My Heritage
I was born in Sheffield (City of Steel), England, just in time to see my family heritage trampled under the foot of mass production and economic stagnation & collapse;
The name "Teixeira-Gomes" has quite the history in Portugal. It dates back to the time of Columbus (legend has it one ancestor or more discovered The Americas before him, without the bloodshed), most recently with the famed politician and writer Manuel Teixeira Gomes.
My maternal Grandfather was the last in the Joseph Rodgers & Sons line - a once world-famous producer of silver and heraldic edged weapons that had operated in Sheffield since the late 17th century.
My Family
I am the oldest of three sons. Born to Pamela & José Gomes early the same year that Humans first set foot on the moon.
Fortunately for me, my folks managed to escape the Sheffield industrial collapse and a bloody political revolution, to prove that you can do the most improbable thing, with passion and devotion, and defy even the longest of odds.
It is all in the details.
Yes, in a pre-Naked-Chef world, my parents opened an å la carte restaurant, The New Ferry Restaurant, on the river Trent, at the site of a Roman river crossing, outside a medieval market town, and during one of England's more difficult economic periods. Yet they achieved international acclaim; The New Ferry Restaurant became a regular stopping off place for Portuguese dignitaries and recipient of hard-won awards.
My Journey
By the time I graduated from Brighton University, the UK had slumped into a series of recessions, and I joined a mass exodus of Brits, leaving the UK to find work elsewhere in the world. At the time, this was a simple, painful, pragmatic necessity. Little did I know that this would become a decades-long global adventure, an adventure that would eventually lead to San Francisco, where I currently live and work with media & arts personalities & organizations, producing award-winning visuals in traditional and cutting-edge media.