The death of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has touched several people in Nova Scotia.
“He was exactly what he’s like on TV,” Mark Gray recounted on Friday at the Dartmouth restaurant he owns called The Watch That Ends the Night.
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Gray said met Bourdain at ‘Devour! The Food Film Fest’ in Wolfville, N.S., a few years ago, and cooked “a rabbit wrapped in a pig’s blanket” to the chef’s delight.
“I got an autograph, and it was just one of those really special moments that, as a chef, you don’t get those all the time, especially here in the Maritimes,” Gray said.
Lia Rinaldo, the managing director of the event, said in an interview that Bourdain was complex and gracious.
“He spent a lot of time with culinary students. He really impressed the hell out of everybody that met him and got the chance to talk to him,” she said.
“People don’t like to see their heroes pass. It’s a pretty sad day for a lot of people, I think.”
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Bourdain’s death occurred just days after Kate Spade’s; both died by suicide.
“We need to stop thinking about it as being a choice because, otherwise we see the rich and the famous as being immune somehow because their life is good, and that’s an absurd kind of conclusion,” psychology and social worker Todd Leader said in an interview.
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Leader wants people to rethink what the word “stigma” means.
“The way we respond to somebody when they come back to work after being off for a while for a mental illness. Do we treat them differently than we treat somebody coming back with a physical illness?” Leader said. “We need to start to recognize that it’s those small things that are stigma.”
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He also emphasized the need for improvements to keep people healthy and prevent them getting to a point of crisis.