IN MEMORIAM
Meeting Bourdain
When I awoke on Friday, 8th June 2018, I have to admit that I was feeling a little bleary. The night before, my wife and I had drunk a little bit too much wine during an indulgent supper at one of Los Angeles hottest new restaurants and I was definitely regretting it as I forced my eyelids to open. As always, I reached for my phone to check the news and through the blur, as my eyes came into focus, I read that Anthony Bourdain had taken his own life in a small village in France. As it was for so many people, the news was devastating. But I had a particularly personal reason to be saddened, as without Bourdain, it is very possible that my life now would be very different indeed.
In 2001, I was living in London and working as a book publisher. My real joy however was, as it is now, food and travel. I had discovered food chat sites, such as Chowhound and Egullet, and through them, had made connections with people all over the globe who shared my passion. Among them was a man who had just published his first non-fiction book, Kitchen Confidential, and was building a reputation as one of the great stars of the food world. On the boards, however, Anthony, or “Tony” as he asked to be called, was just one of the gang. Pugnacious, brilliant, funny and always willing to get involved in a heated argument about the best omakase in New York City, or why St. John in London was his favorite restaurant in the world.
After exchanging numerous private messages over a year or so, Tony told me he was coming to London for an event and asked me if I wanted to meet up with him for a drink. Of course, I said yes. With my older brother, I arranged to meet him in a small, run down, but rather wonderful pub called The Wenlock Arms in the City of London. Tony arrived late, just as the pub was about to close. The landlord then declared a “lock-in,” where the pub would officially close, but then operate as a private party. Tony loved this notion and stayed with us until the early hours of the morning drinking British beer and chomping down on about half a dozen packets of pork scratchings. He was in his element. When we finally parted ways, our last view of him was wobbling down the City Road towards Smithfield Market where he was going to meet Fergus Henderson of St. John for a boozy breakfast at The Cock Tavern.
I met him one more time after that at a rather grim restaurant in New York called Sammy’s Romanian. The food was poor, but vodka was served by the bottle encased in ice and we had another blurry but fun evening. After that, Tony became THE Anthony Bourdain and was impossible to catch up with other than by e-mail.
In 2006, when work and ill health began to collide, I decided to quit my job and go around the world to eat. I wrote to Tony and asked his advice. Despite the fact he barely had a spare minute to himself, he not only gave me some fantastic tips, but also offered me a quote to put on the front of the proposal for my first book, Eat My Globe. So, to use his words, “at least then they’ll read the f**king thing.” The quote read:
"The dangerously obsessive, staggeringly knowledgeable, provocative and opinionated Simon Majumdar knows his shit. No question about it. I don't always agree with him but he's always worth listening to. Many would kill to have eaten the meals in their lifetimes that Majumdar has consumed in a single year-and he has an endearingly soft spot for the grimiest of lowlife pubs. Plus--the bastard can write."
That one act of kindness changed my life. I hoped that the proposal was a good one. But, I am 100% certain that the endorsement of Anthony Bourdain played no small part in Eat My Globe being sold at auction in both the US and UK for enough money for me to think that I might be able to make a living out of my passion for food and travel. Without this quote, I may not have met my wife, moved to the USA, worked on shows on the Food Network and Cooking Channel or had any other number of wonderful things happen in the second half of my life. And for that, I shall always be genuinely grateful.
I always say, when asked, that Tony and I were friendly but not friends. We would swap occasional e-mails (the last one being a note I sent after a particularly splendid episode of Parts Unknown). I always read his pronouncements on everything and everyone in the food world knowing that he had changed little since I first met him seventeen years earlier.
I am sure that there are many people, closer to him, who are feeling his loss more painfully than I am. And I would never claim to be as impacted by his death as others in the industry. However, I will always remember those alcohol fueled meetings and the one kindness he showed me that truly changed my life in so many ways.
R.I.P Tony. The world is truly a poorer place for your passing.
