I thought I was finished making lifelong friends. At 65, I figured the roster was pretty much set. I wasn’t looking for new ones, and I certainly didn’t expect to make some of the most meaningful friendships of my life at this age. These days, most things in my life are either planned or predictable. But over the past decade, I’ve been surprised by how many new friends I’ve made, and even more by how I made them.
It started in 2014 with Battlefields and Baguettes, a University of Southern Mississippi tour I co-hosted with military historian Andy Wiest. We traveled through England, Belgium, Normandy, and France. Andy led the group through World War I and World War II battlefields and cemeteries during the day. I handled lunch and dinner. He knew where the battles were fought. I knew where to eat afterward. It was a good arrangement.
People had also been asking me to take them to Tuscany, to the places I’d written about after an extended stay overseas. I kept telling the university, “If y’all put a trip together, I’ll host it.” Nothing happened for two years, so one Sunday afternoon I announced a Tuscany trip on Facebook. It filled almost immediately. A waiting list formed, and we traveled again. And again. Before long, the waiting list had its own waiting list, and people wanted to know where we were going next. And that’s how Yonderlust Travel began. It was supposed to be a fun side project, not a business. Somewhere around 60 trips and 1,500 guests, I decided I’d better start running it like one. Today, after more than 72 trips and roughly 1,800 travelers, the greatest reward has nothing to do with business.
It’s the friendships.
I’ve always valued friends. After faith and family, they’re the most important thing in my life. I still have friends from elementary school. We can go years without seeing each other and pick up right where we left off. Those people knew me before I knew what I was going to be. They also remember the bad haircuts and terrible decisions I’d prefer to forget. I assumed friendships that deep were made early in life. I was wrong.
On those first few trips, I noticed how quickly strangers became friends. People who hadn’t known each other a week earlier were leaving with friendships that would last for years. A couple of years ago, I walked into one of my restaurants and spotted eight ladies having lunch together. I recognized every one of them from trips I’d hosted. They lived in different parts of Mississippi and neighboring states, but there they were, laughing, swapping stories, and carrying on like they’d known each other all their lives.
I asked, “How many of y’all knew each other before you started traveling with me?” None. Some were married, some widowed, some divorced. They’d met on trips and had become close enough to get together on their own. I took a great deal of pride in having played a small part in that. Two other ladies met on their first trip with me and have since traveled together more than ten times, sharing rooms and planning adventures. Neither knew the other existed before that first trip. I’ve seen friendships like those form on every tour we’ve hosted. And I’ve made close friends of my own along the way.
For years, I couldn’t understand why it happened so consistently. My wife and I aren’t group-travel people. We like to go where we want, eat where we want, and stop when something interests us. Being herded onto a bus behind a fellow waving a little flag isn’t my idea of a vacation. We don’t do that, by the way. Yet here I am, taking groups around Europe for a living. Our trips have never felt like group travel to me. It took me almost ten years to understand why.
We eat together.
There are 25 of us, and most days we share breakfast, lunch, and dinner. People change seats. They talk about children, grandchildren, childhood, work, marriages, successes, and disappointments. By midweek, people who were strangers at the airport have inside jokes. By the end, they’re making plans to see each other again. Nobody plans any of that. It just happens.
I’ve spent 46 years in the restaurant business, watching birthdays, weddings, reunions, and ordinary Tuesday dinners bring people together. I should have recognized sooner what three shared meals a day for a week or ten days could do. Food has always been my business, but what happens when people sit down and eat together might be why I’ve stayed in it.
My grandfather used to say, “A rich man has his first dollar. A wealthy man has his first friend.” He also said you could judge a man’s wealth by the depth and breadth of his friendships, not his bank account. I heard that growing up. It means more now. Before I left for Europe reece
o, my wife asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told her the same thing I tell her every year: I wanted my friends in one room, sharing a meal. I didn’t need anything else.
Last year, a lady on her third trip pulled me aside. She’d been through a couple of terrible tragedies over the years and told me she’d reached a point when she wasn’t sure she wanted to go on. Then she said, “Robert, I went on that Tuscany trip, and I realized I still had so much to live for.”
I didn’t know what to say.
A few weeks ago in Greece, another lady pulled me aside to thank me. She said, “I feel so alive.” I’ve been in the restaurant business for 46 years, and no one has ever said anything quite like that to me. I’ve received plenty of compliments about food and service over the years, but these two women were talking about something altogether different.
A trip to Italy doesn’t erase grief or fix life’s problems. You still come home to the same world. But a change of scenery, some laughter, good meals, new experiences, and people who enjoy your company can remind you there’s still a lot of living left to do. I can’t take credit for what happened in those ladies’ lives. I’m just grateful I had a small part in it.
I started taking people overseas because I wanted to share the places I’d come to love. What I never expected was how much the people I took would come to mean to me. At 65, I’m still making new friends, and some have become as close as people I’ve known all my life. And after almost half a century in the restaurant business, I find myself doing the same thing I’ve always loved doing—bringing people together around a table.
My grandfather was right. I’ve spent most of my life trying to make a living. Somewhere along the way, I was making a fortune.
Onward.
Italian Cheesecake
If you are a fan of American-style cream cheese cheesecake, this might not be your dessert. Though if you like something lighter and less sweet, this is the dessert for you.
5 each Large egg yolks
1 ¼ cups Sugar
½ tsp Kosher salt
2 cups Ricotta cheese, drained , at room temperature
2 cups Mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
2 TB Unsalted butter
¾ cup Crumbled biscotti
Preheat oven to 275.
Combine egg yolks, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until foamy and the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes.
Add the ricotta, mascarpone, lemon zest and orange zest and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl and continue beating on medium speed for an additional 3 minutes. The batter should be smooth and have no lumps.
Using the butter, grease the bottom and the sides of a 9″ spring form pan and sprinkle with the biscotti crumbs. Pour the batter into the spring form pan, using a spatula to smooth the top. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until set. It will begin to firm as it cooks but should still jiggle slightly when shaken. Allow the cheesecake to set in the refrigerator overnight. Slice with a knife dipped in hot water to create smooth edges along each slice.
Yield: 10-12 servings
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)