Longtime Tribune Food Writer Remembers Chef Anthony Bourdain

TAMPA, FL — During his 12 years as the food writer for The Tampa Tribune, Jeff Houck had the opportunity to interview an array of celebrity chefs and food writers, including Anthony Bourdain.

Like others who closely followed Bourdain’s career, Houck was taken aback by the news Friday morning of Bourdain’s death.

Bourdain, 61, was found dead in his hotel room in France while working on his CNN series “Parts Unknown” about culinary traditions around the world. Officials are calling his death a suicide.

“Shocked, saddened, mystified,” was Houck’s reaction to the news.

Coming three days after fashion designer Kate Spade, 55, died of apparent suicide in her Park Avenue apartment in New York, Bourdain’s death has fans befuddled. What would prompt someone at the height of a successful career to end his or her life?

Houck said there were no clues during Bourdain’s several visits to Tampa Bay or during his one-on-one interviews with Houck.

In 2012, Houck, who is now the marketing and public relations manager for The Columbia Restaurant Group, had an opportunity to speak with Bourdain when he was in Tampa for an appearance at the Straz Center with fellow celebrity chef Eric Ripert.

At that time, Bourdain, born in New York and raised in New Jersey, was the host of Travel Channel's "No Reservations."

Hailing from France, Ripert was chef of the four-star New York City restaurant, Le Bernardin.

Houck said their contrasting personalities were typified in their choice of dressing room beverages. Ripert insisted that his dressing room be stocked with a supply of Diet Coke. Bourdain preferred a six-pack of beer and was known to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day.

Nevertheless, the two men had been best friends for years. It was Ripert who discovered Bourdain dead in his hotel room Friday morning.

The contrast between the two best friends was something Bourdain never failed to point out during the chefs’ appearances together, Ripert told Houck.

"He tries to make me look evil," Ripert said. "That's his game. Obviously, I have to defend myself. It's challenging because he's touching the right nerve. He likes to tease me. What about? Being French."

Houck said the two met after Bourdain wrote highly of Le Bernardin in his landmark 2000 confessional book, "Kitchen Confidential."

The parrying was part of their repertoire as they discussed various aspects of food during their 40-city tour in 2012 that included a stop in Tampa.

Underlying the teasing, said Houck, was a deep mutual respect.

“Both won accolades for their work as judges on ‘Top Chef’ and for their TV work,” Houck said. “Ripert's travel show, ‘Avec Eric,’ won an Emmy in 2011. Bourdain's ‘No Reservations’ won a truckload of trophies, including the James Beard Award. What is most astonishing to Ripert is Bourdain's composure. Even with the grind of going from city to city and greeting thousands of fans.”

"No matter what situation or challenge we have, he never complains," Ripert told Houck. "He doesn't show any sign of strain, any sign of being impatient, any sign of anything. I'm the one who complains about the [camera] flashes in my eyes. He doesn't say anything about it. He doesn't say it's good, it hurts, it doesn't hurt. He doesn't' say anything. That is very impressive to me."

Those insights might also be a clue as to why Bourdain’s closest friends and co-workers were so shocked when he took his own life.

Houck said Bourdain wasn’t the type of person to wear his heart on his sleeve, except, perhaps, when speaking about his daughter, Ariane, 11, who Bourdain talked about in depth with Houck prior to an appearance in Lakeland in 2010.

“He was thoughtful, wry, acerbic, but he had moments when he could be tender when he was in the presence of either a great food pioneer or a humble food setting in someone’s house,” Houck said.

Beyond his gift for storytelling, Houck said those are the qualities that will most certainly become Bourdain’s legacy.

“Like Julia Child did for introducing French cooking to Americans in the 1960s, Bourdain showed America that everyone around the world eats around a table, no matter the political affiliation or border," said Houck.

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