I’ll admit to being a “Gastronaut”- someone who is driven to seek out and explore new dining and food experiences.  I enjoy the fine and unusual restaurant experience. I like good service and exquisite food. One of my favorite foodies is Anthony Bourdain. He wrote a book a few years ago called “Kitchen Confidential“, the gastronomic biography of a hard working, hard drinking cook and graduate of the CIA. Bourdain understands food and what motivates people to seek an unusual dining experience. He is a gastronomic cognoscenti who can cuss and spit like a sailor. 

Having been in the sales game, I have had the chance to dine in some really fine restaurants all over the northern hemisphere.  I’ve dined in a fantastic Georgian restaurant in Moscow featuring armed guards and metal detectors, London’s Indian restaurants, steak houses in Houston, BBQ joints in San Antonio, haute cuisine in New Orleans, Las Vegas (yeah, baby!!), & Tokyo ($$$), perogies in South Bend, god-knows-what in Taipei, pork tenderloin in Iowa, salmon in Seattle, cheese in Holland, really expensive Cognac in Paris, vodka in Perm, pastrami in Manhattan, and on and on.  My god it’s been a great ride.

I’ll never forget the transcendental gastronomic experience I had on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was a dish featuring a hard boiled egg with the cap sliced off exposing the yoke, nestled on a slice of toasted bagette with truffle shavings and a truffle sauce. With it I had a glass of a fine Merlot.  I can still recall the comingled flavors of truffle and the smokey/woody/currant aspect of the Merlot.  Jesus, I’m drooling on the keyboard …

But what I really miss when I travel and what I crave when I get home to Colorado is some good, hot & sassy Mexican food.  The kind that is titrated with jalapeno and crinkles your cheeks like hot cellophane when you eat it. If you don’t have sweat running down your forehead and you’re not suckin’ down icewater like a fiend, you haven’t hand the full experience.