NEED TO KNOW
- Pastry chef and fellow Food Network legend Duff Goldman is reflecting on his years of friendship with Anne Burrell, who died at age 55
- “I remember the last conversation we had before our paths drifted was a pretty feisty debate about the merits of catfish,” Goldman wrote in a tribute
- He also recounted bumping into Burrell at a gala in NYC and having an uplifting conversation
Pastry chef and fellow Food Network star Duff Goldman is reflecting on his years of friendship with Anne Burrell, days after her death at age 55.
Goldman shared a photo of the two of them alongside an emotional Instagram caption recounting the years of their “complex” relationship.
“I’ve written and re-written this post so many times in the past 24 hours and I just don’t know what to say. Anne and I became friends in probably 2006,” Goldman wrote. “She was going through some stuff and I had heard that she was feeling it so on a trip to NYC from Baltimore I had made her a cake that said ‘Don’t let the bastards win.’ She never did.”
“I remember the last conversation we had before our paths drifted was a pretty feisty debate about the merits of catfish. I believe the words ‘trash fish,”’ ‘tastes like mud,’ and ‘cake boy’ were used, haha. Anne and I always had a spirited and somewhat acerbic back and forth,” Goldman shared.
He added that he’s not sure why their paths drifted, but he’d always hoped Burrell was doing well and finding happiness.
“Then a year or two ago I was at a gala in NYC with my wife and daughter and I took Josephine out to the lobby to give her a break from sitting at a table listening to speeches. We were playing with the marble columns and as we rounded one, we saw Anne,” Goldman recalled.
“Now, at this point we hadn’t spoken in years, and I won’t go into what we talked about but I will say that that conversation left my heart lifted and full of light, for it truly seemed to me that Anne really had found a measure of happiness and love,” he continued.
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“Life is tough, and we have to be tough to get through it. Anne was as tough as they come, but when you got past the armor there was a depth of compassion and kindness that was absolutely beautiful,” Goldman added. “My heart sings when I think of the love and tranquility that it seems Anne had found recently, and her genuine smile for my daughter and me in that lobby are what makes this tragedy just a little more bearable.”
The Kids Baking Championship host is hopeful he’ll be reunited with his friend again someday.
“Anne, wherever you are I hope they have slow moving rivers because when I get there, we’ll get a couple of rods, a pint of chicken livers, and a sixer and I’ll teach you how to catch and cook the best catfish you ever had,” he finished the post. “Rest up, chef.”
Representatives for Goldman did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Burrell is survived by her husband, Stuart Claxton and his son, Javier, along with her mother, Marlene, and sister, Jane, her children Isabella, Amelia and Nicolas, and her brother Ben, PEOPLE previously reported.
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