Mexican food and culture is slowly making its way into the collective European consciousness. I stumble into evidence here and there without even looking for it, including this Frida Kahlo blouse and jacket in a Venice store window, this Mexican restaurant in Venice and a painted sign for a Mexican restaurant in London. After 500 years, it's about time.
Oaxaca: the city of art
One of the many joys of living in Oaxaca is the city's dazzling, colorful street art. Just walking from our apartment to a restaurant down the street gives us an amazing look at more than 30 incredible works of art. And the total number in the city must be in the thousands.
Public art is everywhere in Oaxaca — on the streets in temporary installments, a near infinite variety of artistic crafts for sale in markets, stores and workshops all over the Oaxaca Valley and in the many art galleries in the city center.
The murals tell stories, register protest, recall history and bring indigenous religion and mythology to life.
Rebels, critics and insurgents who have spoken out or fought against repression are plainly memorialized. The iconography of pre-hispanic mythology is everywhere — skeletons and the content of the Aztec afterlife — hummingbirds and spirit guide dogs. And the beauty of indigenous clothing and traditions make up blazingly colorful murals all over the city. Some murals exist to decorate businesses like shops, restaurants and bars.
Every time we return to Oaxaca, dozens more have been painted. Because of all those incredible murals, Oaxaca is a fascinating place to just walk around.
In short, the murals reflect the thoughts, feelings, anxieties and fever-dreams of this amazing city.
We just added a new Oaxaca Mezcal Experience for this year!
Greetings from Oaxaca!
I’ve got some great news! By popular demand, we've added a new Oaxaca Mezcal Experience this year! It happens December 3-9.
We’ve been in Oaxaca enjoying our own personal “Gastronomad Experience” with our local friends. This place is magnificent and truly inspiring! I can’t wait to share this new Oaxaca Mezcal Experience with you!
There’s something truly magical about Oaxaca — its deep blue skies, puffy white clouds, colorful buildings, cobblestone streets, friendly people, delicious food and ever-present history. It fills your heart with joy and happiness.
And the food!! This isn’t the Mexican food that you already know and love. Oaxaca is its own gastronomic universe, with some of the world’s most delicious flavors and ingredients.
The Wall Street Journal called Oaxaca the “Mexican city every food-loving traveler should visit now.” And Travel + Leisure magazine named Oaxaca the Best City in the World to travel to for the last two years in a row!
And these publications are talking about mere tourism!
Imagine the unimaginable — skip right past the tourism and go directly into the heart of the real, authentic Oaxaca. We lovingly craft a bespoke itinerary full of fun and delicious surprises. Get to know our brilliant friends, some of whom are the city’s top chefs and food makers. Experience magical gatherings in breathtaking settings with the most exquisite foods and drinks this region has to offer.
This isn’t just travel. It’s time travel. It’s travel beyond the world that you know and into a world you never imagined.
And while we do enjoy some of Mexico’s greatest wines, we also deeply explore the Oaxacan tradition of mezcal. (Because of US import restrictions, most of Oaxaca’s best mezcal cannot legally be sold in the United States. You can find it only in Oaxaca.)
The Oaxacan Mezcal Experience is more than an experience. It’s a magic spell. And you’ll be enchanted completely.
But space is limited. Secure your spot today and prepare for a transformative culinary experience! Get pricing and book now!
Why Mexico City is the Center of the Chocolate World
Everybody loves chocolate. The intoxicating aroma of freshly roasted cacao. The decadence of a deep, dark chocolate dessert that melts in your mouth. The joy of hot chocolate.
When people associate the idea of chocolate with a place, they usually think of a European place — Switzerland, Belgium or Vienna, for example.
But Mexico City is by far the greatest city in the world for exploring chocolate — especially during our Mexico City Cocktail Experience. And here’s why.
Europe’s relationship with chocolate began in the 19th Century when, in 1828, Dutch chemist Conrad van Houten invented the cocoa press, separating cacao butter from the solids and, in doing so, invented cocoa powder. The commercial availability of cocoa powder enabled pastry chefs and home cooks alike to buy, store, cook and bake with chocolate far away from where it's grown or roasted.
Van Houten’s work also enabled the invention of chocolate bars by Joseph Fry in 1847, as well as chocolate candies.
Today, Europe produces a dizzying array of delicious chocolate foods and drinks —pralines, chocolate truffles, chocolate bonbons, chocolate cakes, mousses, custards, cookies, chocolate tarts, soufflés, milk-based hot chocolate, chocolate liqueurs like crème de cacao, chocolate covered nuts, chocolate spreads like Nutella, and, of course, chocolate bars.
Every kind of cocoa powder-based European treat is available in exquisite form in Mexico City as well, both in the most traditional European form, and also in a Mexican flavors-infused variation (like chocolate candies with chiles). The city’s restaurants, pastry chefs, bakeries and confectionaries make all the European chocolate foods, often matching European quality.
While Europe’s relationship with chocolate began 200 years ago, Mexico’s began 5,000 years ago. That’s when the Olmec civilization starting using and eventually domesticating the cacao bean in Southern Mexico, which was used by Olmecs and later Mayans, Aztecs and other Mexican civilizations as both an important beverage and a currency.
Our word “chocolate” is from the Aztec word “xocolātl” (pronounced something like show-ko-LA-tull), which means “bitter water.” Mesoamericans typically mixed chocolate with corn and spices (but no sweetener) and drank it.
Because chocolate has served as an important food in Mexico for millennia, regions, indigenous groups and even small villages have their own unique ways to prepare and consume chocolate.
Mexicans in various parts of the country enjoy ways to consume chocolate that few Europeans have ever even heard of, such as chocolate atole (made with corn and milk), chocolate tamales, chocolate-dipped chiles, chocolate-covered fruit and, of course, the ultimate use for chocolate — black mole. Mexicans also use species of cacao never used in European chocolate.
The most common way for Mexicans to consume chocolate, though, is water-based hot chocolate containing sugar, almonds and cinnamon mixed and frothed with a molinillo — (a mixing stick introduced by the Spanish).
Mexico City is also great with American chocolate ideas like chocolate beer and chocolate cocktails, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and chocolate muffins.
Markets throughout Mexico offer custom chocolate blending and grinding. While European cooks mainly use industrially produce cacao powder from cacao grown in Africa, Mexicans buy freshly roasted and ground-to-order chocolate with custom mixes of sugar, cinnamon and other ingredients from cacao grown in Mexico. The quality of Mexican chocolate is far higher than European chocolate, on average.
But Mexico City is the greatest city in the world for chocolate for one simple reason. It’s the only place on Earth with all styles of European chocolate, all styles of American chocolate and all styles of Mexican chocolate. (If there’s an obscure style of chocolate in some remote Mexican region, you can also find it somewhere in Mexico City.)
And while everything we do during the Mexico City Cocktail Experience is a secret surprise, it’s a safe guess that there may be chocolaty deliciousness involved. - Mike
You can taste Mexico City, Oaxaca and Baja in every great Mexican dinner
“Get dressed! We’re going to an oyster tasting,” Amira told me.
It was late afternoon in November of 2020. I was in our apartment in the city center of Oaxaca, Mexico, and had just settled down to work.
But this is Oaxaca. Resistance is futile. Great food events happen almost constantly, it seems. (The night before, Amira had been invited to a chef’s roundtable dinner with several of the city’s prominent chefs and food producers, plus a special guest chef from Japan. The night after, we would enjoy the anniversary of a restaurant called Oaxacalifornia.)
But tonight, an “oyster tasting” at Casa Oaxaca Hotel.
What all these events had in common was Chef Alejandro Ruiz, the Godfather of Oaxacan cuisine. He organized all three events, has run Casa Oaxaca Hotel and co-owns Oaxacalifornia (as well as several other fantastic restaurants in Oaxaca). In addition to organizing dozens of incredible food events in the city, Chef Alex also trains on, consults over and represents Oaxacan food to Mexico and the world. Over the years, he’s also become a close friend of ours (and a major ingredient in our Oaxaca Mezcal Experience).
We arrived at the “tasting” to discover that we were among only around eight or so people — a few local chefs, plus Amira and me. Leading the event was a guest: Mexico’s leading supplier of seafood to the country’s best restaurants, including Mexico City’s Pujol. His name is Ezequiel Hugo Hernandez Zúñiga. He brought oysters and PowerPoint.
Chef Alex’s staff served our tiny gathering wave after wave of oysters on the half-shell, each a different type and accompanied by all kinds of spicy and flavorful sauces, all the while Mr. Zúñiga delivered a master class on the world of oysters. After the half-shell oysters, we were treated to incredible oyster soups and tacos.
All the while, we drank paired wines, beers and cocktails, plus mezcal, of course.
The lecture lasted three hours. The dining around six hours. But the conversation continued late into the night — all about oysters, food, restaurants and cooking.
At some point, probably around 1am, the kitchen staff (which had been standing by the whole time) figured we must be getting hungry again, and started bringing out tlayudas (a kind of giant Oaxacan tostada folded in half and eaten like a sandwich) and other Oaxacan comfort foods.
I told Chef Alex that I really enjoyed the mezcal we had been drinking. “You want to try some really great mezcal?” I said “of course!” and he rang up (OK, woke up) a man named Chucho Espina — another serial food entrepreneur, restaurant owner and mezcal maker and mezcal expert.
And so around 2am, we followed Chucho to an art gallery to taste mezcal. So we sat in one of the gallery rooms surrounded by photography, with its gravel dirt floor, around a hastily assembled table, and tasted some of the most incredible mezcales I had ever tried until the sun came up. (Chucho has since also become a friend, and he always seems to show up at every Oaxacan gathering, and at his own bars and restaurants, offering surprising, amazing and unique mezcales.)
The evening (and night, and morning) was unforgettable, totally unique and quintessentially Oaxacan.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that almost every incredible high-end dinner in Mexico involves three locations: Mexico City, Oaxaca and Baja California. In fact, we had been exploring the Mexico City food scene for years before visiting Oaxaca for the first time, and noticed how enamored Mexico City chefs were about Oaxacan flavors, herbs and other ingredients. Oaxaca is considered the epicenter of Mexican mole, for example. And 80% of the world’s mezcal is produced in the state of Oaxaca.
Great Mexican fine dining almost always involves Mexico City chefs or culinary culture, Oaxacan flavors and ingredients and Baja seafood and wine (The main wine country of Mexico is Valle de Guadalupe near Ensenada).
Mexico City is one of the world’s greatest places for food, which is why we love our Mexico City Cocktail Experience. Mexico is the only country in the world with two restaurants currently in the Top Ten of the World's 50 Best Restaurants list — Pujol and Quintonil, both in Mexico City. And both these restaurants specialize in Oaxacan flavors, dishes and ingredients and Baja seafoods (supplied by Mr. Zúñiga) and wines.
Our “oyster tasting” was no different, bringing together Mexico City, Oaxaca and Baja for the ultimate Mexican food experience.
Of course, Mexico has 31 states and thousands of distinct food cities and areas, and it’s all delicious. But the secret sauce of high-end Mexican cuisine almost always bring together Mexico City, Oaxaca and Baja. -Mike
Death reminds us to live
Death. An inevitability we dread and a subject we avoid. But death should not be scary to face or talk about.
We never miss Mexico’s Day of the Dead. It’s such a healthy and endearing tradition. Instead of confronting death only at funerals then never speaking of it again, everybody in Mexico thinks about, and talks about death, and lost loved ones, for a few days every year. Instead of feeling sadness over those lost, they invite the dead to epic celebrations and parties with beautiful ofrendas created to honor their dead. These ofrendas are lovingly and beautifully arranged altars paying tribute to their deceased loved ones with flowers, candles, fruit and all their favorite foods and drinks, as well as pictures of the departed. During Day of the Dead, the dead are celebrated for the life they once had. And with this tradition, they’re kept alive in the hearts and memories of their loved ones in the world of the living.
I was reminded of all this recently because my mom died last week. And as heartbreaking as her death has been, she died peacefully with grace and dignity. As my mom would have wanted it, instead of a wake to mourn her death, we had a gathering at her home with family and friends to celebrate her life. We ate lots of food and played her favorite music as we shared stories with each other about my mom and her endless acts of kindness and unconditional way of loving everyone in her life. She was loved, and even revered, as the remarkable woman she was.
My mom was passionate about good food. She was an amazing cook. She loved gatherings and dancing and was always the life of the party. Growing up, my life was a perpetual celebration, with fun parties and joyful family gatherings every week for special occasions or no reason at all. And we always had music and lots and lots of delicious food. I have such fond memories of it all.
She loved life. But she never traveled. Not really.
Outside the United States, as an adult, my mom visited only her native country of El Salvador, and her partner's native country of Mexico. She traveled only to visit with family. She never saw Paris. Never experienced the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. Never rode a camel. Never set foot in the Sahara Desert. Never saw Petra or the Great Pyramids. Never witnessed the sun set over a Greek island. Never enjoyed the food of Oaxaca. Never got lost in Venice.
On a recent trip to Mexico City with Mike, plus my brother and an old friend, my brother and I cried together, saying how much our mother would have loved an adventure in Mexico City like the one we were experiencing at the time.
My mom always wanted to, intended to, planned to. But Alzheimer's got hold of her before she could do it.
The real tragedy is that my mother's situation is nearly universal. Most would-be world travelers wait far too long to see the world and to experience the long list of places and things we'd like to see and do in our lives. Some wait for retirement before traveling. Some wait beyond that. And many, like my mom, die never having experienced the joy of travel and other cultures.
Death is a reminder to look life in the face, and ask ourselves: What is the meaning of our lives? What are we living for? Death reminds us that the best way to cope with death is to live. Not just biologically, but culturally, socially and spiritually live — not in 10 years, but today.
And so as I mourn the loss of my mother so profoundly — and lament the life she could have had, but didn't — I just want to remind everyone: Don't wait to travel. Don't wait to be the person you really are. Don't wait to live your life and truly enjoy the experience of living.
Here’s to making 2023 the year of enlightenment filled with renewed perspective with healthy doses of gratitude, compassion, generosity, forgiveness, kindness and joy! Oh, and some epic travel adventures and celebrations!
With love, Amira
Seasons feelings: What is the meaning of our lives?
‘Tis the season for reflecting on the year we leave behind, when we aspire to do better and live a more deliberate life in the new year to come.
We ask ourselves: What is the meaning of our lives?
The answer is different for each of us, if we can find an answer. A better question might be: How do we find more meaning in life? Or, better still: What do we live for?
The beauty of a new year is that it represents a new beginning. It gives us hope. It might be a delusion. But it also might be true that our normal expectation that life will grind on as usual is the delusion.
I’m profoundly grateful for the happiness in my life. On the internet, it may seem that I have a perfect life full of joy and adventure, roaming the world and exploring different cultures.
While I feel fortunate to live the life I enjoy — it's true that my life is often filled with joy and adventure — it's far from perfect. My heart aches every single day for people I love deeply and who suffer beyond hope. And I know that most of us carry heavy burdens and sadness in our hearts and souls.
As human beings, we have to endure all sorts of pain, suffering and broken hearts. This is one reason why Gastronomad Experiences exist. They were created to provide a place for joy and wonder beyond what most people can even imagine. During experiences, quotidian existence vanishes, replaced by constant beauty, unmitigated fun and abundant delicious food and drink, magnificent landscapes and endless laughter, joy and wonder. Time stops. And history is all around us.
Traveling is wonderful and, I believe, essential for our overall wellbeing. Travel done right takes not only to a different place, but a different time, which we can experience as a different self. This is why we crave stories — to live another life, if only for a moment.
The Gastronomad Experiences are designed to make you feel truly alive, the way nothing else can.
Each Gastronomad Experience is unique. Even those in the same location are never the same, which is why we’ve been having guests signing up to repeat the same locations.
The Gastronomad Experience was created to celebrate food, life, human connection and sustainability through joyful gatherings with locals. It is a slow travel culinary experience in the most beautiful spots on Earth with some of the most wonderful artisans in the world. But it's really about looking at life from a beautiful new perspective that changes your view about the whole world.
Mike and I strive to explore and learn from other cultures and the different ways others live around the world. With The Gastronomad Experiences, we do this through hosting immersive and meaningful culinary travel explorations that celebrate life, honor our common humanity and help us cherish the threads that connect us all.
We find that the more we enjoy fun and celebration with other like minded people around the world, the more productive and creative we become, which in essence is part of the art of cultivating joy and living life fully.
Our mission is for our guests to rediscover the beauty, joy and love within each of us — and the incredible depth of traditional human cultures.
Gastronomad Experiences are the food that sustains us in all aspects of our lives so that we can enjoy the experience of living. In other words, it's what we live for.
Wishing you all a joyful season with magical gatherings and the happiest of new years! May you find more meaning and joy near and far.
From the bottom of my heart, much love to you all.
Big hugs and kisses,
Amira
A Gastronomad Experience: The Ultimate Gift this Holiday Season!
Make 2023 the greatest year of your life — and the life of your loved one — by gifting a life-changing Gastronomad Experience in France, Italy, Spain, Morocco or Mexico! Or, make a New Year’s resolution to experience life as a temporary local in one of the world’s greatest wine countries or gastronomic hotspots, where you’ll be greeted like family and experience local culture from the inside, not as a tourist.
What are you waiting for? 2023 is the year! This holiday season is the time! Got any questions? Drop us a note — we’d love to hear from you!
What is it about Provençal cuisine that makes it so irresistible?
Great farmers, highly skilled chefs, a long tradition of country cooking, a brilliant Mediterranean fishing coastline in the South of France, the world’s greatest farmland and the double influences of French cooking specifically, and Mediterranean cooking generally. And truffles!
Provence is also one of the world’s great wine countries.
Like Italian and Greek food culture, Provençal gastronomy is a “cuisine du soleil,” a profoundly Mediterranean cuisine based on seafood, olive oil, beans, herbs and plenty of vegetables.
Provence dishes favor the world’s tastiest lamb; most amazing produce like tomatoes, cherries, berries and more; a delicious salmon-looking trout called the Sorgue trout; and many other incredible ingredients.
But it’s also specifically French, with the world’s greatest cheese, wine and bread.
Happily, cherry season overlaps with lavender season, and so during a few weeks of the year these exquisite flavors appear on Provençal plates (and, uncoincidentally, that’s when our Summer Provence Rosé Experience takes place!).
Many of the world’s favorite French dishes are specifically Provençal. Bouillabaisse, ratatouille, tapenade and niçoise salad all come from Provence.
Other classic and tasty dishes include:
Soupe au Pistou, a vegetable and bean soup.
Tarte Tropézienne, which is a brioche cake filled with sweet cream, was actually named by actress Brigitte Bardot.
Daube, a beef stew, flavored with onions, carrots, mushrooms, olives, garlic, herbes de Provence and a red wine sauce.
Pissaladière, which is Provençal pizza served as an appetizer, made with caramelized onions, black olives, and pissalat — a salty sardine and anchovy paste.
And many other dishes.
Provençal cuisine is bright, colorful, beautiful and tasty beyond belief — especially as prepared by our friends — Provence’s most visionary and talented chefs, including some of France’s most beloved Michelin Star chefs.
If you want to taste the greatest food Provence has to offer — truly some of the best food in the world — sign up now for The Provence Rosé Experience!
The cuisine of Provence is the result of all the stars lining up to create the world’s most sumptuous food — farming, history, climate, geography and unbelievable culinary skill. That’s why Provençal cuisine is so irresistible!
At home in Morocco
Life in Marrakech always feels fast and slow, new and old — all at the same time. One moment you’re overwhelmed by the city’s hustle and bustle — the loud motorcycles racing through the narrow alleys of the ancient medina, dodging pedestrians — and the next moment you feel like you’ve traveled back in time when you happen to encounter a peaceful hidden alley with hardly any passersby. Every ancient archway feels like a path into the past.
Time becomes a blur in this part of the world. I wake up to the first call to prayer and go to sleep after the last of the day. And the time in between vanishes like the smoke that rises from the many cooking fires in Jemaa el-Fna square.
Life for us nomads is different everywhere we go. It changes with the environment. It changes with the time zones. And it changes with every culture we encounter and try to adopt as our own. Nothing ever gets stale. The life of a nomad is filled with novelty, serendipity and adventure. These are the built-in gifts and joys of living a nomadic life and exploring this magnificent world.
That's the good. What's the bad and the ugly? Not much turns out to be bad when you're a seasoned traveler and are of the mind that every experience is an opportunity for new adventure. What may seem like a negative thing often comes with a silver lining when you intentionally look for it. As far as ugly, the world is complicated and that’s reflected everywhere. No place on this planet is immune to the ugliness created by humans. We accept the world as it is.
The biggest downside of our lifestyle is how much we miss our loved ones. Doing FaceTime or Zoom with them helps but I still want that human touch with them. I still want those embraces and kisses -- especially our granddaughter's. Frankly, the hardest thing for me is that no matter the distance, I still feel the pain and suffering of those I love as my own pain and suffering. And though I can always catch a flight on a moment’s notice, I can’t always be with them when they need me and when I need to be with them.
In some ways, the sadness I carry with me keeps me grounded. Because of it I can genuinely and profoundly feel the joy bestowed upon me in all the different corners of the world I love so much. I've learned not to take anything or anyone for granted. I'm mindful of the fact that we only have one life to live so I focus on what matters most to me. I try to live life with intention, grace and mindfulness because anything else would waste the most valuable thing we all have: our precious time.
As full-time digital nomads, Mike and I are citizens of the world. But it's curious to me how those who have homes in a permanent house often tell us that they cannot comprehend how we can live without our own bed, our own kitchen or a daily routine with the same people in the same place. It's unfathomable and inconceivable to them. My mind instantly wonders how can they? But I know that's just me. It's the way I was probably born — born to explore.
My response: My lifestyle is not for everyone. But it's perfect for me. There are some trade-offs. But living in the same place permanently, sleeping on the same bed, cooking in the same kitchen, having the same daily routine and being attached to all the material possessions that come with a house are no longer tradeoffs for me. They used to be for a time many years ago.
Someone recently described us as "homeless" in the context of trying to describe the fact that we don't have a permanent residence address or live in a permanent house.
Obviously, we're not vagrants. And we actually own property. We don’t own or live in a permanent house by choice. We make a living doing what we love. But it's true we don't have a house that's a permanent residence other than sometimes we use our son's and daughter-in-law's address to ship things to. But we're not homeless — far from it. We rent our homes — sometimes for as little as for one week, most often for a month or two.
We are nomads. We move around a lot. Wherever we happen to be is our home. Right now, our home is Marrakech.
We're staying in a beautiful ancient Riad that's owned by a friend of ours. And it's magical to live here. Even after 16 years of this lifestyle, we fall in love with it all over again every time.
The more of the world we see, the more we realize how little of the world we’ve seen. The more we learn about other cultures, the more we realize how little we know. I reckon we'll spend the rest of our lives wandering around the world with the humbling understanding that we will never live long enough to see it all or learn enough about it. Some say ignorance is bliss. I find bliss in being confronted with my own ignorance. Because it's an invitation to learning something new.
Mike and I are of one mind when it comes to travel — and our gastronomadic lifestyle. We travel for the thrill of living everywhere and eating everything. We're not homebodies, I'm not even sure I can understand what that means but I do feel a certain aversion to the word.
I love roaming around and wandering aimlessly in every place we live -- that's my nirvana. It brings me immense joy, which produces enormous gratitude and happiness within my heart and soul. So much so that it feels like my heart beats a thousand times a minute from the exultation in every fiber of my being. But I could never feel this way if I were doing this alone. My secret ingredient is that I get to do it with the love of my life. Mike is the reason this is possible for me. I'm forever grateful to the universe for my good fortune.
Mike and I are always ready to go anywhere on a moment's notice. Packing is not a big deal. Changing plans and being flexible is part of the thrill. A canceled flight. A sudden invitation. It's all just another opportunity for serendipity. Extending our travels for an event is something we're always ready to do. Acting on a whim is all part of the joy of discovery.
For us, the world is too big to stay in one place. Home is wherever we happen to be. -Amira
The Guelaguetza: Oaxaca’s epic indigenous cultural event of food, dance, music and spectacle
The Guelaguetza: Oaxaca’s epic indigenous cultural event of food, dance, music and spectacle
Each summer, the city of Oaxaca dresses up in retina-searing colors and transforms itself into the most important indigenous cultural event anywhere in the Americas.
We've had the privilege of attending this year's Guelaguetza Festival for the first time, thanks to the help and courtesy of Oaxacan friends. And we have loved every minute of it.
Oaxaca’s Guelaguetza is a big deal because Oaxacan culture is inseparable from indigenous culture. The event showcases the roots and traditions of the spectacularly diverse indigenous cultures in Oaxaca through dances in group-specific costumes, big parades, gatherings, musical events, artisanal crafts and indigenous-forward (pre-Hispanic) food festivals.
Although loosely based on pre-Spanish traditions, the modern Guelaguetza began in 1932 on the 400th anniversary of the founding of the City of Oaxaca by the Spanish empire.
Since 1969, the Guelaguetza has been celebrated on the two Mondays immediately following July 16 (except when that first Monday lands on the birthday of indigenous Oaxacan former president Benito Juárez, which is July 18.) But the informal, citywide festivities begin days before the official start and continue throughout the two weeks, ending today. It’s an endless, crowded, festive, happy party.
The word Guelaguetza is Zapotec for “reciprocal exchanges of gifts and services” or “offering.” (The Guelaguetza also integrates ceremonies around Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or “Virgen del Carmen.”)
Because this cultural exchange is so beautiful and delicious, the Guelaguetza has evolved into a performance spectacle and feast for everyone's eyes, which is a source of ongoing controversy in Oaxaca. Some indigenous leaders say the celebration is being commercialized and performed for outsiders, mainly visitors for elsewhere in Mexico. And that’s obviously true for some of the centrally planned activities in the City of Oaxaca, but not at all true in the many events that take place in the surrounding villages. Many of the different villages or municipalities hold their own local Guelaguetza celebrations.
The Guelaguetza is a fraught cultural event for Mexico. Commercial aspects infringe on the inherent traditions and meaning behind the rituals and the objective of cultural exchange. Despite the differences and controversies, the Guelaguetza has managed to amalgamate cultural and identity expressions in its idea of unity and coexistence between ethnic groups and the general population. As each ethnic group celebrates their specific identity as well as their ethnic differences, despite the inequities within the society at large, Guelaguetza fosters conviviality and convergence in a genuine community celebration that exalts coexistence between diversified lifestyles. On the whole, the event is all about love for indigenous Oaxaca, both by the locals and for visitors as well.
The Guelaguetza is significant for indigenous Oaxacans, as its diversity of language and culture make it important and meaningful to the survival of their cultures. Everyone comes together for this once-a-year super fiesta to share and celebrate the diverse world of Oaxacan indigenous communities where they can bond and connect with each other.
The Guelaguetza Festival brings together delegations that represent the eight regions of Oaxaca (Cañada, Costa, Istmo, Mixteca, Papaloapan, Sierra Sur, Sierra Norte y Valles Centrales.) Only 21 delegations represented the state's 590 municipalities this year. The participants are selected through a lottery system from the hundreds of groups and municipalities who are members of the different ethnic groups from different regions and who speak mutually unintelligible languages.
The language landscape reveals the cultural diversity in Oaxaca. More than one-third of all people in the State of Oaxaca speaks an indigenous language, and many do not speak any other language, including Spanish.
The largest group alone, called the Zapotecs, speaks more than 62 distinct and often mutually unintelligible languages. The Mixtecs speak dozens. There are 14 other distinct ethnicities in Oaxaca (in order of population: Mazateco, Chinanteco, Mixe, Chatino, Trique, Huave, Cuicateco, Zoque, Amuzgo, Oaxacan, Tacuate, Chochotec, Ixcateco and the Popoloco and these groups each have their own languages or language families.)
While the Guelaguetza draws visitors from all over Mexico, other countries and indigenous peoples from all over Southern Mexico, the main state-sponsored festival events (which happens on El Cerro del Fortín in a purpose-built, 11,000-seat facility called the Guelaguetza Auditorium) take place on the two consecutive Mondays towards the end of July. Less than 3,000 tickets were sold to the general public in 2022, which sold out in a matter of minutes. The few tickets sold online can only be purchased using a specific local credit card.
The remaining tickets are free to Oaxacans who wait in line overnight to get them. Generally, it's not easy for tourists and foreigners to attend the Guelaguetza. The ticket system is geared for ensuring that most, if not all, tickets available for purchase and for free go to local Oaxacans.
During the main Guelaguetza event performances, at the end of each dance, the dancers throw food into the audience, ranging from cookies and bread to candy and tamales. After the famous annual Flor de Piña dance, the performers actually throw whole pineapples into the crowd -- we caught one of them, took it home and ate it. We also caught all kinds of breads and cookies.
The Guelaguetza events involve music, singing, dancing and costumes. Dancers wear exquisite hand-made traditional outfits that span the range from totally Spanish to totally indigenous and everything in between. Additionally, there are other concerts and events that are separately scheduled as part of the festivities with big name Mexican artists including Lila Downs, Maná and Los Angeles Azules (all of which we attended!).
We were invited by a local Zapotec friend to a village with a population of 2000 Zapotecs. The celebrations included the dance performances, food festivals, fireworks, rituals at the local church and even their own version of bullfighting, which didn't involve any harm to the bulls, as no knives or swords were used.
We’ve always wanted to attend the Guelaguetza, and we feel so privileged to take part this year — which is a special one, as the event was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of covid.
The existence of the Guelaguetza in Oaxaca turns the entire city into a massive cultural gathering and nearly state-wide fiesta that lasts for two weeks. Experiencing the profound jubilation and joy of Oaxacans, nationals and all visitors coming together has been unforgettable. Seeing all the delegations from the different municipalities from the various regions of the state share their cultural roots, traditions and customs has been transformative.
Why Oaxaca really is 'the best city in the world'
Travel & Leisure magazine polled its readers on the best cities in the world for travel, and they published their list of the world’s top 25 cities.
The list included some unsurprising locations, including Florence, Italy; Seville, Spain; Tokyo, Japan; and, of course Rome, Italy.
But beating them all to be ranked the #1 city in the entire world is the place where we are right now: Oaxaca, Mexico!
“Wait, what?!?” you might ask?
We run across people all the time who have never even heard of Oaxaca, and more still who don’t even know how to pronounce it. (It’s: wha-HOCK-a). How could a small Mexican city be “better” than Florence and Rome?
But for those of us who know Oaxaca best, the reaction was: “Oh, yeah — definitely!” (And we agree, which is why we host our epic Oaxaca Mezcal Experience here!)
Travel & Leisure says Oaxaca is best because of its “vibrant culture, beautiful weather, a landscape that spans from soaring peaks to cerulean surf, and some of the country's most iconic architecture.” (The city of Oaxaca has no “surf” — it’s a six-hour drive to the coast.) They also mention the incredible climate, “world class cuisine,” the local markets, and proximity to Monte Albán, the spectacular ruin of the ancient Zapotec imperial capital.
They go into some minor detail about the wonders of mezcal, most of which is produced in the state of Oaxaca within a short drive from the city.
The article didn’t mention that both mole and mezcal are specifically Oaxacan, rather than generally Mexican, cultural gifts and that Oaxaca boasts a wide range of ingredients mostly unique to the state, such as Oaxacan cheese known as “quesillo” and herbs like hoja santa, or tlayudas and many others local delicacies.
But they missed the Big Story about Oaxaca.
Since the beginning of the Spanish conquest and occupation of Mexico, the Spanish and their descendants in the New World have tried to forcibly “civilize” the “natives” with European food — bread instead of tortillas, wheat instead of corn, wine instead of pulque, sandwiches instead of tacos.
Fancy white Mexicans stigmatized indigenous foods for centuries as the stuff of poor, unsophisticated “Indians,” clinging to European foods and identifying with American gringo food culture more than the foods of indigenous peoples of Mexico.
But the suppression of indigenous food culture was less successful here in the South of Mexico.
In the same way that America gets more Mexican the closer you get to the border (Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have vastly more and better Mexican food than Maine, Connecticut and Vermont, for example), Mexico is the reverse — the closer you get to the US border the more American and Americanized the food gets.
As one small example, flour tortillas (wheat was unknown to the Americas before the Spanish brought it here) probably originated in present-day California when it was part of a neglected Spanish territory called Alta California, and were first mass-produced in Los Angeles, California. Four tortillas are, essentially, American tortillas. In fact, Mexican menus call tacos made with flour tortillas “gringas” — which essentially means “American tacos.”
Today, flour tortillas are more commonly eaten than corn tortillas in the Northernmost Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora and Sinaloa and practically non-existent in the Southernmost states of Oaxaca and Chiapas.
The further South you go in Mexico the more cultural memory exists about the cultivation, preparation and consumption of indigenous foods. In fact, more than half of all the people in Mexico who speak indigenous languages are Oaxacan, with one-third of the state’s population speaking languages other than Spanish and half that number unable to speak Spanish at all.
Zapotec is the largest indigenous language family in Oaxaca, and within that family are some 60 distinct languages. Mixtec is the other major language group here. And the state of Oaxaca includes a vast range of distinct ethnic groups, including the Triques, Amuzgos, Cuicatecs, Chocho, Popoloca, Ixcatec, Zoque, Mixe, Chontalees, Chinantecs, Huaves and even the Nahua (descendants of the Northern Aztecs).
Many of these ethnic groups, including and especially the Zapotec, say they were never conquered by the Spanish. And in fact that’s true — the relationship between the Spanish empire and the Oaxacan indigenous peoples was a negotiated settlement of mutual non-interference (with a few historic spikes of violent opposition and oppression). Indigenous Oaxacans maintained their pre-Hispanic culture far more than other groups in Mexico.
The Mexican elite suppression of native Mexican foods was put increasingly under pressure in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, as its popularity grew throughout European Mexico, the United States and, eventually, Europe and the rest of the world. Of course, native ingredients and foods never went out of general popularity in Mexico. But it was always considered the food of poor working stiffs, not refined foodies.
But in the last 20 years, that has changed, with Mexican chefs trained abroad starting to re-embrace indigenous foods and ingredients, culminating in the designation of Mexico City’s Pujol restaurant as the very best restaurant in all of North America and the #5 restaurant in the entire world according to the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. Pujol is famous for its focus on indigenous ingredients — mole is featured heavily, and guests are served sauces made with ant eggs, for example.
There isn’t a single French restaurant in the top ten, but there are two Mexican restaurants in the top ten, both featuring indigenous ingredients.
The world fell absolutely in love with indigenous Mexican food, and so have Mexico’s elites. As a result, there has been a kind of gold rush among Mexico City chefs to come to Oaxaca and learn from indigenous Oaxacans or what locals call "traditional cocineras."
We've been exploring Mexico City and Oaxaca for many years and discovered their culinary prowess and remarkable culinary traditions long ago, which is the reason we host The Mexico City Cocktail Experience and The Oaxaca Mezcal Experience with the top chefs and artisans of the regions.
We've witnessed how Oaxaca has become acknowledged globally for its culinary traditions.
Oaxaca is alive and buzzing with culinary excitement. It’s the center of a Mexican food renaissance. Chefs and food producers and mezcal makers are energized in a frenzy of learning, exploration and exposition. This is expressed in the form of tastings, collaborative dinners and mezcal-fueled, food-centric parties.
For the food obsessed (including us), Oaxaca is the most exciting place on earth right now. And it’s why Oaxaca is, in fact, the best city in the world. And why Oaxaca became our favorite place long ago.
Truffles, truffle dogs and truffle hunting in Provence
Provence is, above all, farm land — an agricultural countryside, but a special one. What makes Provence special are three kinds of farms: grape, lavender and truffle.
You can see the vineyards and lavender fields everywhere. But the truffle farms remain hidden away.
And while the grapes are processed into wine and the lavender into 100 different products (including lavender oil), we eat the truffles completely unprocessed.
While the hunting of truffles that grow naturally in forests goes back at least 4,000 years and spans many countries, truffle farming is particularly associated with Provence.
Trufficulture, the farming and cultivation of truffles, started in Provence in 1808 when Joseph Talon, of Apt, transplanted the oak tree seedlings growing under trees where truffles had been found. Other French farmers experimented with trufficulture, and later Auguste Rousseau of Carpentras planted 17 acres of truffle-producing oak trees in the 1840s.
By the end of the century, 190,000 acres of truffle-producing trees had been planted and truffles were a common ingredient in French cooking among all social classes. But French truffle production declined in the 20th Century, with war, industrialization, urbanization and other factors, and production today is a tiny fraction of what it was over a hundred years ago.
Roughly 80% of the truffles produced in France are farmed. France has nearly 20,000 truffle farmers, who produce around 30% of the world’s truffles.
How does truffle farming work, exactly?
A truffle is a tuber, which is an underground fungus that evolved to live symbiotically with trees. In order to grow, truffles need very specific conditions: the right soil, climate, tree and spores.
To farm truffles, farmers buy trees (in France, usually oak trees) with roots that have been inoculated with truffle spores. They plant them in locations where they believe truffles can grow.
And then they wait.
It takes between 7 and 10 years after planting for trees to start producing truffles, if they do produce them at all. Many inoculated trees never produce truffles.
Truffles need mild, dry winters and warm summers with lots of sunshine. Provence is ideal.
And most truffle farms are hidden away on purpose and truffle farmers cultivate direct relationships with sellers, chefs and consumers. The world of truffles is rife with theft, trafficking, fakery, and fraud. Flavorless cheap Chinese truffles are smuggled into Europe and sold as the good kind. Truffle thieves show up to truffle farms with their own dogs and steal them. In France, the police often set up roadblocks during truffle season to search cars for stolen truffles.
During the Provence truffle seasons of summer and winter, farmers use dogs trained since puppyhood to find truffles. (They used to use pigs, but large, hard-to-control pigs were far too interested in eating the truffles. Dogs don’t care about truffles — only the reward for finding them, which is usually a small piece of ham.
Truffle dogs and their handlers (often the farmer, but sometimes a hired specialist) visit the spots daily where truffles might grow — you can tell because the truffles defensively kill grass and weeds around the trees so they can hog the nutrients. The dogs use their amazing sense of smell to search for truffles. When they identify a spot, they start digging. The handler stops them, and does the digging themselves gently with a special trowel. When a truffle is pulled out of the ground, they let the dog smell it directly, then immediately give the dog a treat.
Farmers rinse and scrub the dirt off, let them dry then have them delivered immediately.
During our Provence Rosé Experience, we spend some quality time with our truffle farmer friend and his dogs, and go truffle hunting, then spend hours enjoying very fresh truffles at his home with a banquet of other delicious foods, as well as champagne and other wine. It’s a master class in truffles, and the most delicious way to learn about this magnificent ingredient.
How and why to eat truffles
Truffles taste mushroomy, earthy and intoxicating, and the taste lasts in your mouth for a long time.
The vast majority of truffle-related products are not recommended. The highest quality truffle oil, truffle salt and other truffle-infused products can sometimes be nice (the bad stuff uses fake truffle aroma), but don’t even remotely compare to freshly sliced or grated raw truffles.
Even whole raw truffles aren’t great if they’re not fresh. They last little over a week. But unscrupulous vendors try to sell older truffles in the market, hoping to find inexperienced buyers.
You can tell the freshness of truffles by gently squeezing them. if they’re too soft, they’re no longer worth eating. Fresh truffles should be firm, but not dry and hard when you squeeze them.
Out of the more than hundred varieties of truffles, only 12 varieties are good to eat. In Provence, the most prized variety is the black Perigord truffle. (White truffles, which cannot be farmed, are mainly from Italy, but also Croatia.)
Truffles are very low calorie, and are rich in potassium and vitamins A, D and K.
Truffles give off a wide range of scent molecules, and also pheromones. One of these is called androstenone, which is the pheromone in the saliva of male pigs that attracts female wild and domestic pigs to truffles.
One of the scent molecules is called anandamide, which has been described as the “bliss molecule.” The chemical is similar to the psychoactive compound in marijuana, called tetrahydrocannabinol. Smelling the anandamide in truffles causes your brain to release happiness-inducing chemicals.
It’s likely that truffles evolved to release this chemical to attract mammals to them. Making us happy (and wild pigs and other mammals) is part of their reproductive strategy.
Truffles are unlike any other food ingredient. They should be consumed immediately after being thinly sliced. And as a flavor, they should never take a back seat to other flavors. They require fat and salt without other strong ingredients. For example, on a slice of cheese, or a slice of bread with a farmers cheese. Olive oil or butter are usually involved. But truffles lend themselves to creativity.
One of our favorite pizzas available in some good restaurants in Provence has extremely thin crust, very mild cheese, no sauce and is covered in freshly shaved truffles (the picture above shows one of these pizzas we enjoyed recently).
Anything you put in a jar with truffles will acquire a wonderful truffle flavor. (The truffles themselves should never be submerged in any oil or liquid.) The easiest and best way to store truffles is in a jar in the fridge with eggs. The smell and taste of truffles will go right through the shells and infuse the eggs with truffliciousness. Pro tip: Scramble the eggs, sprinkle a mild cheese all over them, then cover them with freshly sliced or grated truffles for the ultimate in truffle eggs.
Truffles are one of nature’s greatest culinary gifts. And the truffle farmers of Provence — and their cute truffle dogs — are the heroes who make sure we can all enjoy them.
Why rosé pairs with… Provence!
Provence is the undisputed rosé capital of the world. Stroll along the Côte d’Azur and it’s clear that everyone is drinking it. A pale pink bottle of wine sits on every restaurant table and every beach blanket. Brosés (rosé bros) stroll along the shore with bottle in hand, drinking directly from the bottle. Tourists slurp down frosés (frozen rosé).
Rosé seems like a modern wine style, but it’s very old.
In fact, Provence was the first place where the French made wine. And the first French wine was rosé — mostly pink-orange field blends of white and red grapes. Locals were taught wine-making by the Phoenicians more than 2,600 years ago.
In other words, people were drinking rosé on the French Riviera long before people in Bordeaux, Burgundy or Champagne even heard of wine.
Centuries later, the Romans distributed rosé from Provence to the entire Roman world, and Massilia (now called Marseille) was synonymous with delicious rosé throughout the Roman Empire.
That was a big deal back then. Light red wines were far more common than deep reds well into the Middle Ages. (Darker red wines were generally considered inferior to pale reds until just a few centuries ago. Red wine was for commoners and rosé was for the aristocrats.)
What is rosé, anyway?
Red wine is made red with color from the skins of red wine grapes. White wine is white because it’s made from grape juice without skin contact. Rosé is wine made with just a little color from red-grape skins.
This is usually achieved by short skin contact (just a few hours), blending whites and reds (which is illegal in France) or the saignée method, which is the making of rosé as a byproduct of red wine-making. Saignée (pronounced sone-YAY) is a French technique where some juice is removed from red wine during fermentation to increase the skin-to-juice ratio, which intensifies the color and taste of red wine. The removed juice is pink, and fermented separately to make rosé.
The enormous Cotes de Provence AOC alone produces around three-quarters of all the wine in Provence, and roughly 80% of that in the form of rosé.
Most other AOCs in Provence also produce a lot of rosé, mainly using Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, Mourvedre, Tibouren, Counoise, Carignan, Braquet, Folle Noire and Cabernet Sauvignon grape varieties.
The reputation of rosé was tarnished in the 20th Century with the popularity of two bad Portuguese rosés called Mateus and Lancers, which dominated the US rosé market from the mid 40s to the mid 80s. The super sweet white Zinfandel “blush wine” craze of the 80s didn’t do rosé’s reputation any favors, either. (White Zin was created by accident in 1975 by Bob Trinchero who tried to make dry rosé with the saignée method, and a stuck fermentation foiled his plans. The resulting low-alcohol, high-sugar product turned out to be a hit with consumers.)
But since the 2000s, Americans started discovering better rosé, mostly from Provence. Serious French and American wine snobs started appreciating great rosé only in the last few years.
Now, rosé is made and consumed globally. But the very best is still made in Provence.
And that’s where we come in.
We have searched and researched and tasted rosés all around Provence, and our Provence Experience guests drink only the world’s greatest rosés — wines that are never exported to the US — during our adventure (as well as Provence’s greatest reds and whites).
And we prove once and for all that Julia Child was right: Rosé pairs with everything.
Join us and see for yourself! — Mike
Magic Oaxaca!
The magic of gathering around the table with kindred spirits is unforgettable. It’s the place where lifetime memories and lifelong friendships are created.
We had the pleasure of creating a magical gathering with an exquisite meal prepared by our friend and talented chef Israel Loyola Espinosa at the beautiful Hotel Sin Nombre during the recent Oaxaca Experience. But there are always secret new gatherings and endless surprises during this once-in-a-lifetime Oaxaca Experience. We can’t wait for you to feel the magic of gathering for The Oaxaca Experience in December.
Morocco after the plague
We're in Morocco, and so happy to be here again!
Before the pandemic, we used to come two or three times a year, sometimes for two months at a time. But this is our first trip to Morocco in nearly three years.
Like many countries, Morocco closed during the pandemic. But few closed as tightly as Morocco. This country not only banned international flights to and from Morocco, but also all travel between cities internally. When Morocco shuts down, they *really* shut down.
Morocco opened again on February 7, and we landed in the country on the 20th.
The entry to Morocco required both full vaccination, plus a PRC covid test within 48 hours of entry into Morocco. Yet when we landed at the airport, nobody checked the test we took and instead were herded along with everyone else into one of a series of medical tents outside the airport for a covid test administered by the Moroccan government.
Even two weeks after the opening, many businesses were still closed. Most of the shops that were still closed when we arrived actually opened during our first week in Marrakesh, with roughly 90% open on the day we left.
(Restaurants, hotels and riads had been ordered shut by the government. Most stores, restaurants, hotels, riads and other businesses went into debt and laid off their employees. Before the pandemic, tourism employed some 500,000 Moroccans.)
During the lockdown, Moroccans were subject to early and draconian curfews and limitations on movement.
Marrakesh is a tough city, and probably the one most prone to hustling, scams and ripoffs. I got a haircut, and didn't establish the price in advance (a rookie move). He said the price was $50, and Amira talked him down to $30, which is ten times the going rate for haircuts in Marrakesh.
We visited some of our favorite restaurants, which had just re-opened. And while we were very happy to find that they survived the pandemic, we were often their only customers.
Many businesses, including riads and restaurants, don't take credit cards anymore because during the pandemic they stopped paying the fees for using the credit card terminals and system.
Tourist vans and cars all had to be parked, and Marrakesh didn’t have the space to park them. So the government opened up the pedestrian square in front of the Koutoubia, a 900-year-old mosque that is probably the city’s most recognizable landmark, for parking.
Construction is everywhere. A massive construction effort has obviously begun, especially in Marrakesh. Many of the streets and storefronts are in the middle of re-building. The city has piles of sand, gravel and bricks all over the place, and many streets in the medina are dusty and uneven. But the results are already showing, and the improvements are making everything better.
What's clear above all is that Morocco has seen the worst of it and can expect a very good recovery, which has already begun.
In the meantime, we're very much looking forward to the first Morocco Experience we’ve been able to do in nearly three years.
Pandemic or no pandemic, Morocco is eternal.
Fantastic wine and delicious food, stunning landscapes, ancient medinas, incredible architecture, skilled artisans, rich traditions and wonderful people — we can't wait to show Morocco’s joys and beauty to our group of Gastronomads. — Mike
The Ultimate Valentine
Tens of millions of tourists see Venice each year. But hardly anyone knows about the heaven-on-Earth Prosecco Road less than one hour North.
And yet this may be the most beautiful wine country in the world, with a fantastic and wildly underappreciated culture.
While everyone is familiar with the City of Venice, the islands and lagoon, the culture of medieval Venice responsible for that city was part of the larger "Serenìsima Repùblega Vèneta," which means "Most Serene Republic of Venice" in the Venetian language. The "country" of Venice extended all the way up to the Prosecco Road to the mountains beyond.
During our incredible Prosecco Experience, we explore the wonders of Venetian culture — the incredible food, wine, architecture and history — which lasted for a thousand years.
The Prosecco Road itself connects the beautiful towns of Conegliano and Valdobbidene and all the charming villages between, winding over brilliant green vineyards and forests. The landscape is breathtaking and picture-perfect.
The castles, abbeys, historic towns and incredible beauty of the Prosecco Hills should be well known to every Europe-loving traveler. But the tourist masses haven't found this idyllic spot yet, and so the Prosecco Road is one of the last undiscovered wine countries.
Which is just how we like it. We don't do tourism. The Prosecco Experience is not a tour. It's an immersive exploration of an incredible place and wonderful culture with our brilliant and visionary local food and wine friends. (We can’t give you the details; every exclusive gathering, meal, activity and location is a secret.)
But if you guess we’ll be drinking some incredible wine — well, that’s a very good guess. The Prosecco Hills is a wine country without equal — you're always surrounded by vineyards on rolling hills. We'll wake up and go to bed surrounded by vineyards.
And while everyone is familiar with the kind of prosecco this region exports abroad, the best prosecco can be tasted only in the Prosecco Hills. This Experience will transform your relationship with prosecco. We'll also enjoy a wide range of other incredible, astonishing red and white wines made only in the region. We’ll enjoy this wine with the winemakers themselves.
And the food — the food!! — so amazing. We can’t wait to show you this magical, undiscovered gastronomic paradise.
We have just one room available for our next Prosecco Experience, which happens May 23 through 28, 2022. Book now and make it yours. You deserve this!
Planning for Serendipity
It’s January — roughly halfway through Winter. And we’re working on all kinds of exciting things for the coming year, including new surprises for The Gastronomad Experiences.
Now that some of our Gastronomad friends who have enjoyed most of our Experiences locations are starting to repeat locations, we finally get to see friends surprised by how different each Experience is, even in the same general location.
Another trend we’re noticing: Gastronomad Experiences are increasingly selling out further in advance than before. Word of mouth is snowballing. So thank you to all who are singing our praises.
If you’ve done a Gastronomad Experience, you know that serendipity— the delightful phenomenon of accidental discovery — is all part of the plan.
You know. Like the movie “Serendipity” starring Kate Beckinsale in which one of the characters says that “life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences, but rather, it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan.”
I don’t know if that’s true about life, but it’s certainly true of our Gastronomad Experiences. : )
We plan events so that specific amazing things definitely happen, but also in a way that lets unplanned things happen.
Either way, it’s all a surprise. Most of what we do is a secret that you won’t find out about until you’re doing it! (We do advise each day on what to wear and what to bring.)
It’s been a rough couple of years and a long winter. You deserve serendipity — and the joy of magnificent and awe-inspiring magical gatherings and the thrill of our exclusive and authentic culinary travel adventures with kindred spirits, visionary chefs, world-class wine-makers and skilled artisans.
Plan for happy accidents. And do it soon! — Amira
It's super easy to get lost in the Fez Medina
The Fez Medina (the ancient city of Fez) is pretty small, but has 9,000 lanes, alleys and walkways that go every which way. Even though we’re super familiar with Fez, getting lost is inevitable. Here I had gone down a hundreds narrow alleys and turns, only to arrive at another dead end.
On the places you won't find in the travel guides
When you’re on a two-week vacation, you need to turn to the travels guides — books, sites, apps, blog posts, social media posts and maps recommendations. But when you’re living abroad as a digital nomad, you have the time to explore, find the stuff that’s not in the guides and try them out.
In this picture, I’m in line for a dive Xochimilco pulqueria (I’m the gringo at the back of the line with the giant backpack). This bar is purely local. And, in fact, it’s unlikely to spot gringos even in the neighborhood.
We love this kind of discovery. And the reason is that once any bar, restaurant or other thing blows up in the travel guide, it changes. It’s great to experience the unchanged places, which authentically cater to locals.
The only way to discover local-only establishments at scale is to spend months and months in a place, wandering around and relying on serendipity.