Destination Dinners officially opened for business just about a month ago. Lisa runs it from her home. She's a big thinker with ambitious goals that go beyond the scope of typical business objectives and, to us, very much typifies that which is admirable about the spirit of San Francisco and its residents. We were privileged to be able to see her plan in action at an early stage and to get some insight into the genesis of her business.

After stints in Massachusetts, New York, and Tokyo, among other places, Lisa's been a San Francisco resident since 1997. We sought to find out what inspired this former dancer and marketing professional to drop everything and have a go at something else, completely unrelated, on her own (albeit with the staunch support of her husband, a dedicated food taster).

The idea behind Destination Dinners came to Lisa only a little while after she'd removed herself from the rat race. She decided that since she wasn't going to be working in the corporate sense, she'd try to make at home the kinds of meals she and her husband had usually enjoyed at restaurants.

"I started pulling out the recipes that I had collected during all my travels, and talking with friends from all over," she says. "Even with the time off and knowing all the markets and the fun, funky places, I was having trouble finding all the ingredients."

And when she did find the ingredients--the required spices or jars of sauces--they weren't available in decent portions for one-off purposes.

"Even I don't go through fish sauce that quickly," she jokes, using hand motions to indicate a Costco-sized bottle. "It just goes stale and the flavors fade."

She knew there had to be a better way -- one that would include pre-measured spices in appropriate amounts, and one that could incorporate a way to make cooking and learning about the culture fun and interesting. Thus, Destination Dinners, with its lofty goal of using food as a medium for introducing culture, was born.