Anthony Bourdain's Mother Is Getting a Tattoo in the Chef's Honor — Here's What it Says

Anthony Bourdain's numerous tattoos were among the many distinctive traits for which the late chef and Parts Unknown host was well known. He described them as a highly personal and indelible way to save moments and memories that is unique from any camera's capacity to capture them.

"Some tattoos mean more than others to me. They all mark a moment in time. I don't overly place importance on them, but they do commemorate in a way that photographs can't. I stopped taking photographs a long time ago when I travel," he told Maxim before his death. "There's this realization that the lens is inadequate to capture the moment, so maybe I'm just looking to mark time in another way that's very personal."

His mother, Gladys Bourdain, who was formerly an editor at The New York Times, had never been a huge supporter of her son's ink. But his death sparked in her an idea for a tribute to her son in keeping with his own affinity for tattoos.

Gladys said she planned to get “Tony” tattooed in small letters on the inside of her wrist this week as a way to memorialize her son in a highly personal and permanent way. She plans to use her son's tattoo artist, she told her former employer The Times, and it will be her only tattoo.