My sister and I discovered Anthony Bourdain back in 2001 when “Kitchen Confidential” was published. I was just realizing that food was exciting and my sister just wanted to be a part of whatever I wanted to be a part of. I was sixteen and she was twelve and we knew nothing about what it meant to travel or eat exotic cuisine or spend long hours in a kitchen.
We discovered “No Reservations” together while on vacation in 2005. I was in college and my sister was going into her junior year of high school. Our parents were pissed at us because we were spending the day on the couch watching this gruff guy talk about how amazing oysters were instead of spending the day out in the sun.
My sister was *so* enamored.
Cut to her senior year. As a surprise gift, I decided to take her to New York. She lost her mind; she’d never been to a city so big.
The only place she wanted to go was Brasserie Les Halles because he had been the executive chef there for ages, and we’d heard that sometimes he came out and just hung at the bar and drank and chatted with the patrons. We went and she ordered things she’d never tried before: escargot, steak tartare, and moules provençal.
When we left that meal, my sister turned to me and said, “That’s it, I’m going to be a chef.”
It hit her hard this morning, and it hit me hard, too, like it might when a favorite musician dies, when something that has been such a constant in your life, in the background, is just gone. His words gave my sister the courage to enter the restaurant industry, and gave me the courage to try squid, and snails, and not be afraid of the number of chili peppers listed on a menu item.
He was a loud mouth, and crass, and sad and brave, and he was very obviously hurting, struggling with mental health issues that are so pervasive in the restaurant industry.
This morning, my sister said to me, “You have no idea how many times I had to talk a friend off of that same ledge. Before they got sober, after they got sober, after a hard shift. And mental health in the kitchen environment is pretty much ignored. Everyone is affected. No one cares. And that’s where all of my friends are. Which is terrifying.”
It is terrifying, and I wish that all of those people could get the help they need. I hope that this serves as a reason for those people to seek help.
I suppose what I want to say is “Thank you, chef” for inspiring me to go on culinary adventures, for inspiring my sister to run into the kitchen head on, for challenging our palates and exposing us to new cultures.
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