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Parade
  • 6/20/2025
Transcript
00:00It's a privilege to be able to say a few words about this.
00:06Tuesday morning, we all woke up to the shocking news that Ann had passed away sometime in the early hours of that day.
00:14Years ago, right before our gathering here in Aspen, we lost Tony Bourdain several years later, Michael Chiarello.
00:26Last year, Jamal James Kent, and this week we lost Ann.
00:31And I know our entire community is beyond saddened, and I know a lot of people are very hurt and very confused,
00:38and I don't know how to reconcile sudden deaths myself. It's an impossibility.
00:46Ann was such a beautiful, gifted soul, a woman whose immense talent was only surpassed by the full throttle of her incredible laugh,
00:54one that I never tired of hearing.
00:58Everyone knew her from her nearly 20-year career in food television, her charitable endeavors, her community activism,
01:04her intense, passionate relationship with her beloved New York Rangers.
01:09All of it summed up by one of my favorite creations of hers, her social media hashtag, love what I do.
01:16She was a trailblazer on the Food Network, a brash, bold, loud New Yorker, and a woman who had a tremendous capacity for love.
01:25Who else could you ever imagine creating a show about worse cooks and having it celebrate such delicious food?
01:33Truly.
01:34Ann loved food.
01:37She loved food people.
01:39She loved sharing the gift of something she cooked with the folks that she loved,
01:42whether it was a meal in her home or a demo in front of thousands in a packed auditorium.
01:48A human being in the prime of life, taken from us too soon, always leaves me bewildered, a little frightened, and looking for answers.
01:56A friend passing is so difficult that I can't help but insist on trying to make some sense of it.
02:05But how can we understand something that is truly incomprehensible?
02:12And now a Jew from New York is going to quote a famous saint.
02:20Only here.
02:21But it's my favorite passage from my favorite prayer.
02:27St. Francis of Assisi, in his famous prayer, said,
02:31Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
02:36to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love,
02:40for it is in giving that we receive.
02:44And that really spoke to me today.
02:46That section of this prayer, I see it as a clarion call to action.
02:53It tells me that my job is not to look for comfort.
02:57It's not to understand.
02:59It's not to seek love.
03:02But rather to comfort, to empathize with, and to love others.
03:07We can do that collectively.
03:09When I do those things, the need for answers, the need for understanding the plague of our human grief is lessened.
03:18And I would love it if we could all carry that in our hearts this weekend,
03:21to care for our community like we never have before.
03:26This community puts a lot of weight on how much we want to care for each other.
03:34And we've done such an incredible job of it over the last 10 years.
03:37I can't think of another community that has done such an incredible job looking out for each other.
03:42But I honestly don't think we're doing enough.
03:46I just don't, when we lose someone like Ann, I don't think we're doing enough.
03:51Ann would want us to be laughing, to hunt down some late night karaoke,
03:55to dance and belly up, to eat and drink and celebrate life this weekend.
03:59And while taken from us long before we would ever want to let her go, she is gone.
04:04May her memory be a blessing to her friends, her family, her fans, and to all of those who loved her.