Betsy

The story begins in a pleasant little shoreline town near New Haven, Connecticut. Bob and Margaret begat Mark Shepard in 1950, Elizabeth Emerson in 1954, and Paul Stuart in 1961.

Looking back, the early years were about as sweet as they come. Family was nearby, so Sundays were spent with grandparents and holidays always included the world's best cousins. South Union Street was filled with families with their own three kids, plenty of woods and brooks and caves in which to play, and great friends with whom to share the magic.

We moved to the next town over in time for Junior High and High School, and I'm in touch to this day with my great group of Daniel Hand Class of '72 classmates.

When's the next reunion, y'all?

As a child I'd always dreamed of becoming an actress (or a June Taylor dancer but my short stature put the nix on that) but a brief stint at Emerson College made it clear to me that I didn't have the focus nor the chutzpah (nor the talent for that matter) to make it in that field. I did, however, make some wonderful friends during my time in Boston with whom I am in touch to this day.

But what do all aspiring actors do? They wait tables!

The food and hospitality world beckoned me, and for many years—aside from a brief stint in a bellhop outfit delivering singing telegrams in Santa Cruz—working as a waitress at the Little Stone House allowed me to work hard all summer and travel all winter.

Determined to lose my preppy roots and trying like hell to be a hippie, I spent most winters in the 70s traversing the USA with friends in a red & white VW bus, stopping along the way in towns that intrigued us - Key West, New Orleans, Santa Cruz. Always Santa Cruz...

In the early 80s getting married seemed like a good idea, so I did that and we settled in Connecticut, where I managed a few restaurants (one of which received a swell review in the New York Times food section, a stellar moment in my career!) before my love of cooking drew me into the kitchen, where I found my true calling as a chef and caterer.

Life does march on, however, and after an amicable divorce and the loss of two very dear friends all within a year, I needed a change. A big change.

I moved back to Santa Cruz (just in time for the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989!) and dove into the food scene there. Many years of great times, good friends, and wonderful food followed, but one day I found myself about to hit 40, tired of working fourteen-hour days, and wondering, "What's next?"

Little did I know that saying that out loud would lead to an introduction to the amazing Joan Summers, the owner and creator of La Casa de Espíritus Alegres Bed & Breakfast in Guanajuato, Mexico. I was looking for an adventure, Joan was looking for help, and thanks to our wonderful mutual friend Jane, my life took a sharp turn south of the border.

My first-ever visit to Mexico was to Guanajuato in December 1994. My Spanish was limited to the days of the week, numbers from one to ten, and phrases like "Please put the carrots in the large cold room." All very useful in a catering kitchen, but a little out of place in a house with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and no big cold room in which to put the zanahorias.

I spent a week at the B&B learning the ropes with Joan before she left for India, a training that more often than not meant laughing hysterically and knowing a ripe papaya when I saw one. It wasn't until she was pulling out of the driveway that I thought to ask how to say the words Guest, Arrive, and Depart in Spanish. Luckily, I grew up playing charades, I have a knack for languages, and the staff was extremely patient. My six week inn-sitting job very quickly became a full time position and Mexico became my new home.

I realize now that the seeds of My Mexico Tours were being sown way back then, as I began to see Mexico through Joan's eyes.

The B&B was filled with folk art from every corner of the country, and her passion for the art and the artisans who created it was contagious. Whenever possible we'd take a road trip together to some village or another in search of folk art.

I will never forget the day we searched for a potter she'd met years before, pulling into a dusty village of look-alike cinder block houses that anyone in their right mind would have driven straight through as quickly as possible. Not Joan.

After knocking on many doors and traipsing through numerous homes and backyards filled with sleeping pigs and tethered goats we came upon an open-air workshop where the entire family was working on a colorful collection of ceramic chickens in various stages of completion.

There, in the midst of the menagerie, was the son of the potter she knew. The father had passed away, but his son remembered Joan and clearly was moved by the respect she held for his father's work. They hugged, I teared up, and we ordered a gazillion of whatever they were making. My life as a Mexican folk art addict — I mean, collector — had begun.

That night back at the B&B I wrote in my journal "You could come to Mexico for twenty years and never see what I saw today, thanks to Joan."

She had a gift of making everyone her new best friend. Of opening doors. Her enthusiasm was visceral. I wanted to be just like her.

Working with Joan was a joy and the B&B was flying high. We were featured in all the travel magazines (remember travel magazines?) and guide books (remember guide books?) Fodor's named us one of the Three Best Inns of Mexico (thank you forever, Miz Gina) and Frommer's called us the Most Unique Inn of Mexico.

Luckily, Joan lived to see all that happen before she succumbed to cancer in 1998 at the age of 64. I think of her often and fondly and I remember the great work we did together. She has a place of honor on my Muertos altar every year.

I stayed on at the B&B for another five years after Joan passed and in 2002, after eight exciting, challenging, and satisfying years, I moved on, feeling that it was time for me to take the show on the road, as it were. The hundreds of B&B guests I'd hosted were game for seeing more of Mexico with me, so I planned to open a tour company.

But first... I was asked to work on a project with Bon Appétit for their annual travel issue; the chosen country for 2003 was Mexico. I was paid to travel across Mexico for several weeks helping out on a feature article (18 photo shoots in 23 days in 20 different locations!) based on Marilyn Tausend's recipes. It was crazy, and it was fabulously helpful to my budding business idea.

In that same issue, my recipes were featured in an Entertaining With Style article, Lunch at the Hacienda, shot at the home of my dear neighbors Rosendo & Carlene. A photo of their fabulous house and my delicious Pork Tenderloin with Orange Chipotle Sauce graced the cover of Bon Appétit's Soul of Mexico issue in May 2003. (If you lost your copy, you can buy a used one here on eBay!)

Around the same time I was invited by photographer Melba Levick to work on a book about Mexican kitchens, the fourth of Chronicle Books' Mexico design series. Mexicocina: The Spirit and Style of the Mexican Kitchen was released in 2006. With my name on the cover!!

Both these projects provided me with everything I needed to start my tour business, as I met cooks, artists, hoteliers, musicians, and warm, friendly people everywhere I went.

After a particularly meaningful meeting with Diana Kennedy, then reading her book My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey with More Than 300 Recipes, in which she states on the very first page...

...it became clear to me that my business needed to be called My Mexico Tours, for the same reason DK titled her book that. I had to wait until dawn to call and ask for her permission, but her answer was immediate, "Yes, yes, of course, dearie!"

And so began My Mexico Tours, a way for me to share—as Joan had with me—the people, places, art, music, and flavors of Mexico I had come to love. Not all of Mexico, but my Mexico.

Since my first tour to Mexico City and Michoacán in November 2003 I've introduced hundreds and hundreds of intrepid travelers to my Mexico.

We’ve enjoyed regional culinary experiences in humble huts, palatial homes, and cooking schools throughout the country; walked amongst crumbling ruins of ancient cities and visited villages filled with indigenous people whose cultures existed before the conquest; driven through mountains and valleys on dirt roads, cobblestones, and super highways.

We've hiked in jungles, floated down the canals of Xochimilco and on the river through the Sumidero Canyon, dined and danced in the courtyards of convents and private estates, spent nights in three-hundred-year old haciendas and cemeteries glowing with candlelight, tasted the most ethereal quesadillas in the world by the side of the road and made tamales in DK’s kitchen, witnessed mind bending festivals, sacred rituals, and deeply moving ceremonies.

Perhaps most important of all, we’ve spent time with the people of my Mexico: the artisans, archeologists, bakers, butchers, cooks, musicians, experts and everyday people who have given so much of themselves to us over the years. Cooks and characters. Drag queens and shamans. Monkey men and grandmas.

I love my job. And the thing I like the most about it is that after all these years of extensive travel all over this country, I still feel just as excited as I did when I first arrived, because on every visit everywhere I still discover new people, places, tastes, and sights, all of which I am excited to share with my clients and friends.

My new best friend Lydia Carey with my long time best friends Jack & Jean in Colonia Roma. Lydia will be touring my groups around Mexico City starting in September. Can't wait!

After fifteen fantastic years running My Mexico Tours from Santa Cruz, in 2017 I returned to Mexico to live. In yet another amazing twist of fate, upon my return I lived for several years in Casa Paloma, a fabulous house just 100 steps up the hill from La Casa de Espiritus Alegres, where it all began for me in Mexico back in ’94. Same 'hood but a completely different experience this time.

When Casa Paloma sold in 2021 I moved to Pátzcuaro, Michoacán and I plan to stay right here in my lovely old adobe home in this charming pueblo magico for the rest of my live long days, as my dear old dad would say.

Life is slower now and I like that.

I'm still doing several full-service tours a year and lots of concierge tour planning for folks who want to travel on their own, but I am also finding time for myself. For travel. For family and friends. For writing again...

After years of wanting to but never getting started, I started blogging again, this time on SubStack. Please follow along at My Mexico, My World. I'm having a ball!

The MMT website was revamped recently to make it more dynamic and interesting for you and more user friendly for me and I'm really enjoying tweaking it and adding new photos and info. (Bless you, Trey Donovan!)

And I have a kitty in my life again. Xóchitl came to live with me in December and I am so very glad she did. Having a living creature to wake up next to is a wonderful thing.

That's all of my story for now.

I hope you are well and warm and safe. I hope that our country returns to some semblance of sanity before it's too late. I hope to see you here, there, or somewhere in the not too distant future.

xo Betsy/Pepsi