Rick Bayless has one word of advice for aspiring professional chefs: Travel.

That’s how he made the transition from anthropology graduate student to renowned chef and restaurateur.

In the early 1980s, Bayless and his wife, Deann, spent several years eating their way across Mexico, visiting markets to taste regional differences and ultimately creating their own recipes.

The result has been six cookbooks, a PBS series and two acclaimed Chicago restaurants, Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. His latest venture, the quick-service eatery XOCO, opened last year.

Bayless will be at Sycamore Hills Golf Club on Tuesday, preparing dinner as part of a fundraiser for the local chapter of Blessings in a Backpack.

The non-profit organization provides non-perishable food to elementary school students whose families qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program. It began with one school in 2005 and now serves more than 23,500 students in 21 states.

Three Fort Wayne schools – Adams, Fairfield and South Wayne – are part of the program. For more information, go to www.blessings-in.com.

For the Sycamore Hills event, Bayless will make his 20-plus ingredient black mole sauce, which he prepared for a White House state dinner in May.

The Obamas, along with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and hundreds of guests, also feasted on jicama with citrus and chocolate-cajeta tarts during the event that Bayless describes as the highlight of his career.

In an e-mail interview, he praises the Obamas for planting a high-profile White House garden and raising awareness about childhood obesity.

“Having the Obamas be the leaders in this food movement is huge. They are really the first president and first lady that have been ‘foodies’ in that respect. I think having them be so vocal about how important good food is completely inspires the average person,” he says.

“I think the average person is becoming more aware of what is happening to the Earth and around them. Eating locally goes beyond getting great food – it helps the environment (and) the communities – it is far reaching,” he says.

That’s why he created the Frontera Farmer Foundation, which distributes capital improvement grants “to help our local farms become more profitable so that they could continue to be farmers.”

Bayless, who grew up in a restaurant family in Oklahoma, will begin filming the eighth season of the PBS series “Mexico: One Plate at a Time” next year. The show is named after his fourth cookbook.

And its party-focused sixth season inspired the theme of his latest cookbook, “Fiesta at Rick’s,” which he calls “a complete departure from all of the other books I have written.”

But his goal when writing any cookbook, he says, is “to make sure that it offers recipes and tips that can push the reader to try something that they normally might not, but also give them a range of ideas to make the recipes their own.”

Bayless, who considers Julia Child to be his culinary inspiration, says his main tip for any cook is simply planning enough time to prepare the recipe.

Despite his own busy schedule of travel and TV appearances, he still works in his restaurants’ kitchens, tasting dishes and helping chefs plan menus.

It seems a long way from his days as a grad student at the University of Michigan.

So how did he trade his academic career for a culinary life?

“I knew that I loved food. … I didn’t plan to become a chef,” he says.

“I was taking all these classes in anthropology and couldn’t stop thinking about food – so I decided to go for it.”

sscarlett@jg.net