A few weeks ago, when we lost Roth, I joked about the Bourdain stories I would tell one day, adding that I hoped it would be 50 years hence. Well, here we are.
Manchester, England, 2000. Kitchen Confidential has been published and Bourdain is in the process of becoming Bourdain. But he’s at a crime conference and that’s where @AoDespair and I meet him.
He apologizes for his treatment of Baltimore in the book, saying he was cranky in Baltimore because he couldn’t find heroin. We tell him that he’s the most incompetent heroin addict that ever lived.
Eight years go by. Maybe nine? On a Labor Day weekend, @AoDespair watches a marathon of Bourdain’s show and decides he has to be friends with him.
Me: “Write [famous person they both knew] and ask for his contact information.” I come home to find David at a complete loss because all he got was a phone number. “I can’t just call him!”
I say, “Look, you’ve got this New Orleans show ordered, with a chef character. Tell him you need him to help and want to have lunch. One condition: I get to go.”
December ‘09, we head to midtown sushi restaurant. I am now so committed to our lie that I BRING A NOTEBOOK AND TAKE NOTES.
David is so rattled he tries to pour sake on his sushi.
But, dammit, the lie became true! Bourdain wrote for Treme and David described him to me as a natural, not something he said easily or often.
In 2010, he came through New Orleans and we took him to August, not really his bag. He asked to hold our infant daughter and cradled her in his lap for much of the meal.
So, anyway, that’s the man I knew, very slightly. Someone you could tease about his heroin addiction, someone that my husband wanted a bromance with, a guy who wanted to hold a baby girl in his lap while tolerating a fancy restaurant.
