It was an act borne of desperation, as these “how I came to work in a restaurant” stories often are. I was rudderless and penniless when I took a hostess job at a hotel restaurant in Death Valley.

Let’s go to Saginaw, my parents house, and definitelyhave my mother cook cow braised in Vargas’s light chile powder so simplemy mother says there’s nothing to it, says anyone can make it, but they can’t.

“There’s so much I don’t know.”

Anthony Bourdain’s remarkable and tragic life can be summed up in this one simple sentence. He spoke these words in an early episode of Parts Unknown as he marveled at the delicacies of LA’s Koreatown.

I am the king of this mountainof dirty silverware, lipstick stainedwine glasses, heavy white platescoated with congealed beef tallow, Bearnaise.

About a decade ago, when I was a graduate student in creative writing, Anthony Bourdain came to campus.

My brother texted me the news and it didn’t make sense. 

When you identify strongly with a person--so strongly that when they speak, it’s like they’re narrating your inner monologue, or so strongly that you reconsider every choice you’ve made in life just because you want to be more like them--it’s pretty unsettling when that person ends up killing themselves.

How much of this worldwill be enough?

In the week after his death—and dying the way he did—friends, fans, foes, and family had to accept that Anthony Bourdain’s dark side was for real.