Paul Crews was born in Amarillo, Texas and educated at Williams College and Columbia University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He studied opera in Naples, Italy and New York City before moving to the island of Mallorca and then Mexico with his wife. In recent years his passion has centered on Mediterranean and Thai cooking, experimenting on a daily basis with recipes culled from a kitchen library of some 150 volumes. He lives with his wife Carol and dog Marco Polo in Tucson, Arizona.