My mother worked for the United Nations, and was posted abroad often. My father was a US diplomat, and we moved from country to country every two or three years during my childhood and adolescence. I was a fashion photographer during my twenties and thirties, and traveled the international fashion circuit, and often shot fashion editorials for magazines in exotic places around the world. From my i
nvolvement with the fashion industry, I landed a job as International Director of Urban Model Agency in Tokyo, Japan. My job was basically to travel around the world, looking for models to bring to Japan on a generous seasonal advertising and modeling contract. In a ten year span, I must have circled the globe over thirty times. Sometimes in large cities, like Paris or Prague, sometimes off the beaten path and in remote locations. This is the period I really became engaged in local cuisines of the world. This would eventually be the founding stone for my culinary style. From roadside trattorias in Tuscany, to gipsy tapas ‘tablaos’ in Seville, to secular restaurants in Akasaka, outdoor cafés in Budapest and Cajun shacks in the Louisiana Bayou, my travels allowed me to experience first hand wonderful food and meet the people who made it. In 1999 I quit the modeling and fashion industries, largely because I was at the end of the day no longer excited with a life full of hotel rooms, airplane cabins, rental cars, and meaningless s*x with young beautiful women I never saw again. The only grateful baggage I had to carry with me was the fantastic gastronomic experience of forty some years of eating around the world. I went to Brazil, found me a shack in the islands, and began a lifelong calling. It started with a fish shack on the beach, evolved into a calzone tavern, then a trattoria, and when it was all said and done, I had been a fisherman in an eight man whaler boat fishing for anchovies and mullets, an oyster farmer, a charcutier, a pizzaiolo, a restaurateur and a food activist. If you are interested in learning more about me, the whole story is in my Facebook Bio, About me section on my website and my blog. The reason behind writing this series of posts, is that I have memories of all the food I ate while traveling around the world that I have not shared, and I think the time has come to do so. I am not a writer by trade, so I beg your tolerance for my rough style. I hope to get better as I go along. It is after all, a work in progress. I have to also apologize for any syntaxis or parataxis errors, I speak four languages fluently and that sometimes causes my English writing to come out looking like a second language author had written it. I will blame it on poetic license. The collection is a blend of anecdotes, short stories, recipes and other less structured literary challenges. I hope those of you who read them will walk away with some satisfaction. And the credits go to all the people I have met in my journey, specially those who have helped me with details of what I remembered and specially with details I had forgotten. To all of you my friends, this one is for you.
