Roger Crowley

Roger Crowley is a UK-based writer and historian and a graduate of Cambridge University. As the child of a naval family, his fascination with the Mediterranean world and its surrounding area started early, on the island of Malta. He has lived in Istanbul, walked across much of western Turkey, and travelled throughout the region over many years – from Spain and Portugal to the Black Sea. His particular interests are the Portuguese, Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman empires, seafaring, and eyewitness history. He has lectured to a wide range of audiences and groups of travellers, talked on TV and Radio and written for many different publications, including Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly about Venice. He is the author of four much acclaimed books: 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople, Empires of the Sea, City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas, and most recently Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire.

Albert Leonard

Albert Leonard, Jr. (Ph.D., University of Chicago), Professor Emeritus in both the Departments of Classical Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona, is an archaeologist who specializes in the social impact of interregional trade among the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean world. For more than four decades, he has directed excavations at a number of sites in Italy, Greece, Portugal, Egypt, Cyprus, Israel, and Jordan. Throughout his career, Al has been active in educational outreach and, in 2006, the Archaeological Institute of America awarded him its Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award by which it “acknowledged and applauded the invaluable service that (he) has given to the archaeological community as an educator.”
As his alter ego, the Time-traveling Gourmet©, Al combines his command of archaeological, historical, and literary material with culinary skills acquired at Le Cordon Bleu as well as the Culinary Institute of America (partially supported by a Robert A. Parker Wine Advocate Scholarship) in order to reconstruct (in the classroom or the kitchen) dishes described by such ancient authors as Archestratus of Syracuse, a 4th century B.C. Sicilian cook who has often been called the “Father of Gastronomy.”
Al presently divides his time between Tucson and California’s Russian River Valley where he is a member of The Society of Wine Educators and the Northern Sonoma County convivium of Slow Foods International.

Brian Aivars Catlos