“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.” — Henry David Thoreau
GALWAY, IRELAND— Not much in my life has ever gone according to plan, and that’s turned out to be the plan. The goal, at first, was simple: open one small restaurant, work hard, make a living, raise a family. No grand strategy. No five-year map. I just wanted to wear shorts and a T-shirt to work every day. Then one thing led to another. Forty-plus years later, I’m still opening new doors and hoping to get it right.
For most of those years, I thought of myself as a restaurant guy who happened to do a few other things on the side. These days, it’s all part of the same picture. Feeding people, writing, traveling—it’s all connected.
That urge to go my own way showed up early. In my teen years it surfaced as rebellion. I had a chip on my shoulder and a distrust of authority. But after getting into recovery and putting my life on track, that same streak turned into something else entirely.
I stopped fighting the world and started building something in it.
Writing wasn’t something I planned. In the late ’90s, the local paper asked me to write a weekly column about food and restaurants. I eventually said yes, figuring it might last a few months. That was twenty-six years ago. More than 1,300 columns and around a million words later, I still haven’t missed a week. For a long time, I didn’t call myself a writer. That word sounded too haughty. But at some point— once that many words into print— I guess I am one. Maybe not a good one, but I am one, nevertheless. And it’s something I’m proud to be.
Book number fifteen comes out next month. That wasn’t planned either. I just kept saying yes when something felt right. My friend Wyatt told me I ought to take control of the publishing side, so I did. That’s how Different Drummer Publishing was born. The name fit.
The travel part of my life started the same way—organically, by accident, or possibly by grace. In 2014, the University of Southern Mississippi asked me to cohost a European tour with my friend Andy Weist, a war historian. We met for an hour, came up with a plan, and called it Battlefields and Baguettes. Andy led the group through World War I and II cemeteries and battlefields. I handled the lunches and dinners—Paris through Normandy, Belgium, and London.
At the time, I told the organizers at the university that folks had been asking me for years to take them to Tuscany, to the people and places I’d discovered on a trip years earlier. They listened, but nothing came of it.
A few months later, I took a shot and made a Facebook post on a Sunday afternoon. The trip filled up in a couple of hours. Then came a waiting list. Then a waiting list for the waiting list.
Eight years later—ten if you count the two off for COVID—I’ve led close to seventy tours through Western Europe. Almost fifteen hundred people have joined me along the way. Every trip starts the same: good food, good people, and the hope of finding something meaningful along the road. Whether it’s a plate of Mama Giuliana’s pasta in Tuscany or a Michelin dinner on a private boat in Amsterdam, it all falls under the same thing—hospitality.
None of this was mapped out. I never planned to write books or lead tours. I just wanted to open one restaurant. I used to say I was following my passion, but I think it’s more than that. Passion helped, but what really mattered was staying open to opportunity. The best things in my life have come through side doors I didn’t even know were there.
Occasionally someone will ask if I’m thinking about retiring. The answer’s no. I’m a year away from what most see as retirement age, but I feel as if I’m not even halfway through with everything I want to accomplish in this world. I don’t golf. I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. I just do what I love. Always have.
I still wake up curious.
My son’s in the restaurant business now. He’s in Chicago, learning from some of the best. There’s never been pressure from me. I didn’t have a father whose footsteps I was expected to follow, and that gave me the freedom to find my own way. This business is brutal if you’re not all in. He’ll figure out soon enough if it’s his calling. And if it is, he’ll carve his own path, same as I did.
Funny how it all connects when I look back on it. The restaurants led to writing. The writing led to travel. And somehow, it all wound up under the same roof. I’ve been blessed to fall backward into the life I love, and even more blessed that people have let me share it with them.
I’m writing this from a quiet breakfast room at the Glenlo Abbey Hotel. Twenty-six people have trusted me with their vacation time, their resources, and their memories. That’s not something I take lightly. Somewhere along the way, these trips stopped feeling like tours and started feeling like reunions. We didn’t start as friends, but that’s what we’ve become—one meal, one laugh, one shared story at a time. Of the twenty-six with me this week, they’ve traveled with me a combined total of 148 times. Two of them are on their ninth trip. That kind of loyalty isn’t built by marketing. It grows slowly, over years of shared tables and long walks through foreign streets.
I’ll never take it for granted.
I knew I’d enjoy showing folks the places and people I’ve come to love over here, but I never expected the friendships to run this deep. These travelers aren’t just guests anymore—they’re part of the story. Some have been with me from the beginning; others are brand new. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like work and started feeling like family—the kind that laughs hard, eats well, and never runs out of stories. Of all the blessings this job has given me, that’s the sweetest.
So, I’ll keep going. Writing a thousand words a week. Feeding folks at home. Showing others the places and people that mean the most to me overseas. Still marching to that same beat I started hearing a long time ago.
Onward.
Spicy Shrimp Dip
This can also be spread on miniature bread slices for canapés and finger sandwiches.
1 Tbl olive oil
3 /4 pound fresh shrimp, medium sized
2 tsp Old Bay seasoning
1 /2 tsp blackening seasoning, recipe page xxx
1 /4 cup white wine.
1 /2 cup sour cream
1 /2 pound cream cheese, softened
1 /2 cup finely chopped celery
1 /4 cup minced red onion
1 /4 cup minced green onion
1 Tbl minced jalapeño
1 Tbl hot sauce
1 Tbl fresh lemon juice
1 /4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbl chopped parsley
1 tsp salt
Toss shrimp in the Old Bay and blackening seasoning.
Heat oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. When pan is hot, sauté shrimp until pink and cooked through. Remove shrimp from the pan and cool. Deglaze pan with white wine, using a rubber spatula to remove seasoning from the pan.
Place cream cheese into a mixing bowl of an electric mixer. Add wine and sour cream. Using the paddle attachment, beat until smooth.
Add cooled shrimp and remaining ingredients to the cream cheese mixture and mix until everything is well incorporated.
Yield: 1 quart
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)
