1. The Bow-Tie Pasta That Binds

December 2020

"Cooking is all about people.  Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together.  No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat." ~ Guy Fieri

Humans are an intricate breed. We are vast in our capabilities, boundless in our ventures and diverse in our customs-simply fascinating! 

Across time and culture, very few things can serve to unite us so much as a meal. This is not to say that the subject of food is not without its charges. In fact, it can be quite controversial and I look forward to exploring that with you as well. 

Justine Eats The World serves not just as a review of food, but also as a lense into the people who create it, the communities they serve and the cultures from which they came. Together, we will explore cuisine, ingredients, myths, legends, lore and traditions all to tell the story of US, through food. Below is a tiny taste of our adventures to come.

Reflecting back one year to pre-COVID times, I spent 2 weeks in early Fall of 2019 submerging myself into the world of Italy; a magical place that I can revisit in my mind during this time of travel restriction. My memories of food, culture, love & friendship are fond and anyone who has visited the oasis of Tuscany, shares my sentiment. 

At the time, I was a full-time yoga teacher and had opened my own studio 1 year prior. A substantially sized group of loud Americans joined together by our love of travel and yoga and retreated to Tuscany.  Of all the memories made, this photo particularly depicts 'it all'. The brilliance of eating outdoors, the "decadence of dish", the laughter, the wine, the laughter.... the wine. And we sang, yes we sang. We stood on the majesty that was this table and we belted our happiness alongside the strum of guitars, well into the night. And our voices carried off into the Tuscan mountains, to be absorbed into the fold. Our joy would seep into the soil to re-emerge as fruit of the olive, pressed into oil and served once again on that very same table from which the joy was born.  That was the culture of this place.  And that is what we ate every single day of our time there together.  Food was how we connected to one another.  It was the tie that binds.  This single captured moment speaks 1,000 words per person.

One of the most beautiful parts of traveling is experiencing culture outside of my own. Enjoying the cuisine, both traditional as well as modern, gives me a lense from which to view how people lived life in the past and how they see their world today. In each bite, I tasted, in this way, who the people are. In the case of being in Italy, I got to taste a part of my own heritage. 

My old ways of knowing the world become more stretched and shifted with each time I travel; I have the extreme pleasure to enjoy what I thought I knew; all REIMAGINED. Food is a FEELING. Follow the food and the entire world will appear. 

​Welcome to Justine Eats The World.

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