Bon Vivant Travels

Today the Cajun Chef Ryan (CCR) blog is launching a new series of posts dedicated to world travel with a focus of highlighting the food, ingredients, and cuisines of the world. When our family is traveling away from home one of the things that we enjoy is tasting the local foods and ingredients, either from family owned restaurants, street vendors, cafés, markets, or other local resources. We especially enjoy finding places that the locals are known to frequent, and if we spot a place with a line out the door, it is going to be worth the wait. Cannot say the same for chain restaurants that sprout up along every major highway and Interstate exits, we try to avoid them like the H1N1.  With a few exceptions, why would I want to eat at a Wendy?s, Chili?s, Applebee?s, Outback Steakhouse, Texas Roadhouse, etc?off of Interstate 10 in San Antonio, TX when I can get the same exact meal in Houston,  Slidell, LA, Mobile, AL, or Gainesville, FL? And a  Le Royal burger in Paris would never be on my agenda either. Variety is exactly the spice of life! Moreover, it is our hope to find a little more variety along the journey of life!

When planning trips, research well ahead of the departure date ensures locations, places of interest, local eateries, museums, National Parks, lodging, and adventures set up and align in a logical manner. Once the places of interest and locations are determined then comes the local foods and ingredients research, sometimes these finds change the course of the locations too. Foodie finds are like a scavenger hunt too, and when venturing to locations off the beaten path generally will tell you more about an area than the tourist attractions and traps.  On the other side of the spectrum, and with just a general set of interests in mind, venturing can also take on a loose agenda with open-ended stretches.

To introduce this endeavor, CCR is engaging the assistance of our long time family friend, Michael Addison. Mike moved near Shawnee, OK in 2008 for a new job but lost his position by a reduction in workforce in April 2009. After moving back in with his parents in Houston, TX, he decided to take the rest of the year off and travel the world. Once we found out about his newfound endeavor, we asked if he would be willing to send in regular updates on his travels and especially any reports on local ingredients and foods for the parts of the world that he will be visiting. He gladly accepted the challenge. Thus far, Mike has sent in three updates from his first segment of the journey beginning with several South American locations such as Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bariloche, Cerro de Torre Peak, Perito Moreno Glacier at Calafate, and Patagonia. Mike has always been a worldly traveler, just in the past few years he has ventured on several trips to South America, France, Europe, and South Africa.  The two images are from South Argentina and Bariloche area where we see Mike is sitting at the dinner table on the far left side of the image at left, and he can be seen squatting on the bottom right side of the image at right.

Our next installment of “Bon Vivant Travels” will start with Mike?s preparations for the adventure, his arrival, and first days in Buenos Aries.