Anthony Bourdain has died

There is no country we visit without first watching all the episodes of No Reservations or Parts Unknown featuring our hero. On June 8, cookbook author and eating traveler Anthony Bourdain died at the age of 61. His friend and top chef Eric Ripert found him in his hotel room in Paris after he took his own life. CNN confirms this.

We will be eternally grateful to him for taking us around the world while we did not even have to leave the couch. We were glad that he ate a porcupine in Vietnam so we would not have to. When he ate roast pig in the Philippines, or got to sit at the table with Paul Bocuse, we were insanely jealous. And let’s not forget that we had never heard of a xiao long bao (soup dumpling) before Bourdain talked about it.

Our lives would not have been the same without his fierce opinions and big mouth, although he always had respect for the cultures and people he was privileged to visit. Our thoughts are with his daughter and the rest of his family.