The food world - and the music world and the travel world - is still reeling from Anthony Bourdain's death last week.
Many people have written about their feelings of loss. People who knew him and people who only knew his work have talked about the way his passion for things that are real and human moved them and made them feel seen. Many more people have talked about their own experiences of mental illness taking them close to the doorway he walked through.
For someone who came to fame with a book that pretty much formed the public perception of macho bad-boy wankery in professional cooking, he's leaving a legacy of compassion and vulnerability, the “very tender alchemy that made one generous to friends and unrelenting to enemies; the best kind of human to be” that is much more valuable.
His macaroni cheese recipe (which of course being American he called macaroni and cheese) is my offering to the I Heart Cooking Clubs round-up of food-blogger tributes. I don't know the backstory for him developing this recipe, but to me it speaks of having eaten many, many disappointing dishes of mac cheese. This is the recipe of someone who is not going to settle for bland, pasty macaroni. He leaves nothing to chance, with four types of cheese, mustard, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce and a lot of white pepper. It's very, very good.
