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Josh Ozersky, pictured here in February, was a food columnist for Esquire and the author of several books.
Story highlights
NEW: Death ruled accidental
Ozersky was a noted meat aficionado who fans say wrote with style and passion
"Parts Unknown" host Anthony Bourdain says "he wrote truly beautiful sentences"
(CNN) —
Noted food writer Josh Ozersky, known as an unabashed fan of the carnivorous lifestyle, has died at the age of 47.
He died May 4 at a hotel bathroom in Chicago. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said Wednesday that the death was accidental from drowning and a seizure disorder.
Ozersky was in town covering the James Beard Foundation Awards.
“Josh was a friend, I adored him. He was brilliant, funny, kind to me, curious and a great mensch,” TV food show host Andrew Zimmern tweeted at the time. “I will miss him.”
“I never told Josh Ozersky how envious I was of his ability to write, but I told others, and will continue to do so,” Eater food critic Ryan Sutton tweeted.
Anthony Bourdain, the host of CNN’s “Parts Unknown,” in a tweet that noted dustups the outspoken Ozersky sometimes had with other foodies, said he hoped the man would be ultimately remembered as someone who “wrote truly beautiful sentences.”
In 2008, Ozersky won a James Beard Foundation Award for multimedia writing on food with Daniel Maurer for their work on New York Magazine’s Grub Street Blog, of which Ozersky was the founding editor.
Most recently the food editor for Esquire, he wrote for numerous outlets, including CNN. He also wrote several books, including “Meat Me In Manhattan: A Carnivore’s Guide to New York City,” “The Hamburger: A History” and “Colonel Sanders and The American Dream.”
“He loved meat, and he saw great meat-cookery as the ultimate expression of culinary culture,” the Chicago Tribune quoted Southern Foodways Alliance Director John T. Edge as saying. “Everything he did was overwrought and purposefully so. He didn’t apologize for that. He wore his emotion and love of food on his sleeve.”
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In a 2005 piece for the now defunct website Slashfood, Ozersky wrote a paean to the grilled cheese and bacon sandwich that former CNN Eatocracy editor Kat Kinsman – now editor-in-chief at food site Tasting Table – tweeted was her favorite, “and I believe, his as well.”
After saluting how margarine, milk fat, and bacon lard “conjoin to create a prismatic aurora of pure satisfiability,” he wrote about how it all too often goes wrong.
“Naturally, in a long, largely solitary life, the proper mechanics of the sandwich have taken too large a part of my attentions, and I get upset when it’s done badly,” he wrote. “And it’s almost always done badly. My own hairy-knuckled handling of it invariably leads to some slight maiming or mangling, and I invariably take the first bite with sadness, or at best a thwarted, rueful ambivalence. What did I do wrong? And was it even worth it?”
His work was often personal. In a 2013 piece for Saveur, food flows like a stream through a melancholy travelogue of his time with his late father.
“I didn’t realize at the time that my father’s preoccupation with food was a form of denial, something he talked about so as to avoid talking about – or thinking about – other things,” Ozersky wrote in the piece. “But even as a child I could tell that he always seemed sad. It made me love him more, and feel guilty, and want to try to make him happy. At times, as I grew older, I was able to do that. Often it involved bringing him little surprises: mail-order Katz’s salami, a half-eaten carton of Cantonese roast duck.”
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In addition to his writing, Ozersky was the founder of Meatopia, a festival celebrating meat and the chefs who cook it that The New York Times once called a “bacchanal of pork, beef, lamb, chicken, duck, turkey and quail.”
His last tweet, posted a day before his death, now seems poignant and fitting.
“So I am in Chicago,” he wrote. “Where should I eat?”
Photos: People we lost in 2015
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Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat King Cole and winner of six Grammys for her 1991 album "Unforgettable: With Love," died Thursday, December 31, her publicist said. She was 65.
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Wayne Rogers, who portrayed wise-cracking Army surgeon "Trapper John" McIntyre in the first three seasons of TV's "M*A*S*H," died Thursday, December 31, his publicist said. He was 82.
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Legendary Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister died Monday, December 28 after a short battle with cancer, his bandmates announced. He was 70.
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Haskell Wexler, the influential cinematographer who won Oscars for his work on 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and 1976's "Bound for Glory," died Sunday, December 27, his son said. He was 93.
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George "Meadowlark" Lemon -- known to many as the "Clown Prince of Basketball" with the Harlem Globetrotters -- died Sunday, December 27. He was 83.
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Former Major League Baseball outfielder Dave Henderson died Sunday, December 27, not long after having a kidney transplant. He was 57.
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Kurt Masur, the legendary German music conductor credited with transforming the New York Philharmonic into an orchestra of international renown, died December 19. He was 88.
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Dolph Schayes, who was one of the NBA's first superstars and is considered by many to be the best Jewish player in league history, died December 10 after a long battle with cancer, according to NBA.com. He was 87.
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Actor Robert Loggia was known for film roles in "Scarface," "Jagged Edge," "Big" and "Prizzi's Honor." He died December 4 at age 85.
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Scott Weiland, lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, died December 3 at age 48. Weiland died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and drugs, the Hennepin County (Minnesota) Medical Examiner's Office said.
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Film star and TV actress Marjorie Lord, who rose to fame in the Golden Age of Hollywood and on the TV show "Make Room for Daddy," died on November 28, according to daughter Anne Archer. She was 97.
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Cynthia Robinson, shown here in a San Francisco recording studio, was the pioneering trumpeter for the psychedelic soul group Sly and the Family Stone. She died November 23 at the age of 71.
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Jonah Lomu, a former rugby player from New Zealand widely regarded as one of the game's finest players, died in Auckland, New Zealand, on November 18. He was 40. Lomu's career was cut short when he was diagnosed with Nephrotic syndrome, a kidney condition, and he underwent a kidney transplant in 2004.
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David Canary, who for nearly three decades played twin brothers Adam and Stuart Chandler on the ABC soap opera "All My Children," died November 16, his family said. He was 77.
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The family of actor Nathaniel Marston announced November 11 that he had died after being seriously injured in an October 30 car crash in Reno, Nevada. The 40-year-old's resume included "One Life to Live" and "As the World Turns."
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Former baseball pitcher Tommy Hanson, one of the sport's top draft prospects in 2006, died November 9, the team said. He was 29. An incident report from the Coweta County Sheriff's Office stated that Hanson had suffered an overdose, but added that "the cause and manner of death is still being looked at" and that "there is no indication or suspicion of foul play."
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New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint died November 9 at the age of 77, his son said. Artists in nearly every major genre recorded Toussaint's songs or collaborated with him, including the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Herb Alpert, Glen Campbell, Robert Palmer and Elvis Costello.
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Gunnar Hansen, who played the iconic villain Leatherface in the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movie, died November 7 at his home in Maine. He was 68.
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George Barris, the Batmobile creator whose talent for turning Detroit iron into decked-out automotive fantasies earned him the nickname "King of the Kustomizers," died on November 5. He was 89.
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Melissa Mathison, screenwriter of "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" and "The Black Stallion," died November 4 at the age of 65. She was married to Harrison Ford from 1983 to 2004.
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Fred Thompson, a former actor and U.S. senator for Tennessee, died on November 1. He was 73. Thompson, a Republican, campaigned briefly for president in the 2008 election.
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Actor Al Molinaro, best known for his role as Big Al Delvecchio in the sitcom "Happy Days," died October 30 in Glendale, California, his son Michael Molinaro said. He was 96.
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Samuel Sarpong Jr., a model and former co-host of MTV's "Yo Momma," died October 26 after jumping off a bridge in Pasadena, California, authorities said. He was 40.
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Phil "Flip" Saunders, head coach of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, died October 25, the team announced. Saunders also served as the team's president of basketball operations and part owner. He was 60. The veteran coach was being treated for Hodgkin lymphoma.
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Maureen O'Hara, the legendary Irish-born actress who starred in Golden Era classics such as "Miracle on 34th Street," "The Quiet Man" and "How Green Was My Valley," died October 24, longtime manager Johnny Nicoletti said. O'Hara died in her sleep of natural causes, according to the family statement provided by Nicoletti. She was 95.
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Bruce Hyde, who played Enterprise crew member Lt. Kevin Riley on two episodes of the original "Star Trek" TV series, died October 13 after battling throat cancer, his widow said. He was 74.
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Ken Taylor, the former Canadian ambassador known for his role in the Iran hostage crisis, died October 15, CBC News reported. He was 81.
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Famed chef Paul Prudhomme died October 8 at age 75, according to the New Orleans restaurant he owned, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen.
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Billy Joe Royal, a pop and country star best known for the 1965 hit "Down in the Boondocks, died October 6 at the age of 73.
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Grace Lee Boggs, a writer, activist and feminist, "died peacefully in her sleep" at her home in Detroit, the Boggs Center website said October 6. She was 100.
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Erik Roner, an extreme athlete who had been featured on MTV and Outside Television, died in a parachuting accident on September 28. He was 39.
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Catherine Coulson was best known to "Twin Peaks" fans as the "Log Lady" from the surreal cult TV series. She died September 28 at the age of 71.
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New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra, who helped the team win 10 World Series titles, died September 22, the Yogi Berra Museum said. He was 90.
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Three-time NBA MVP Moses Malone died on September 13 at the age of 60. Malone was the first player in NBA history to be drafted out of high school. He played for 21 seasons and led the Philadelphia 76ers to the 1983 NBA title.
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Dickie Moore, a child star who appeared in the "Our Gang" shorts and who later gave Shirley Temple one of her first on-screen kisses, died September 7. He was 89.
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Martin Milner, who starred in the hit '60s and '70s TV shows "Adam 12" and "Route 66," died September 6, according to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. He was 83.
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Dean Jones, the star of such Disney films as "That Darn Cat!" and "The Love Bug," died on September 1. He was 84.
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Brad Anderson, who created the popular comic strip "Marmaduke," died August 30, according to his syndicate, Universal Uclick. He was 91.
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Wes Craven, who directed classic horror films such as "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream," died August 30. Craven had been battling brain cancer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 76.
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Acclaimed author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, who wrote about his battle with cancer, died August 30, his longtime collaborator, Kate Edgar, confirmed. He was 82.
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Actor Kyle Jean-Baptiste, who made history as the first African-American to play the lead role in a Broadway production of "Les Miserables," died August 28 in New York. He was 21. Marc Thibodeau, a spokesman for the production, said Jean-Baptiste fell from a fire escape.
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Dr. James "Red" Duke Jr., the Texas surgeon who educated television viewers about health care, helped pioneer Life Flight and was on duty at Parkland Hospital after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, died August 25, at the age of 86.
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