The Internet has been good to Marc Matsumoto. In 2007 he started putting his recipes online while working full-time in marketing in New York. He watched traffic to his blog grow, interest percolate. He raced to put up more recipes. More people came by his blog. Sleep was in short supply working both the blog and the job. Three years later, he was in a favorable if difficult position: Stick with the day job and keep blogging every spare moment, or try to cut it as a full-time food blogger?

Food won. He quit marketing and poured himself into his blog.

Since going full-time with his blog at www.norecipes.com, Matsumoto has moved back to Japan. Sapporo is now home, but the snow probably sticks around longer than he does. Through the blog he is on the road about 40 percent of the year, traveling the world working as a private chef, photographer, consultant and recipe developer. When we speak he is ensconced in a compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.