Ladies and Gentlemen

Hello and Welcome to Third Coastin'

My name is Alec, and I am back. And by back I mean back to the world of blogging. I've done some writing before, most notably co-authoring a music blog with my buddy Kyle for a few years, and even managed to get my words into print some time ago (where I was told by a reader that I hate fun). After being away for awhile I've decided that I missed writing and sharing my experiences. And, having now moved to another new city, I am also in need of a way to connect with friends I have made across the country and around the globe.

This time I've decided to cover a couple subjects that have become increasingly interesting and important to me: food and travel. Yes I realize these are extremely trendy topics these days, and I am not claiming to be starting anything revolutionary here. Really, I am just attempting to document my experiences as I try to see and experience as much of the globe as I can.

Traveling, especially internationally, has been a passion of mine ever since a high school trip through Europe, and already at the age of 25 I consider myself lucky to have visited over 15 countries. It is something that I think about constantly, and aside from putting food on the plate and a roof over my head, it is the number one reason why I work hard for the money.

But a travel blog is, in my opinion, a little thin of an idea. Everyone has a different version of how they like to travel, and where they like to go. And this is in addition to the fact that when you work a 9 to 5 job in the city it's hard to get away to enough places to make the blog worthwhile.

Towards my senior year of college I also began to take a little more interest in cooking and started paying attention to the things I was making. It was at first just a desire to learn how to cook more things, but since then it has become something that I really enjoy doing and talking and learning about.

Several years later, I began to realize the amazing connection that exists between the various peoples of the world and the cuisines that define them. As I attempted to venture further and further off the beaten path, I found in food (and drink!) a perfect medium to learn and understand the cultures of the places I traveled.

So what is Third Coastin'? I guess I would answer that first by what it's not. It is not a foodie blog. I don't claim to have a great palate, and I am not an expert by any means in preparing and eating the highest quality food. Nor is it a travel blog. You don't care about my trip to the Uffizi and the great Botticellis I saw there, and I don't have any desire to write about it either.

Third Coastin' is my attempt to fill the space in between these two areas. It is my attempt to learn about the myriad of places and people that fill this planet, to figure out why they eat what they do, and to discover how they make it so much better than I do. If you want, you could probably use Anthony Bourdain's award winning show "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel as a template, but I hope to carve out and identity that is distinct from his show. That and I'm not a self-proclaimed asshole.

And why call it Third Coastin'? Well first off I really struggled to think of any name, and more or less had to pick one if I wanted to get going. Having just moved to Milwaukee, and with frequently planned trips back to Chicago, this blog will probably feature quite heavily on these two great cities on the Third Coast of America: Lake Michigan. I cleverly thought that by using the word Coastin', I could make use of coast as a homonym while lightly referencing the traveling aspect of the blog. Did I succeed? Nobody cares, the name is just a name.

So bookmark Third Coastin' and use it to kill time at work. Please follow along and be sure to share your thoughts, critiques, experiences and recommendations!