The Evolution of Pisco Trail

What I'll be writing about in the New Year.

Pisco Trail is my online and social media brand. From my website to my Instagram handle @piscotrail and now Substack, my tagline has been:

Journalist and vegan chef from Peru. Dad, husband, trail runner, percussionist.

Over the past 15 years, my stories have focused on Peru’s food and drink culture. And recently I’ve looked at everything through a vegan lens. But as the New Year nears, I’ve decided to expand what I write about.

To set my new path, I took a look back at the evolution of Pisco Trail.

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2010

When I launched my website 15 years ago my goal was simple: to share the traditional Peruvian dishes that my mom taught me to cook. So I posted recipes and photographs of the food I grew up with. Eventually, I taught classes at a cooking school in San Francisco, California, and cooked pop-up dinners featuring dishes from Peru’s coast, mountains, and jungle.

2018

Then, 8 years ago I turned vegan. And I worried I’d loose my cultural identity by giving up Peru’s traditional dishes. But after researching the food systems of my ancestors, I realized their cooking was very plant-forward. Potatoes, quinoa, corn, beans, and coca leaves were among the most important crops; while llama, fish, or cuy were occasional animal protein.

2020

So I started veganizing Peruvian dishes and shared recipes on my website. Seeking to expand my audience, I started writing for TASTE and Whetstone. Because preserving my culture is paramount, the origin stories I wrote about stayed true to the traditional dish or drink. However, all the recipes I developed and published were vegan.

2021-2023

For two years, I wrote about Peru’s food and drink culture, through a vegan lens, on my monthly Substack newsletter, La Yapa. It was a deeply personal project and I was thrilled to be a runner-up in the Substack’s 2022 Food Writers Intensive. But after 18 issues, I took a break. Later that year, Punch invited me to write a story about the Capitán pisco cocktail.

2025

After a two-year hiatus, I resumed my newsletter and shared an essay about the intersection of veganism and decolonization, plus two recipes (causa, and tiradito) that I contributed to the James Beard Award winning cookbook “Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking.” I was proud to be part of this project, and excited to be writing again.

2026-

La ruta del pisco banner. Photo by Nico Vera.

La ruta del pisco, the original pisco trail connecting the vineyards and distilleries in Peru’s Ica Valley, has the tagline:

“Tú eliges cómo vivirla”—You choose how to live it

So I am choosing to broaden my newsletter beyond Peru’s food and drink culture to include art, literature, music, and film—all which are intertwined with Peruvian cuisine and the vegan recipes I’ll continue to share.

My tagline declares I am a journalist and vegan chef. But also a dad, husband, trail runner, and percussionist. So I will also write about those themes which are deeply connected to my identity as a writer and chef.

For 2026, I am renaming La Yapa to Pisco Trail and inviting you to follow my expanded cultural and personal journey.