Day 1: Departure

© Courtesy of Tom Colicchio
With Chef Damon Wise
outside the Mansion on
Peachtree in Atlanta

A few weeks ago, I did something that I've had on my mind for a long time: I took a road trip.

"Road trip" has multiple meanings. It can describe a way to travel from Point A to Point B, or it can mean getting away from it all Kerouac-style on the open road. But this trip wasn't about escaping things, it was about finding them. It was about paying visits to some of the food producers who make my restaurants what they are, and discovering new ones the old-fashioned way. On this trip, the stops were the destination.

My starting point was Atlanta. Craft Atlanta had been tapped to produce the dinner for Porsche's "Ultimate Reveal," an event celebrating the launch of their new 4-door Panamera (Atlanta is not only home to the newest Craft restaurant, but also to Porsche's North American Headquarters), and I flew down to handle the event personally.

When Porsche offered to lend me a spanking new Panamera 4S for an extended "test drive," and it was an opportunity I couldn't refuse (when someone hands you the keys to a Porsche, you do not ask questions). I cleared my schedule for a week, kidnapped our executive chef Damon and my assistant Liz, and set out in the general direction of New York.

Over the coming days I'll be using this blog to relay the highlights of the six-day, 1,200 mile journey that took me from Atlanta to Columbia, on to Charleston, then Chapel Hill, the Chesapeake, Washington DC, rural Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and finally back to New York. I hope you enjoy the ride.