BETSY

The story of our fearless leader 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 lots of great friends with whom to share the magic.

As a child I'd always dreamed of becoming an actress (or a June Taylor dancer, but my short legs 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. 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 in the summer allowed me to travel in the winter. Determined to lose my preppy roots and become a hippie, I spent many of those winters 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.

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, a stellar moment in my career) before my love of cooking drew me into the kitchen, and where I found my 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. An across-the-country, coast-to-coast change.

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

Who'd have imagined that saying that out loud would lead to Mexico, but it did, when I was introduced to Joan Summers, the fabulous creator of La Casa de Espíritus Alegres Bed & Breakfast in Guanajuato. I was looking for an adventure, Joan was looking for an inn sitter, and thanks to our mutual friend and connector Jane Gregorius, my life took a sharp turn south of the border.

My first-ever visit to Mexico was to the B&B in 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 with Joan before she left for India, a "training" that more often than not meant laughing hysterically, getting lost in the tunnels, 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.

Oh, how I loved being an innkeeper! My six week inn-sitting job very quickly became a full time position and the House of the Happy Spirits 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 (er, 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."

Joan had a gift of making everyone her new best friend. Of opening doors. Her enthusiasm was contagious. I wanted to be just like her. She said the same thing about me.

Our work was exciting, challenging, and deeply satisfying. Working together was a joy and the B&B was soaring. 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, ) and Frommer's called us the Most Unique Inn of Mexico. We were both so proud and so gratified.

Joan died in '98, and after another five years doing it without her, it was my time to move on.

I decided to move back to the States and start a business bringing people on tours in Mexico. I figured I could apply the hospitality skills I'd been honing over the years, add my recent experience of helping Jane and others with the art tour groups they were bringing to the B&B, and "take the show on the road" as it were.

But first... in another lucky twist of fate, before I dove in to the new business I was asked to work for Bon Appétit magazine on their annual travel issue; the chosen country for 2003 was Mexico. They hired me to travel across Mexico for several weeks working on an article featuring Marilyn Tausend's recipes — 18 photo shoots in 23 days in 20 different locations. It was sometimes fun and often fraught, but most important: aside from the work I was doing, I was traveling in Mexico, improving my Spanish, and meeting people.

In that same issue, my recipes were featured in 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...I just did!)

A few months later, fate twisting in my direction once more, I was invited by photographer Melba Levick to travel throughout Mexico again, this time working on a book about Mexican kitchens. Again, an opportunity to travel throughout the country, dovetailing my work on the book with my research for the tours.

Mexicocina: The Spirit and Style of the Mexican Kitchen was published by Chronicle Books in 2006. With my name on the cover!

Both these projects, aside from providing gainful employment after leaving the B&B, allowed me to make important connections for my new business — chefs, artists, hoteliers, cooking teachers, artists, historians, musicians — and meet warm, friendly people all over Mexico.

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

"Why MY Mexico? It sounds rather arrogant and possessive, doesn't it?

Well, the title came to me in a flash — and the more I thought about it, the more appropriate it seemed. After all, this book is about the Mexico I know. It is a highly personal, somewhat lopsided view from other people's kitchens, where I seem to have spent an awful lot of time talking about food or actually cooking and eating with the families I visit."

...it became clear to me that this burgeoning business of mine needed to be called MY Mexico Tours, following DK's reasoning. I had to wait until dawn to call and ask for her permission, but her answer was an immediate, "Yes, yes, of course, dearie!"

And so began My Mexico Tours, as a way for me to share — as Joan had with me so many years before — 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 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 explored jungles, gardens, and monarch-filled forests; floated through the waterways of the ancient Aztec capital now called Mexico City, motored up the Rio Umascinta in the majestic Sumidero Canyon, and puttered about on Lake Pátzcuaro; dined and danced in the courtyards and gardens of convents and private estates; spent the night in three-hundred-year old haciendas and sitting on a rock in a cemetery glowing with candlelight; tasted the most ethereal quesadillas by the side of the road and helped pull the barbacoa out of the earthen oven; witnessed mind boggling festivals, sacred rituals, deeply moving ceremonies, and the simplest everyday miracles.

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 mamacitas.

After running My Mexico Tours from Santa Cruz for many years, I returned to Mexico in 2017. I now live Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, and I plan to stay right here in this lovely old adobe home in this charming pueblo magico for the rest of my live long days, as my dear old dad would say.

I'm purposefully slowing things down a bit these days and enjoying 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 a pet! I have a gato in my life again. Xóchitl came to live with me in December and I am so very glad she did.

And I am writing again. After years of wanting to but never getting started, I started blogging again, this time on Sub Stack. Please follow along at My Mexico, My World.

Life is good. After all these years of living and traveling in Mexico, I'm as thrilled to be here as I was way back in '94 when I first arrived. And everywhere I go I continue to discover new friends, fiestas, tastes, and sights... and I still have so much fun sharing them with you.

I'm a lucky gal.

xo Betsy/Pepsi