About

Hello, I am Mike, a retired civil engineer incredibly fortunate to travel to beautiful places, eat delicious food, drink interesting libations and learn new things. Cooking and enjoying food started early in my life. My earliest food memory is my love for mashed potatoes! I even wrote a “cookbook” on a government-issued spiral tablet describing my method of making the perfect hole in the mashed potatoes and adding the correct amount of butter and gravy. And yes I still love mashed potatoes although my recipes are a tad more sophisticated these days…garlic, goat cheese and sometimes malt vinegar. My father, mother and both of my sisters were/are great cooks. I learned to cook when I was in my early teens as my parents were often working or playing tennis and I was hungry and very impatient. Today, my wife, son and daughter all share my love for cooking and eating.

We live in Fernandina Beach, Florida which is located on Amelia Island, the furthest northern island in Florida on the Atlantic Ocean. Recently, we purchased an apartment in Lisbon, Portugal and plan to visit often to explore Portugal and use as a base for travel in Europe and beyond. Between our home in Florida and our apartment in Lisbon, we research, plan, and travel to fulfill our culinary dreams. Hence, the expression “We live to eat”. This blog is a happy documentary of those memories.