity chef . Whenever I've seen him on the TV he appeared to have a Michelin kind of aura about him. Sakkarin or Gill, please feel free to delete my initial comment if you so wish

[jeral Profile]

strictlysalsaclare, it seems undeniably true that long hours and stress in (hot) professional kitchens is par for the course. A colleague some while back whose son worked in a professional kitchen told me he was physically hit(!) if he messed something up. I'm sure the life is anything but glamorous apart from a very few who make it to the top.

Mr Bourdain had left that world behind though when he made his good and presumably more relaxed living instead from authorship and TV programmes, which is what makes the "Why now?" question more puzzling, if it was indeed intentional and not accidental.

[Lusciouslush Profile]

what makes the "Why now?" question more puzzling, if it was indeed intentional and not accidental.

Why now indeed Jeral - he was found hanged so not accidental

He now had a life most would envy, he appeared exuberant, confident & was well loved, but was obviously in a dark place at some point & had his demons - which one of us can judge?


So utterly sad.....I hope he has found peace.....

[Sakkarin Profile]

I'm going to leave your post Salsa - if you really want to remove it, if you go to "edit", there is an "x" option which allows you to delete a post.

However you could probably construct a similar list on the stresses of being a TV celebrity.

I hadn't realised how much TV work he had done. My knowledge of his career really stopped with the Kitchen Confidential/Cooks Tour books, and a few of the associated programmes, but I hadn't realised the extent of his work since, he had a really jam-packed life, when you consider the amount of work that must have gone into a single episode of his foodie programmes.

Cooks Tour: 35 episodes

No Reservations: 9 series, 142 episodes

The Layover: 20 episodes

Parts Unknown: 11 series, he was working on the 97th episode!!!!!!

And also Top Chef, "Taste" and numerous other appearances on foodie programmes

[Stokey Sue Profile]

He was apparently away from home (wherever that was) for 260 days in the past year, filming and researching
That would stress the keenest traveller, and must have made it difficult for him to support his young daughter and his partner (not her mother, they had moved on) - or for them to support him

ETA Nice concise perspective on his career from Jay Rayner

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jun/08/anthony-bourdain-made-food-writing-muscular-and-kinetic

[Suffs Profile]

Many high achievers have the sort of brains that are susceptible to intense mood swings ... it's what helps to drive them to think outside the box and have the energy to push their ideas ... it's also what plunges them to the depths of despair ... some people who are very special to me are like this ... it's desperately sad ... so tragic that it seems impossible for them to have the highs without the lows and so many self-medicate to try to achieve what they see as an acceptable state of mind.

I have no idea whether Bourdain was bi-polar ... what I do know is that even a tendency to this condition can be exacerbated by stress, cocaine and alcohol and he used all three, as well as other substances. He must've been very unhappy towards the end ... he is at peace now and for that we should be thankful.

To misquote Edna St Vincent Millay

He burnt his candle at both ends
It did not last the night
But ah, his foes and oh, his friends -
It gave a lovely light.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Lovely thoughts, Suffs.
Many of history´s greatest artists have had to fight their demons. Beethoven, Chopin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway, Freddy Mercury.... the list is endless.