Category Archives: Weekly Column

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.” — Henry David Thoreau GALWAY, IRELAND— Not much in my life has ever gone according to plan, and that’s turned out to be the plan. The goal, at first, was simple: open one small restaurant, workContinue reading “How One Thing Became Everything”

PETROGNANO, TUSCANY — We were finishing dessert on the terrace last night when one of my Yonderlust Tours guests looked at the cap I wear most days and asked, “What’s that word mean?” Onward. People ask that all the time. He thought it might be a restaurant I owned or someone else’s business I wasContinue reading “Onward Part III”

At six years old, I wanted to be Darrin Stephens from Bewitched. He worked in advertising, came up with ideas, pitched them, and got paid for it. That seemed like magic. Somewhere around my preteen years, I decided being in a rock ’n’ roll band was the ticket. For a while it was architecture, thenContinue reading “So, I Guess This Is It”

When I was a kid, the number sixty-five always carried one meaning— retirement. That was the finish line. My maternal grandfather retired at sixty-five after a long career at AT&T, and everyone treated it like the natural order of things. You worked hard, did your time, then traded in the briefcase for a gold watchContinue reading “In the Blood”

“Since when is life about happiness? It should be about impact.” That line from Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, hit me square between the eyes when I heard it on a podcast recently. Happiness is the thing most of us chase. I did. We all want it, and we spend a lifetime trying toContinue reading “What I Learned About Impact”

“To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. … We live outside the touch of time.” — Clara Ortega There’s a rhythm to lunch with my brother. It starts the minuteContinue reading “He Ain’t Heavy”

There are tributes in life that make you proud and others that make you sweat—the Mississippi Press Association Roast of me last week did both. Past honorees have included governors and senators—big names with long résumés. My name beside theirs only made me more nervous. Politicians on one line, a restaurant guy on the next—itContinue reading “From Roast to Toast”

SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC—Flying home from Scotland, I feel two things at once—tired and thankful. Travel always does that to me. For the first half of my life, there wasn’t much travel outside of work. The only time I made it to Europe before age fifty was on a honeymoon trip paid for by oneContinue reading “The Table Is the Real Destination”

ISLE OF MULL, SCOTLAND—There are meals, and then there are journeys disguised as meals. This one began with a boat across Loch Creran, forty minutes skimming dark Scottish waters, dodging seals and dolphins, before stepping onto the Isle of Mull. From there, an hour-long bus ride on a single-lane road toward the far edge ofContinue reading “The Ninth Wave”