SFCHRONICLE – SEPTEMBER 2018

But there’s a special moment that Bell did not expect to make it to the final cut — after the camera crew pulled back to get a wide shot, but the mikes were still on.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to take this moment to tell him what he really means to me,’ ” Bell says.

He told Bourdain that he watched his show on his couch 10 years ago, thought it was a perfect job, and wondered how a struggling comic could get there. Bourdain responded that he was a simple cook, “dunking fries” at age 44, and never thought he’d see Rome much less Kenya.

It was a special moment, Bell recalls, that now feels like a goodbye.