Chef, author and TV travel-show personality Anthony Bourdain dead at 61: CNN

Anthony Bourdain, a New York chef catapulted to fame when his book "Kitchen Confidential" was published in 2000, has died, CNN reports. The book unsparingly chronicled Bourdain's years in such kitchens as that at Brasserie Les Halles, where he was executive chef, and established a brash tone that carried over to such television shows as "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel and CNN's "Parts Unknown." Bourdain would have turned 62 this month. The New York Times, which reported Bourdain was in Strasbourg, France, at the time of his death on Friday, said CNN had characterized Bourdain's death as a suicide. (MarketWatch's Tom Teodorczuk interviewed Bourdain on his activism and other topics last year.)