Author: Shay Spence / Source: PEOPLE.com
Beloved chef, world traveler, TV show host and author Anthony Bourdain has topped the Amazon best-seller list following his sudden death on Friday.
The New York Post first reported that the chef’s memoir Kitchen Confidential—which he wrote in 2000 after an 8-year stint in the kitchen at Les Halles in New York City—had shot to number one, ahead of Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s most recent novel The President Is Missing and The Plant Paradox by Dr. Steven R. Gundry. Another one of Bourdain’s publications, Medium Raw comes in fifth on the list.
When the book was first published, it rocked the culinary industry, leaving some readers, like Dana Cowin, the former Editor-in-Chief of our sister publication Food & Wine feeling captivated and “a little scandalized.
”“I was like, this guy—he doesn’t feel right for Food & Wine,” she tells PEOPLE. “He’s such a bad boy, and I held onto that thought for about a month until I was seated next to him at a dinner party and he was such a sweetheart. When I first looked at the place cards, I was sitting next to him and I just had this deep internal eye roll, although it may have been external. Then by the end of evening I was like leaning into him like ‘tell me more.’ I literally went from ‘I can’t believe I drew you as a dinner partner’ to ‘you are the most fascinating, thoughtful human being I have ever met.’”
- RELATED: Anthony Bourdain Fans Turn the Late Chef’s Former New York Restaurant Les Halles Into a Memorial
Following that dinner party, Cowin and Bourdain grew to be friends, and he penned many stories for the magazine, including an annotated version of his old recipes and a series of illustrations where he sketched three of the most meaningful moments from his travels.
Bourdain’s storytelling capabilities extended beyond his book, as seen in his TV shows like No Reservations and Parts Unknown, and then into sketches like graphic novels and other commissioned pieces for publications, but Cowin was always in awe of his “word-perfect” pieces.
“I think that the reason that Tony was a great storyteller and a great friend, was because he had this deep sense of empathy, humility and humanity,” Cowin says. “He found inside…
The post Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential Is Currently #1 on Amazon—Here’s How It Changed the Culinary Industry appeared first on FeedBox.