Hello all,

I know this is a little out of context, not required, etc. Whatever! I wanted to share with you my philosophy on food, which will be so relevant to our trip. So as a prelude to this post I would like to thank Adam Kriesel (restauranteur/chef The Globe) for being my mentor in all things food, wine, and Italian travel.  Adam and I shared a wonderful home cooked Italian meal consisting of a delicious primo piatto pasta disha and a secondo piatto of italian sausages with tomatoes paired with Pinot Grigio from Yakima Valley and a desert wine from Slide Ridge Valley. What I think is worth mentioning to you out of all of this is the following philosophy which has acted as the central point to our conversation:

Food. How essential it is. It is the only thing we must consume daily as humans to sustain life. But yet it can be and should be so much more than a mundane chore/activity in our lives. If we can learn to enjoy, savor, and relish in this activity of eating/cooking then we can bring higher levels of happiness to so many facets of our lives including physical, emotional, and spiritual areas. Cooking is a wonderful way to release our inner artists, architects, chemists, etc. It is not only a catalyst to great conversation, but also a universally acknowledged sign of appreciation, giving, love etc. It can bring people together no matter what boundaries lay between them and afford you the opportunity to travel to every corner of the globe while sitting in the same city the entire night. It is also the only thing that can elicit the same feelings that sex brings to an individual, because it is effectively bringing something from the outside and making it a part of your being, energy, etc. Food is not only an essential, but a blessing and a powerful force to be reckoned with because it has the power to enhance our experiences on this earth.

So lets live like the Italians do, lets make food an essential part of our life for the next two weeks. Lets live like the Italians and erase our worries of the outside world and replace them with the joys of looking forward to our next meal.