Episode description

Laurie Woolever is a food writer in New York, but she’s probably best known for two other jobs she’s held: an assistant to Mario Batali, and an assistant to and collaborator with Anthony Bourdain. Laurie was working with Bourdain when he took his own life in 2018. After his death, she published Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography. Now she’s telling her own story in a new memoir called Care and Feeding, in which she details her struggles with addiction, and explores how her desire to emulate her famous bosses fed her destructive behavior. As you’ll hear, in a lot of ways, there was only a thin line between what happened to them, and how Laurie’s life unfolded.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O’Hara, Kameel Stanley, Jared O'Connell, and Giulia Leo. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

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