It’s been a little quiet around here. For the last few months I’ve taken a step back from the supper clubs and poured effort into something a little different. This is Collins House—a yearly gathering in Cannes during the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity—and I’m deeply proud of what the team pulled together this year. Like everything else on this page, the idea has always been gathering good people, good ideas, and great craft in one place. Food, of course, always has a role to play. But it’s been fun to test what else can get people to sit down across from each other, look someone else in the eye and forget that their phone is in their pocket.
At @thisiscollins (where I work for those of you I don’t get to catch up with) everything I do is done in tandem with @alex.athana . None of this would be possible without him.
Same to @lelandmaschmeyer@brianthomascollins@mj003@ronniemadra@arb3n and our amazing producer this year @iamlillacsonka
Thanks for letting me put some non-food things on your timeline. Now, back to our irregularly scheduled programming.
Attributing my lack of a quarter life crisis today to the advice I got from a guy on a step team in the middle of Mardi Gras a year ago — keep the carnival alive inside and, get outside. Or something like that. Snippets from a year of trying exactly that.
Ecuador! Fun facts:
1. All the garbage trucks play music like ice cream trucks. It is fun for about three seconds.
2. It’s compulsory to vote in Ecuador. Civic duty is cool.
3. Ecuador just means equator. Feel dumb for not realizing that earlier.
4. Ecuador is more biodiverse per square km than any other country.
5. Street vendor quail eggs will not make you sick…the water they wash them in will.
