A tribute to Anthony Bourdain, who I admired and who Inspired
Like all of us, I woke up to the news of Anthony Bourdain’s passing this morning and felt like a kitchen knife had been stabbed through my heart. When I read it was suicide, I audibly whimpered, “No. No. Not him.” I always say when someone in your ether - whether if you knew them personally or through a few degrees of separation - exits this world, your soul is never the same because of it. Their soul, their spirit, their gift was a small (or, if you loved them, large) piece of who you have been, who you are and who you will become. If I had gotten one of my lifelong wishes - of having Anthony at my dinner party which I expressed to @thermador when they asked me who my dream dinner party guests would be last spring for a press feature, I would have told him this over a decadent, home-cooked southern meal in my home: “Thank you for inspiring a girl who grew up hating her body, who constantly found herself fighting with food and resenting her deep passion for it, to finally give herself permission to fall in love with it. To focus a good chunk of her career on it. To create content, segments and shows, and trips based around it and the joy it creates. To finally be able to pursue her passion, and fill her life with food, and connect people to food, -and accept and love the body she lives in while doing it, and for being one of the lights to give her the confidence to give other women - who grew up with the same food passion-meets-food resentment - similar permission to love their bodies just as they are now...and, EAT deliciously and decadently while doing it. Gosh, you’ve helped make life so much more fun!” Anthony made food sexy, and he made me personally feel sexy eating it...which was a long way from the embarrassed apologies I used to incessantly give out of my guilt for loving Food as teen, and for loving even more the stories shared and relationships deepened over a good, juicy meal. As I share with you all my culinary and travel adventures here in Ojai over the next few days and then in Mexico over the next week, I will keep Anthony and his inextinguishable, food-loving spirit alive in my plans. I will venture places I have never gone. I will try foods I have never dared to try. And, I will thank God and this universe for giving us the gift of Anthony Bourdain for as long as we had got to have him. I know you weren’t a fan of desserts down here, Anthony, but I really hope you’ll have some sweetness wherever you are now. — at Lavender Inn.