I've been a fan of Anthony Bourdain for YEARS, and so has my mother, it's been an important bonding experience we have both shared, and still share to this day. I used to watch Anthony on TV when I was just a small child, but I would never understand the impact he had on me until I became much older...
In the early 2000s, then Chef Anthony Bourdain hosted his first-ever TV series on the Food Network, called A Cook's Tour. This show came out in 2002, which was an offshoot of the best-selling book that bears the same title. Bourdain wrote A Cook's Tour in 2001. The short-lived series only lasted for 2 seasons due to creative differences. I was 7 years old at the time.
Just five years later, in 2005, came his first self titles TV show, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. The series lasted for 8 seasons and it aired on the Travel Channel, July 25th, 2005.
In the year 2011, yet another extraordinary TV series emerged from the bad-boy chef, this one also bears his name. Anthony Bourdain: The Layover which aired on the Travel Channel for 2 seasons as well.
And finally, came Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown which he hosted, wrote scripts for, and produced with his production team, Zero Point Zero Productions. Housed by CNN. This major television project had a whooping 12 seasons, 104 episodes, and was uniquely crafted to fit a one-of-a-kind theme song, recorded by Anthony himself. Parts Unknown aired in 2013 first episode date, April 14th, 2013. Sadly, the finale episode date was November, 11th 2018. The famous Chef and TV personality passed away due to suicide in June 8th, 2018 )More on that later.)
Throughout my thought process, comes the story I thought of after Tony's death in 2018. In the thick of my healing, I sat down to write a very crappy first draft on my computer, but it would take a full year before I even mustered up the courage to commit to acutally writing this thing. While and during reading Kitchen Confidential, I slowly but surely built up that confidence through writing short essays for each chapter on Goodreads. Kitchen Confidential is a Memoir that was published by Anthony on May 22, 2000, and boy, did I sure learn a lot! Compiling all the facts from the book and mashing it with my crazy idea for a story that I desired to write, quickly morphed into this one-of-a-kind Wattpad story.
Although this story is mostly fictitious, there will be a lot of facts going into this story as well. As of this writing, I am currently reading Wold Travel, An Irreverent Guide by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever. Then, my next read will be, The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts...
I've also been putting in a ton of research. Reading articles about Tony, reading short esseys that he has written, watching interviews on Youtube, behind the scenes stuff and even reading more of the books from his early career. That is my main mission and I will dedicate a large part of my soul to making sure that this story is interesting enough, written well enough, and factual enough. This novel expands over 3 years, 2018, 2019 and 2020. I just need to find the right space to include 2018. And lastly, this story will include the people that Tony has worked closely with.
I think I've spoken enough about this for now. Now, without further ado please enjoy reading Tony Bourdain: A Story of Mental Health Struggles, A Pandemic, Relationships and Unlikely Events.
