BARBERINO-TAVARNELLE, TUSCANY—Some of my closest friends have crossed the Atlantic with me 11 or 12 times. Ten years ago, I didn't know their names.
This past June, 34 of my Yonderlust travelers came to Hattiesburg for a weekend. At dinner in the Branch Room at Crescent City Grill, I looked around at people I'd met over meals in Italy, boat rides in Greece, and late-night tapas in Spain.
They were talking, laughing, and catching up. Most of us wouldn't have known one another if I hadn't started hosting folks in Tuscany.
I'm 65. Between friends from childhood and the ones I've made over almost 40 years in the restaurant business, I figured the roster was pretty well set. Making this many new, close friends at this stage of the game has been the nicest surprise of Yonderlust Travel.
It started because people kept asking if I would take them to Tuscany.
I'd been traveling there for a couple of years and had gotten to know chefs, farmers, winemakers, and restaurant owners. Those relationships grew over repeat visits, kitchen conversations, and long lunches. Folks back in Mississippi wanted to meet some of those people and see the places I loved.
So, in 2016, I gathered a group and did just that. There wasn't a business plan. I had restaurants to run, books to sell, a family to raise, and this column to write (not in that order).
I figured we'd eat well, see some beautiful countryside, and come home with a few stories, and that would be the end of it. I've been wrong about plenty of things in almost 40 years as a restaurant owner, but rarely by this wide a margin.
People wanted to go again, and they brought friends. Those friends wanted to know where we were going next, and it kept rolling from there.
Today Yonderlust Travel has a director and a team in America and partners in Europe who help us put the trips together. We've hosted roughly 80 trips for about 1,700 guests across more than 13 countries and 140 towns and cities. That's with two years off for COVID.
I'm still a restaurateur first, I love that business as much as ever, and we're growing. I didn't go looking for another career, though. It sort of snuck up on me.
It turns out that running a restaurant and showing people around Italy have a lot in common. In both cases you're asking people to trust you with their time and hoping they'll enjoy themselves enough to come back.
Last year, I was going through our guest lists and noticed people who'd been on eight, nine, and 10 trips. A few have now reached 11 or 12.
That's a lot of vacation days and a lot of money. Some of those folks have spent more nights in Italian hotels with me than at their in-laws' houses.
I've always believed that if somebody eats at your restaurant every Friday, you ought to know who they are and what they like. Here were people who had crossed an ocean with me again and again. How do you thank folks like that?
We had kept improving the trips— better hotels, places guests would have a hard time finding on their own, and the kind of behind-the-scenes access you can't book online. But another wonderful lunch in Tuscany wasn't quite the thank-you I had in mind.
I wanted to bring them to Hattiesburg and take care of them there.
That's how Yonderlust Elite began. Anyone who had traveled with me five or more times qualified for a weekend in my hometown, at my expense. I'd pick up the hotel bills, the meals, and the outings.
Thirty-four people came in June. There are 47 on the Elite list now.
We started with cocktails at my house. I had iced tea (43 years and counting). From there we headed to the Branch Room at Crescent City Grill, where Chef Nevil Barr put on a terrific dinner.
I handed out gifts recognizing the number of trips each person had taken, all the way up through 10.
The next morning, we had breakfast at The Midtowner and went to the Hattiesburg Zoo before it opened. We fed the giraffes. They were thrilled to see us (or at least the food we were carrying).
Lunch was at Ed's Burger Joint. That afternoon, George Bassi gave us a private tour of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel. Dinner that night was at Tabella, and we wrapped up the weekend Sunday morning with breakfast at Loblolly Bakery.
For years, I'd been turning people from Mississippi on to the places I love overseas. That weekend, I got to show them some of the people and places I love back home.
Though the thing I remember most happened around the tables.
People who'd traveled together years earlier picked right up where they'd left off. Others who'd never been on the same trip were talking like old neighbors. Nobody was in a hurry to leave.
If you go on a seven-day trip with us, you may eat 21 meals together. On a 10-day trip, that number jumps to 30. I'm not sure I eat that many meals with some of my oldest friends at home in an entire year.
These aren't quick lunches, either. In Italy or Spain, you can sit at a table for two hours while plate after plate comes out of the kitchen.
On a trip to Spain a few years back, I sat next to Mike Boyles at a lunch that ran close to three hours. By the time dessert came out, I knew where he grew up and the names of every one of his grandchildren. At dinner that night, Mike had saved me a seat.
Mike and his family have been on eight trips with me since. These days, I'm the one saving him a seat.
I went into this thinking the best part would be showing people extraordinary places and feeding them great food, and I still love doing that. Over the years, though, I've watched strangers become friends. They keep in touch at home and visit one another, and when they travel again, there are familiar faces waiting at the table.
The Elite weekend will happen again. My hope is that the list grows to 100, then 200. If we outgrow the Branch Room, we'll find another place to gather. I've been in the restaurant business long enough to know how to set another table.
I invited those 34 people because I wanted to thank them for coming back, year after year. They could have traveled with anyone— or stayed home— and they chose to spend those weeks with us.
We put them up, fed them, and showed them around my hometown. When Sunday morning came, I wished we'd had one more day.
Ten years ago, I was inviting people to sit at my favorite tables in Tuscany. In June, those same people were sitting at mine in Hattiesburg, and if that Elite list keeps growing the way I hope it will, the zoo is going to need a lot more giraffe food.
Onward.
Mini Pecan Tartlets
Rich and nutty, like your eccentric uncle. Must be held and served at room temperature.
Sweet Tart Dough:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 /2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
Preheat oven to 325
To make the sweet dough: Place the sugar, butter, and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer. With the paddle attachment, beat ingredients until creamy. Add flour and salt and mix until just combined. Add egg and mix until just combined (this can also be done in a food processor). Form a disk out of the dough, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1/2 hour.
When dough is slightly chilled, place on a lightly floured surface. Roll dough out in a rectangular shape, approximately 11x15-inches in size. Transfer dough to a 9x13 baking sheet, and gently press dough into bottom and sides of the pan (dough should come up the sides of the pan about one inch).
Refrigerate dough 30 minutes, and bake for 10 minutes. While crust is cooling, prepare the filling.
Filling
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1 /2 cups brown sugar
1 /4 cup sugar
1 /2 cup honey
1 /4 teaspoon fine salt
1 /3 cup heavy cream
4 1 /2 cups pecan pieces
While the pastry is cooling, combine butter, brown sugar, white sugar, honey, and salt in a large pot over high heat. Boil six minutes. Remove from the heat and carefully stir in the cream (Mixture will boil up while adding the cream, so be very careful during this step not to burn yourself).
Add pecans and mix thoroughly. Pour the filling evenly over the baked pastry. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.
