Paul Rimple

Culinary Backstreets Bureau Chief and guide, is a northern California native who gave up a cooking career to move to Chicago to front his own blues band. He spent much of the 1990s in Krakow Poland before moving in 2002 to Tbilisi, where he works as a freelance journalist and performs with his band, The Natural Born Lovers. A former columnist at The Moscow Times, he has been a regular contributor to Eurasianet.org, The Christian Science Monitor, and Deutsche Welle and has written for Foreign Policy, Roads and Kingdoms, and the BBC. He also appeared on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. His only regret is there are no Mexican restaurants in Tbilisi—yet.