What are your thoughts on Anthony Bourdain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I HATED Kitchen Confidential. He came across as a blowhard who thought very highly of himself as a bad-ass because he knew how to chop an onion. I've grown up in restaurant kitchens and have worked in them as an adult. He portrayed kitchen work as something only degenerates and immigrants (with few other choices) would take on. Just because you were a vile person in the kitchen, doesn't mean everyone else is too, Tony. That being said, I enjoyed his travel shows, even though his attitude seemed to follow two extremes - pure reverence or total snark towards the locals.

I didn’t really get that from the book (and I also spent a few years as an adult working in restaurant kitchens). I thought he was pretty forthcoming about being more of glorified line cook than a proper chef. Restaurants do tend to attract a bawdy cast of characters—maybe not Le Bernardin or The French Laundry—but I found his stories rang true enough. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a visionary, though. I think he just had the look, the attitude and enough writing chops to ride the foodie wave and capture the attention of all the corporate drones who dreamed of quitting and going to culinary school in the 90s.

[Anonymous]

I read his books and watched his shows many times over. I know some people felt he was a jerk but I felt differently. How can a jerk have a show that was watched all over the world and loved? How can a jerk be liked wherever he went? He was the only person who could go to Iran, Libya, Congo, Japan, and China and be welcomed.

He spoke of his depression during his visit in Argentina with a therapist and I thought that should have alerted someone but apparently not.

I used to be like him traveling all the time but not for food so I understood his loneliness. I wish I could've met him in real life if anyone been to NYC you would understand why he might appear to be a jerk sometimes and that is just the way New Yorkers are, no disrespect. I miss him and I apparently not the only one, ad his shows are still on the air 5 years after his death.

[Anonymous]

I loved his shows, but after reading all three books written about him since his death, I lost a lot of respect and admiration for him. Frankly, it sounded like he treated people terribly, but was so "off and on" with them, that they developed Stockholm syndrome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just read the Oral Biography out last week.

Bad person. Ahole. Uninteresting. Hate the cult that emerged following his death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought he seemed like a jerk and think it's weird how everyone got so into him after he killed himself.

+1

+2

Did you read his books and watch his shows? There is no way any thoughtful person could simply write him off as a jerk after having done so.

And the reason there is so much attention being paid to him now is because he had a massive impact on so many of us. I have had imaginary conversations with him while cooking for years. His death, coming as it did on the heels of Kate Spade’s, was also enormously difficult for many people struggling with severe depression. I have a good friend who is a therapist who said many of her patients absolutely panicked when he died. They were thinking that if someone like him, with all his talents, friends, and a daughter he adored, couldn’t find a reason to go on, what hope did they have? My friend said that all of her therapist friends reported similar.

Yes, a thoughtful person can consider him a jerk. He had many talents, but he was also a jerk (if one can trust the biographies and documentaries about him). Even when his friends are trying to say how much they loved him, the way he treated them spills out, and it is disturbing.

[Anonymous]

He was a dick.

[Anonymous]

I thought he was fun until her started spouting about marrying a gentile Italian woman only for her to turned out to be into martial arts!
What a pathetic chauvinist and a narc!

[Anonymous]

He was closeted, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m horrified by the impulsive nature of his suicide. I had assumed that he had been troubled for a long time, but to find out that he did it (and was making other bad choices) due to a woman who was cheating on him was just a gut punch.

He WAS troubled for a long time. He was drug addict at a very young age.

Suicides can seem impulsive, in that they have triggers (a break up or firing, for example), but people who are healthy and strong when they encounter life's disappointments do not generally chose that option.

"Suicide." I'm still not convinced.

He said just a few days before he died that he "had things to live for." He also hung himself with a bathrobe belt, which would likely not support a 200 pound man's full weight which means he probably tied it to a doorknob and sat down. Dude's best friend found him first, my personal theory is that is was a choke and stroke gone awry and his friend did him a final solid and zipped him up so it would look like suicide.

I agree. He was a middle-aged FATHER who had gone through two divorces so news of alleged cheating by his current GF didn't seem so catastrophic to be life-ending. He and Argento may have gotten into some kink, and maybe he just took it a little too far while he was alone.

Bourdain clearly adored his daughter and he had a cordial relationship with her mother/his ex. He was also close with his brother. Based on what we learned about his personality from his books and shows, it does not seem to me that he would have picked this time, place and method to end his life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He had a great show, but I've never understood why people glorify him the way they do.

Because he was awesome when he first came out. He predated all of the chef shoes we have now. Before it was just the likes of Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, etc. But Bourdain showed you both the raw unfilitered world of the kitchen, but then all of the exciting foods in the world that weren't just thr west. Never, ever did he describe those foods either as being weird or exotic. True respect for culture and good food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought he seemed like a jerk and think it's weird how everyone got so into him after he killed himself.

It comes with being a chef in a high octane kitchen. If you read Kitchen Confidential you'd understand. Chefs like that just have a different screw loose than the rest of the world.

People were enamored with Bourdain long before he killed himself and Parts Unknown.

You really gotta watch A Cooks Tour and No Reservations. It is riveting TV, especially when it first came out and nothing like it before was ever done.

To this day, I still remember the episode were he eats the entire cobra in Vietnam. That was before he was really famous..


He so had profound respect for his craft. He was like an encyclopedia of knowledge on the culinary arts and referenced a ton of chefs before most common people had never even heard who weren't hardcore into the world of culinary arts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Loved no reservations. Didn't like when he was on CNN. Loved kitchen confidential.

+10000

I had to stop watching when he was on CNN. People realize he produced farrrrre better TV with No Reservations and A Cook's Tour, right? I you haven't seen those shows, you really need to go back and watch. His CNN show was boring because it got too much into culture and politics and strayed away from just eating good food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He had a great show, but I've never understood why people glorify him the way they do.

Because he was awesome when he first came out. He predated all of the chef shoes we have now. Before it was just the likes of Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, etc. But Bourdain showed you both the raw unfilitered world of the kitchen, but then all of the exciting foods in the world that weren't just thr west. Never, ever did he describe those foods either as being weird or exotic. True respect for culture and good food.

To me he was a more popular version of the Lonely Planet show. He got really luck to hit at a time when cable channels had tons of cash to throw at shows and was able to have a travel show with great production value. I don't think we'll see anything quite like it again just due to the cost

[Anonymous]

I miss him in a way that really doesn’t make sense given that I didn’t know him personally. I can’t describe it well, but it affected me deeply when he killed himself. I haven’t watched television since then. I realize he had his flaws but to me he was brilliant.

[Anonymous]

I liked No Reservations b/c it was like watching Globe Trekker but with cuisine.