Pittsburgh Chef Pens Eloquent Elegy For Anthony Boudrain

PITTSBURGH, PA - Bill Fuller got the first text at 7:33 a.m. Then they wouldn’t stop coming. One of Pittsburgh’s most well-known culinary professionals had his phone bombarded with messages that Anthony Bourdain was dead.

Fuller is a corporate chef and partner with the big Burrito Restaurant Group, which Pittsburgh magazine has described as “the most influential restaurant company in the city and one that’s built itself as a training ground for cooks, bartenders and front-of-house managers.” The company’s holdings include the Mad Mex chain, Casbah, Eleven, Kaya, Soba, Umi and a catering operation.

When Fuller heard that Bourdain, 61, the celebrity chef and author whose CNN series "Parts Unknown" spotlighted Pittsburgh last fall, had committed suicide in Paris, he immediately penned an eloquent elegy and shared it on Facebook.

Here it is:

“Anthony Bourdain embodied the concept that we can dive deep into the dangerous lifestyles of this hospitality business; the long hours and late nights, the drinking and drug abuse, the pirate lifestyle glorifying pain while denigrating normalcy, to resurface later down the line, whole and wholesome, basking in the soft sunlight free of back pain and deep fryer burns.

“He escaped, it seemed, initially by writing a popular book about our refugee camp of misfits. People adored his stories. He was able to parlayed this success into his television. And he seemed to be able to do all these things without compromising his self; the cursing, sneering, brooding kitchen tough guy. No longer chained to the stove arguing gluten modifications with harried servers on a rough Tuesday night, he became rich and famous and free. Free to live a clean and shimmering life of traveling the world, eating crazy foods, and hanging out with a lot of cool and interesting people. Free to call off when he felt poorly. Free to cover his student loans and his car payment.

“This morning, we learned, that he was not free. Whatever darkness he carried could not be escaped. Even with the best life, the escaped life, a life of clean sheets and pressed shirts, he could not go forward, not for his craft, not for his friends, not even for his daughter. We struggle to grasp the massive darkness that occluded his ability to persevere. We wonder, as we look inward at our own hopes and dark fears, can any of us really escape?

“I worry today of the despair people will feel. I want to reach out to the people hovering at desperation’s edge, grab their hand, and reel them back from this grey news drawing them down. Please, do not assume that one person’s failure to persist defines a reason for you to follow their path. His great desperate emptiness grew broader than his life, bigger than his success, greater even his desire to breathe. That does not have to be your path.

“Please, all my friends out there, if you can, reach out to the struggling person in your life. Bring them a doughnut, speak more softly and kindly, listen to the words within their words, empathize with them. Each of us has our journey that we travel, and it may be secretly dark, and love from our brothers and sisters can help us keep going.

“And please, to those struggling, make the call and find some help. There are friends and churches and counselors and hotlines. And there is no weakness in asking for help. Let the macho culture of our industry go and let in what light may be gotten. You are not failing when you admit to fragility. You are admitting to being human. Simply and magically human. And we all need help from other humans sometimes. You are not alone.

“Life isn’t always a pirate ship. Occasionally it is a cruise ship. Today, it is a lifeboat.”

Boudrain photo via Getty Images.

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