Anthony Bourdain described himself as a child being irresistibly drawn to the headiness of fresh, raw oysters in France. As a young man he was lured to the restaurant kitchen, to the love of food, and the thrills of the unsavory truths of working in food service. Throughout Kitchen Confidential, he admits his attraction to the dark and risky, to drugs and drinking, and to a life spent in restaurants and at bar tables. In that memoir, Anthony Bourdain invited us on a ride through “the culinary underbelly” of the kitchens, freezers, and back alleys of New York City restaurants.

In 1973 Anthony Bourdain left his somewhat affluent home and a New Jersey private preparatory school for college. Vassar – an elite, selective all-women’s college – had opened its doors to men in 1969, just four years before his arrival. Yet, after only two years there, Bourdain dropped out. He had already spent time in Provincetown as a restaurant dishwasher and he had high praise for that job, explaining that he had to learn to work with others, to be on time, and to treat his superiors with respect. It was a few years later, after he returned to school (graduating in 1978 from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park) that he began moving up the line as cook, sous chef, and finally to running restaurants on his own. It was also in these intimate kitchen settings in the 1980s where he became addicted to heroin and cocaine.

After his death by suicide last week, Bourdain was sometimes described by his critics as the fool-mouthed loser, the swaggering rogue, or the lowlife addict. His fans, however, know him more as a man who rose above his addictions to free himself of drugs by the early 90s (Bourdain received at least five years of treatment from methadone clinics).  It was around 1994 that a friend challenged Bourdain to write. Bourdain had been a bright student, one who was well-read and who had always found writing easy. And so, Bourdain wrote.

In 1995, his mystery thriller Bone in the Throat was published. The book, described as “deliciously depraved” by New York Times reviewer Marilyn Stasio, is extremely funny and very irreverent. A body washes up on a New Jersey beach after being dumped in the New York Harbor and Bourdain begins to introduce us to his characters – SoHo hipsters, Mafiosos, flirty women and very bad men. They reminded me of Carl Hiaasen’s losers – those hanging around the Everglades and the Florida Keys.

Bourdain followed his first novel with Gone Bamboo in 1979 and again mixed mayhem, assassins and lots of tequila in another murderous swill. He was disappointed with his novels’ lack of the mainstream success. Yet, both were reprinted in paperback editions and Bone in the Throat, with Bourdain as an executive producer, was made into a film. (It did, however, receive mixed reviews and the DVD of the movie does not seem to have been released. There’s no sign of it on Amazon or Netflix).

In 2000, when he was 44 years old and the executive chef at New York’s Brasserie Les Halles, Bourdain decided to write about the life as he knew it – the behind-the-scenes, more often seedy, always raw and steamy, restaurant scene. What began as an essay for The New York Press (a local free-rag) ended up in the very respectable New Yorker magazine as “Don’t Eat Before Reading This.” Soon after, the full-length version published as Kitchen Confidential hit the bookshelves. That book appealed mainly to those who worked behind the scenes and façade of the linen-tablecloth’d, maître-d’d front room of the finest (and not-so-finest) eating establishments around the world. But it also quickly gained fame and readers clamored for more. Bourdain followed with A Cook’s Tour, which included a television show produced in 2000 and 2001 and aired beginning in 2002. This deep dive into world food became a hit on the Food Network and his faithful viewers loved his honest, often humble, sometimes macho take on the world’s dining tables.

At 44, rugged, handsome and charismatic Bourdain had the country, and the world, hooked. Yet, he admits at this time he was working to make ends meet. He had been married to Nancy Putkoski for over twenty years, from his addict days through his first literary and television successes. Finally, it seemed that he had won over some of his earlier demons – those of feeling a failure and a fraud. Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook was published in 2004, followed by Nasty Bits (2006), No Reservations (2007), and Medium Raw (2010).

Bourdain’s respectful celebrity grew with 35 episodes of A Cook’s Tour (2002-2003), nine seasons and 142 episodes of No Reservations. By the time of his death by suicide on June 2018, Bourdain had written 13 books and he was the immensely successful journalist/celebrity/host of the CNN program, Parts Unknown in its 11^th season. He was, however, twice divorced (although that second divorce had not been finalized).

After his death, the world focused on Bourdain’s critical acclaim and the crucial need to prevent other deaths by suicide. Yet, many readers’ questions will be answered in his books when he shared his passions and his demons. He was inspired by books and reading. He loved passionately, especially as a father. Yet, he often spoke of the darkness and loneliness in his life.

In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy wrote that “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In the introduction to one of his last books, Appetites: A Cookbook, Anthony Bourdain writes that “Tolstoy never spent any time with my happy family.”  At the time of publication, Bourdain’s daughter was 8 years old and it might have been Bourdain’s happiest time. He had finally found fame, wealth, and at the same time, contentment with his wife and daughter and professional life. Bourdain traveled about 260 days a year, yet he always carved out a five-day respite every month to spend with his daughter. He writes, in that introduction, that he made major changes in his lifestyle when his daughter was born. He was no longer “the star in his own movie.”

Every talk show featuring Bourdain and every speech he wrote portrayed an honest, humble man who was accessible and approachable. He rarely turned down an interview or an opportunity to write the introduction to another cook’s book. By the age of 61, he seemed to have overcome the personal failures of his youth. I have huge respect for the man and it has saddened me that his demons still lurked below the surface of success. A history of good food, adventurous eating and honest philosophy in his books is what Bourdain has left behind for us.

Charlotte Canelli is the Director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte’s column in the June 21, 2018 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

The United States is a diverse country. We are a culturally, intellectually, and religiously diverse people, and our regional foods reflect that. Every state, and even every city can lay claim to its own slice of American culinary culture. Buffalo, NY contributed the chicken wings that are so popular on game day, Philadelphia is all about the cheese steak, and it is hard to think of Chicago without thinking of deep dish pizza. While New England may not have a dish as popular as the buffalo wing or as iconic as Texas barbeque, a surprising number of amazing foods have roots right in our own back yard.

I started thinking about this when I saw a new book sitting on one of my co-worker’s desks awaiting processing. “Fluff: The Sticky Sweet Story of an American Icon” by Mimi Graney chronicles the story of the fluffy marshmallow spread that has been a lunchbox hit for decades. After reading this entertaining history and running to the store to purchase a jar of the marshmallow-y goodness I was seriously craving, I came to think of other things that are regional favorites.

Naturally, my mind went straight to what many people consider to be the Commonwealth’s most recognizable treat: Boston cream pie. While this “pie” might be the official dessert of Massachusetts (yes, Massachusetts has a state dessert), I don’t find it to be terribly representative of classic New England food culture. As Brook Dojny explains in “The New England Cookbook : 350 Recipes from Town and Country, Land and Sea, Hearth and Home,” New England cooking has been shaped not only by the native peoples that have inhabited this land for countless generations, but also by the multitude of immigrants that found their ways to our rocky shores, and even by geography itself.
Quintessential New England recipes are hearty and filling. They use easily available ingredients, largely from local sources, and are rarely fussy or overly complicated. Some prime examples of this are baked beans, chowders, Johnny cakes, steamed seafood, and the fruit cobblers and pies that are so prevalent on our tables.

Speaking of desserts (mostly), “The New England Orchard Cookbook : Harvesting Dishes & Desserts from the Region’s Bounty” by Linda Beaulieu was another recent find that solved a problem common to many Bay State families this time of year. We were positively drowning in a glut of apples after an apple picking outing with my husband, sister, and niece. Even with four enthusiastic apple eaters, we had barely made a dent into our haul weeks later. While I had to order this book from another library in the Minuteman Library Network, it was well worth the wait. Part travel guide, part agricultural history lesson, and part cookbook, this book did not disappoint. In no time, we had reduced our apple stock- without getting sick of them!

While most New Englanders can agree that an old fashioned apple pie is delicious, there are many traditional dishes that folks love or just love to hate. Moxie soda (love), brown bread from a can (love), Necco Wafers (love, especially the clove flavor), clam chowder (hate), and even good old marshmallow Fluff (love). Regardless of whether you think Indian pudding is delicious or horrible, mealy sludge, I think we can all agree that New England has a lot to offer when comes to filling our bellies.

Read Alli Palmgren’s column in the November 23, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Alli is the Technology Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.

I should have seen it coming. Interest in my book group of over a quarter century had been gradually dwindling. The former minister’s wife moved to Rhode Island, the writer was taking a Tuesday night class, the endodontic office manager couldn’t commit, and the frequent flyer, well, just took off. Finishing the reading each month was encouraged if not required. Requests to refrain from giving away the ending, however, were almost always ignored.

Attendance waxed and waned over the years as new faces came and went, but we could usually count on a core group of eight. But when only two of us turned up in October, after a six-month hiatus, we were forced to read the writing on the wall.

Trying to determine how long we’d been convening, I recalled a particular incident. At one of our early meetings a thirsty member had inquired, “Where’s your booze?,” prompting the resident toddler to run and fetch his foul-weather footwear. He had apparently mistaken “booze” for “boots.” The kid turns 26 next week.

Book club wasn’t all about plot, dialogue, and denouement. The sweets and savories were also key ingredients, as was the wine. Some hosts stepped it up a notch and prepared special food that related to the reading. We talked about Isabel Allende’s “The Japanese Lover” while sampling made-from-scratch mango and green tea mochi. Lox and kugel accompanied our discussion of Kristin Hannah’s Nazi-era novel “The Nightingale.” And a gorgeous tarte tatin was the perfect complement to the posthumously published “Suite Francaise” by Irene Nemirovsky.

In the thematic culinary department I contributed precisely nil. I’m an appreciative eater if not much of an entertainer. More creative types might want to consult “The Book Club Cookbook” by Judy Gelman, containing “recipes and food from your book club’s favorite books and authors.”

Since most of us wouldn’t have seen each other since the previous meeting, naturally we’d have personal news to share. We were familiar with each other’s families, jobs, holidays, hospitalizations, and whose kids were struggling in school, going to prom, graduating, getting deployed, or getting engaged. There might have been a wee bit of gossip as well. If time allowed, we even talked about the book.

My youngest daughter, who called a day or so after the group’s demise, was sympathetic. As one of the original members, I’d been part of this book club her entire life. Belle told me how disappointed she was to have gone to only one meeting of a book group in Brooklyn before she moved away. The conversation eventually turned to what each of us was reading.

I had just finished Will Schwalbe’s moving memoir, “The End of Your Life Book Club”–for the second time. I’d meant to skim it just to refresh my memory but ended up rereading it cover to cover. In college I actually took a speed-reading course to train my eyes to jump from phrase to phrase. That practice ended abruptly with the final exam. When I read for pleasure I prefer not to rush. Perhaps the only advantage of this tortoise and hare approach is that I could usually recall most of the characters’ names at book group, having stayed up too late the night before reading every word.

Will Schwalbe—writer, editor, and devoted son—learns that his indomitable mother has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. To help pass the time during her lengthy chemotherapy treatments, they talk about books. While living down the street from Julia Child, with her husband and three children, Mary Ann Schwalbe was director of admissions at Harvard. She subsequently devoted her life to helping refugee women and children and building libraries in Afghanistan. She was universally beloved.

Aside from wishing I’d had Mary Ann for a mother and Julia for a neighbor, I loved reading about all the books the author and his mom discussed. I felt like a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on their conversations about life, literature, love, loss, and anything and everything else. Many of the titles they talked about I had also read, and now want to read again. As for those I hadn’t, the list in the Appendix will provide a lifetime’s worth of recommended reading. I calculated that our book club read roughly the same number of books in twenty five years as Mary Ann and Will tackled in two.

But back to my conversation with Belle. If the Schwalbes could start their own book club, why couldn’t we? She sounded intrigued and suggested we include her sisters. Easier said than done since we live in multiple time zones, but it seemed a great way to connect. I was dubious about the logistics until my co-worker told me we could video conference using Google Chat.

I got the green light from three of the kids. The fourth, possibly preoccupied with a new romance, said she’d consider it.
Like the girls themselves, their tastes in reading are totally different. The oldest is a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut and Wally Lamb, the next in line leans toward the classics, while the youngest chooses books I might never pick up on my own. Then there’s Katie, who’s been slogging through Herman Wouk’s “War and Remembrance,” at my urging, for the better part of two years. It’s become a joke.

I realize the odds of five of us agreeing on a book, reading the book, and scheduling a time to discuss the book–factoring in the nine-hour time difference and the inevitable technical difficulties–are slim at best. But no one could have predicted our first book club would pass the quarter century mark, nor could Mary Ann and Will have anticipated being granted enough time after her diagnosis to share their thoughts on over 200 titles.

The verdict is in. We’ll begin our hopeful endeavor with “My Brilliant Friend,” book one of the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. It’s not quite as ambitious as it sounds, since two of the girls have already read it and I’m halfway through, but still. To misquote the immortal words of Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” “this could be the beginning of a beautiful book group.”

April Cushing is the Head of Adult and Information Services at the Morril Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts.  Read her column in the November 10, 2016 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.