Chef and TV personality Anne Burrell, 55, was found dead in her Brooklyn home on June 17. No cause of death has yet been determined. Burrell appeared on TV’s Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, Worst Cooks in America, The Next Iron Chef, Iron Chef America, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and her own Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell, as well as guesting on numerous other cooking and talk shows. The native New Yorker began her career in Italy (including in La Bottega del '30, “with one seating each night”—imagine being late for dinner there!). She worked at such New York restaurants as Savoy, Centro Vinoteca, and her own Phil & Anne's Good Time Lounge in Brooklyn (Phil was business partner Phil Casaceli). She also taught at the Institute of Culinary Education. Burrell offered advice both loony ("I truly in my heart feel that your food knows how you're feeling when you cook it and it reacts accordingly”) and wise ("do all your prep work before you start cooking and then clean as you go. It removes the freak-out factor from cooking when everything is ready, and you can just be calm.").
