Musings

I have not written much about myself or my personal perspectives other than how they are reflected in my writing about food and travel. Today I just feel like noting that a lot of times, due to my schedule, I find it impossible to muster the creative energies to attack the backlog of posts I owe to my readers. I hope this changes - I am excited about the line-up to come: New York, Montreal, London and Minneapolis are on the docket!

Beginnings

The idea to start a newsletter about my recommendations from travel (particularly with respect to cuisine) came a few years back when a friend noted that "I always ask for your suggestions because I know that if you liked it, I definitely will"; for some reason, I seem to have a knack for assessing not only the best of the "high end" of a city, but also finding those local, back alley spots that deserve to be on the "must do" list but rarely are.

Today, several years after this idea first germinated, I am sitting at Tokyo Narita airport just wrapping up my first personal trip to Tokyo, having spent the last ten days (including the Christmas holiday) here. This trip will serve as the starting-off point for an electronic version of the newsletter suggestion (in this "blog" format all the kids are using these days). I will post (perhaps in several parts) the highlights (and for good measure, some lowlights) of a relaxing and extravagant stint in Japan.

Thereafter, I will beginning logging my journal notes from prior trips to places like Paris, London, the Napa Valley, Hawaii, New York and Chicago. I hope this will not only provide a useful reference for others but also allow me to commemorate a number of experiences that deserve to be more than just bits of my memory.