How to Be the Next Anthony Bourdain
No other celebrity ever made people feel truly connected to the world as Anthony Bourdain did for all of us. He was our teacher in food, travel, cultural history and the human condition. Name another famous person who influenced generations from all ages how travel and food frequently coincided with art, literature, philosophy, psychology, music, theology and religion. There was no one like Anthony Bourdain, so the shoes are harder to fill. But, we can still try to be more like him.
Be curious. Stay curious.
Anthony Bourdain had a constant need to learn about people, different cultures, anecdotes, taste palates — anything and everything. The first step is wanting to know about things, really obscure subjects or places that you have never heard of, only read about in books, or watched on the Discovery channel. What he begged from all of us was to go out and see for yourself, ask a lot of questions. Never stop trying to satisfy your curiosity, the world is so vast and there are too many interesting people and foods to be introduced to.
Read, write and read some more.
You can tell how well-read he was by the way he spoke, the choice of words, phrases and the inclination in tone he used to describe a feeling of a city or a plate of food. The easiest way to be charismatic is to read, particularly fiction. When he talked about a travel spot and came across an alley with an out of the way food cart, he wasn’t trying to be a chef who discovered a hole in the wall joint. His sense of joy of discovery had to have come from a story that he once read in a book when he was young. That feeling of how did I get here, a momentary euphoria of being lucky to experience it. When your imagination is no longer a fantasy, because you are there in the moment.
