Just days after the devastating news of Kate Spade's demise comes another heart-wrencher. Celebrated chef, TV show personality and author Anthony Bourdain has died at 61, allegedly of suicide. Thanks to his TV shows like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and numerous books which hit best-seller status, Anthony came to be one of the most famous names in the world of food of travel. He knew the ins and outs of global cuisines, went out on a limb to give it all a try and absolutely never held back. Through his travels and food adventures, he also left many sound bits of advice. The world at large will miss the kitchen's original bad boy and will always remember some of his best quotes on eating happily, travelling far and living well.
"As I get older my tastes become simpler. The foods that make me reliably happy, that have a real emotional appeal, are a simple bowl of regional pasta, spicy noodles sold in Vietnam, or anybody's grandmother's meatloaf" - to The Guardian
"In order to write well about food, you need to eat well, and you cannot eat well if you're analyzing the food. It's not fun for the people you're eating with and I don't see how it can be fun for you. I spent 30 years in the restaurant business and I do not want to be thinking if the bus boy's doing his job. I don't want to hear the bell in the kitchen. I don't want to be thinking about what's in that dressing. I want to be lost in the meal. I want to be a romantic fool." - to First We Feast
"If you're twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel - as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them - wherever you go." - in Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain
"Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that's okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind." - in No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach by Anthony Bourdain
"I like watching really good food porn. Beautiful food that I know what it is, I know what they're making, or I'm curious about the culture it's coming from. I could watch that all day. I like watching food porn, I like making food porn for people who are really all about the food and learning about food or imagining about food." - to Smithsonian Magazine
"Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbones and Pernod." - in Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
"Very often, the best chef in town started out living in a working-class section of town or came up hard. I like telling stories, and I tell stories that interest me. It would be boring to have to go to nothing but the best restaurants. That would be a misery to me." - to Mother Jones
"I wanted kicks - the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I'd yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I'd found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books." - in A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain.
Comments
Thank you for the wise words and innumerable adventures, Anthony. You will be sorely missed.
