To the Bone
RIP, Anthony Bourdain
“He has the best job in the world.”
It’s the line that always came up when you were talking about Anthony Bourdain, his shows, his career. No matter who you were talking to, this is where the conversation would inevitably turn. And it’s the line I keep coming back to when reflecting on his passing.
I suspect it’s at the heart about what many of us find so jarring about this news. Bourdain had his demons — as anyone who has read any of his books knows well — but his story seemed to be one of redemption, someone who had found himself later in life after battling through his own personal hell. He seemed to be at the top of the world these days. Apparently not.
And yet, dichotomies do exist. Bourdain did have the best job. I stumbled upon him relatively late, via No Reservations, which ran from 2005 to 2012 on the Travel Channel.¹ And continued along the journey with him through The Layover and Parts Unknown.
It’s fascinating that Bourdain did basically the same show, several times, over several networks, over several years. Because it was a great premise, that made for some truly excellent television. Food porn meets travel porn, with your ultimate tour guide and friend, Tony.
But wait. That’s not actually what the show was at all. That may have been the veneer and the hook that reeled you in, but once you watched, you knew his shows were actually about far more than either food or travel.
While the wanderlust that his shows would inspire was very, very real, it was the authenticity that actually made them and will make them endure. More than a few times, my wife and I would watch episodes of his show based around where we happened to be traveling to get a better sense of the place. In hindsight, those episodes always rang quite true, we’d find.²
More incredible was how many locals found the representation of their cities to be accurate, fair, and insightful.
But what really resonated: his recurring theme that people — no matter how disparate and in some cases, at odds — could always come together around a dinner table for some great food and drinks. And some great conversation. This was both an important message and often an incisive point. And a very human one.
Bourdain’s super power seemed to be putting people at ease — in somtimes just a matter of minutes — so they could reveal insights they might otherwise hold deep. And to get them to do this on television, no less. And often doing all of this in a language he didn’t speak, no less. Food and booze were just his tools of trade to chisel out those on-the-ground insights. It was remarkable.
But what always resonated with me about Anthony Bourdain was that he was first and foremost a writer. No Reservations and Parts Unknown only existed because of Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour.³ And my favorite bits of those shows were the behind-the-scenes recaps he would write from time-to-time, to give you an even better sense of place and food and culture.⁴
The fact that I’ve gotten this far and haven’t even mentioned that all of this started out because he was a chef is perhaps the most remarkable thing about his career.
His gig, no matter how great, was never going to go on forever. But it’s one of those things that felt like it could have gone on for another couple decades, at least. So I find myself a combination of sad and selfishly, mad, that it won’t. As naive as it may be to say, it feels like losing a friend — or at the very least, a travel companion. And it sucks.
I fear there’s no silver lining here. But maybe the shocking nature of this news, along with the tragic passing of Kate Spade earlier this week, serves as a wake up call with regard to mental health issues and just how seemingly silently they can lurk and strike without bias for who you are or what you do.⁵
Perhaps fittingly, I was sitting on a train traveling through Denmark when the push notification came through with news of Anthony Bourdain’s passing. There’s no way, that guy has the best job in the world, I thought.
Cuts to the bone, man.
¹ Preceded by A Cook’s Tour (named after his second book) which ran from 2001 to 2002 on The Food Network.
² We also found ourselves at a live Bourdain show, Close to the Bone, three years ago in San Francisco. Afterwards, we got to go backstage and meet him briefly.
³ Which themselves only existed because of his initial foray into suspense novels (and this article)!
⁴ It was also Bourdain’s use of Twitter back in the day that made me wish the company would have released a “Twitter DVR” product to tie the worlds of Twitter and TV more closely together for all. I still want that product!
⁵ And if you do need help, please call: 1–800–273–8255 in the U.S. or these numbers in other countries around the world.
