Somber Reflections in Kaysersberg
24 May 2018
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you, it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
We arrived back in Kaysersberg-Vignoble to seek out dinner. Just like how we chose to go back to Riquewihr, we wanted to really spend the full day in Kaysersberg to make up for such a limited time on the last trip. The town was relatively empty, the shops were shutting down, and there was a peaceful quiet air through the streets. We passed by the KaysersBier where we had our drinks earlier, but decided to try something different.
There is a Michelin-Starred restaurant in town called Le Chambard. I had this place noted as a potential dinner stop, along with a few others in town, although Le Chambard was by far the most expensive place on our list for Kaysersberg. We looked over the menu before deciding that the place across the street was more in our budget. Honestly, while the restaurant we ultimately chose was more of the Winstub type casual place, the food looked just as excellent there as the more expensive places. We really like to focus on the fact and show everyone that you can see the world without being wealthy, and while I do have the deep interest in the culinary arts with a Michelin-starred dinner on my to-do list, we couldn’t justify the cost this time. We chose to go across the street to Restaurant Caveau du Schlossberg.
We settled in to an outside table of Caveau du Schlossberg, the hotel portion of Le Chambard looming right over our shoulders across the street. We sat there enjoying our evening, blissfully unaware of the event that would happen just two short weeks in the future inside one of those rooms right behind us. On June 8th, 2018, inside a Le Chambard hotel room in the little town of Kaysersberg, chef and travel legend Anthony Bourdain would spend his final moments in this world.
Before I get into the part I intended to talk about with this writing, I first need to address the manner of his passing. It is so easy for people to just point fingers, make accusations and generalized statements, and criticize a situation of which they had no part; it is significantly harder to empathize and put ourselves in the shoes of another. When someone – especially someone famous or wealthy, who seemingly has everything we would want ourselves – chooses to end their own life, it is so easy to just say they were selfish, they cowardly gave up, or that they took for granted the things they had going so well. Fewer people choose to understand that one can’t begin to comprehend the struggle another person has with a path they themselves have not had to walk. So many choose to take the easy perspective, but I challenge you to look at another’s struggles with empathy rather than simple judgments.
Bourdain started his career far from where it ended. Working as a cook in New York, he wrote a book about the crazy life of a restaurant kitchen, a life that most restaurant diners barely know exists only a few short feet from their dinner plates. That book was noticed, which led to his first television show No Reservations, which led to CNN and even larger notoriety. He essentially lived the dream of those of us who document our adventures, and the inspiration and impact he had on us is second only to a very few. Others may have have had a bigger inspiration on the layout and specifics of how we go about it (Rick Stein comes to mind) and the biggest inspirations were the ones who brought us on our first journeys across the world (hi Dad!), but Bourdain was certainly the one who put the idea in our heads to not just go places, but to actually make something creative with the journey itself. He inspired us not just to see it and do it, but to tell the story as well.
In truth, I tend to have a very different outlook on many things than Bourdain did. I would occasionally find him a bit too cynical, often choosing a sharp or condescending reaction rather than looking at the positive in situations. And he sure did love to complain. It’s hard to watch someone do the very thing I want most and be cynical about it. Yet even with our differences, and even with me needing to take a break from watching his show because the cynical outlook became a bit too much, I still hold him as one of biggest inspirations for starting this website. A lesson many need to learn it seems, we don’t need to necessarily share the same viewpoints or have the same experiences to have a connection with another person. Style differences and outlooks aside, he was a magnificent storyteller bringing the viewpoint of an average guy with humble beginnings to some of the most exotic places in the world. Despite his obvious success and his constant traveling the world, he still seemed to maintain that perspective of someone living in North Jersey heading off to a jungle in Cambodia after slugging away for hours in a tiny restaurant kitchen. One perspective we certainly do share is the way he was so eager to showcase the people and their cultures - from the way they live to the food they ate - rather than just shuffling from one tourist site to another, holding these things as so much more important. He encouraged people to be travelers who appreciated the local culture rather than a tourist who just consumes it. He educated his audience while he entertained them; in that respect, he was really, really good at what he did.
Whenever I was asked what I really wanted to do in life, my answer was always, “Whatever it is that Anthony Bourdain does.” He opened up the world’s cultures for the average person, while showing us that immersing ourselves in the world is beautiful and ugly and painful and exiting and terrifying and inspiring all at the same time. For people who do what we do, there is no possible way for us not to see him as an inspiration. In many ways, his passing almost feels like that of losing a mentor.
We sat unknowing in the shadow of the place of his eventual passing, where we had one of the most exquisite meals of our lives. Slow cooked pork cheek in Pinot Noir sauce that just melted away in your mouth with a deep, intensely rich flavor. Local, seasonal white asparagus that were infused with a heavenly savory note, served with slices of local ham, like someone took an Alsatian May afternoon and put it on our plate. Local Riesling complimented the calm evening sitting out on the street, watching the sky slowly dim and the lights of the town start to illuminate in the buildings. You can’t help but think that was the kind of meal Bourdain would have been proud to feature. It was a taste of pure local heaven.
We enjoyed our satisfied walk back from an amazing meal, from the fateful hotel past the large church and the macabre wall of skulls, along the doorways of beautiful houses and cafes, over the bridge by the contrasting buildings along the water, and ultimately stopped in our tracks by a magnificent stork that landed right beside us. It’s a place where the me growing up never in a million years would have imagined I could be. The awe of our surroundings reminded me of another quote, one of my favorites, one that I find serves as a guiding point for my philosophy:
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch. Move.”
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