About

About This Shop

The maps on this shop are one-of-a-kind, designed with love by people who care about food. I wanted to buy a map of Vietnam's many delicious foods for a friend, and found none that I loved.

So I decided to build one myself.

Since I cannot draw very well at all, I turned to a wonderful artist named Ella Sanders, who agreed to work with me and create 10 countries in total, each a testament to culinary heritage and art. 

Our newest collaboration is a food map of my home country, Canada, in the holiday 2022 season.

I spent ten years traveling the world, and I am excited to offer a unique souvenir from the countries I loved visiting on my own travels. To see these prints on the walls (and arms!) of readers, friends, and restaurants alike has been wonderful. 

About Legal Nomads and Jodi Ettenberg

I'm a writer, public speaker, and soup eater. In my former life, I was a corporate lawyer. 

Currently, I work as a freelance writer and entrepreneur, building a business around a topic I love: food.

In 2008, I quit my job in New York to take what I thought would be a one year sabbatical. Coming from Canada, I had little school debt and was able to save up while lawyering to fulfill a long-held dream of traveling the world for a year. 

I started a site, Legal Nomads, to document photos and stories from far-flung places, and to keep family and loved ones updated and feeling like they were a part of my journey.

As the site developed, my passion for food deepened, and my writing morphed from misadventures about busrides to storytelling through food.

In 2012, I wrote a book called The Food Traveler's Handbook, which helps people find cheap, safe, and delicious food anywhere in the world.

This shop is another offshoot of my obsession with eating, and features one-of-a-kind commissioned illustrations about food.

In 2017, a lumbar puncture left me with a chronic spinal CSF leak, and disabled. Though I cannot travel any longer, I am grateful that this shop is a testament to the years of wandering that I loved so much. And it remains a source of income at a time where I cannot work like I used to as I am mostly bed-bound. 

Connect Elsewhere

My Legal Nomads site hosts long photoessays, personal musings and gluten-free tips since I have celiac disease.

My main Twitter feed houses links to learn from, and I also post regularly to Facebook, and Instagram.