I don't know how many times I've started blogs and abandoned them after a year, few months, weeks, etc. I'm not promising this will be any different but I'm trying to keep this a simple format that I will actually use for long and short posts, photos, and other random stuff that I want to write about in a format longer then Twitter which is one social media outlet that I tend to be able to use with regularity.
The blog name Forward Eating comes from the name of my last blog, which I started to document a major life change I made a little over a year ago. I left a nearly two decade career to travel the U.S. and part of Canada in my car, driving, eating, camping, visiting friends and making new ones and trying to figure out how I wanted to make a living for the next phase of my life. It was an amazing year of growth, change, adventure and risk. I took time to breathe for the first time in years, I slept in my truck next to rivers and alongside the ocean. I started my journey in Nashville, TN as epic rains turned lazy creeks and rivers into raging forces of destruction. I originally left the city as the water was rising, only to follow my heart and return 2 days later to help out with recovery efforts. My girlfriend and I spent 5 days working as part of a massive volunteer effort to clean up the devastation and help provide some form of assistance and comfort to those who lost nearly everything. It was a sobering, humbling reminder of how lucky I was to be in a position to help and an inspiring experience of watching a city come together to help each other out of a crisis. Leaving Nashville, I started driving with few plans or timelines for where and when to stop.
I drove through mountain ranges, wheat fields, deserts, and lush forests. I ate seafood fresh from the ocean, locally raised beef, veggies from gardens tended by chefs or local farmers, finely prepared elegant meals and fast roadside diner food. I drank French press coffee made on the side of the road in Wyoming from locally roasted beans, cooked local buffalo sausage on a campfire in Montana, when I failed to catch a fresh trout I roasted asparagus over a campfire in Washington to eat over cast iron skillet polenta with local gouda cheese prepared in the dark, burned my tongue on crispy pork rinds fresh out of a fryer in Georgia, and stuffed myself on tamales from a gas station in the middle of the Utah desert. I experienced true solitude and peace under the huge sky of the west and watched in horror as thick oil washed up on the white sand beaches of Pensacola, FL after the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
After a few months on the road, I settled in Washington, DC. I moved into a group house with my girlfriend, exciting about the possibilites of an intentional community and shared resources and skills in a household. I started from scratch determined to make a living somewhere in the food business and ended up falling into what I thought was a dream job managing a food truck on the streets of DC for a local, sustainable restaurant chain. I spent about 7 months on the truck hustling to sell frozen yogurt and salads through my first DC winter. It was an amazing learning experience for me, one that I will be forever grateful for. But ultimately I learned that a.) I can't handle 12 hour days on my feet like I could at 19! b.) I missed an office environment in some ways and c.) I really do have an interest and passion for international trade compliance. I still love food, but I'm content for right now to let that be a hobby and passion, rather than a career. I don't rule out finding a way to make a living in the world of food, but for now I'm happy to have found a job back in the field of international business, advising on trade related matters at a DC law firm.
This is a portion of my story to give you an idea of the lens through which I see the world that I write about. Welcome to my blog.
