letter to a city loved

Dear Syracuse,

I regret not taking the time to say a proper goodbye. When I left for the bright lights of D.C., I bid you a brief farewell, and then let other things distract me. I wasn’t sure if or when I’d see you again, and so left the goodbye—as with so many other things in my life—pending.

So I’m back to say thank you for, among so many other things, nurturing my love of food. Some people will be surprised by this, especially my friends and fellow eaters in D.C., New York, and L.A. But you, quiet Syracuse, gave birth not only to this blog but to so many of my culinary discoveries and triumphs. It wouldn’t be right to leave without paying tribute to you and your surrounding Upstate lands.

Looking back over those early entries, when I was still a new transplant, I can’t help but smile at all the firsts I experienced with you: cooking my first free-range chicken, making the foods I missed the most about home (like this coffee cake), and perfecting my never-the-same-way-twice granola. You’re where I had a unique gift of time: to learn to bake a proper loaf of bread, to experiment with homemade energy bars until they were good enough to share, to ferment things like kefir, kombucha, and kimchi. And to try things like triathlon, which upped my need for tasty fuel.

I’m going to miss a lot of things about you. First-time experiences, like fall apple-picking and sauce-making.

And though everyone’s promised me that California is one giant swath of fresh produce, I’ll miss all your little gems. Shops like Samir’s on East Genesee Street, where we’d buy fresh halwa, cheap olives, and excellent cheese of all varieties. (When I asked at an international grocery store where we could find fresh halwa in San Diego yesterday, the clerk pointed us to the packaged stuff—boo!) Oh yes, and the Oriental House of Syracuse—the only good thing Erie Boulevard had to offer—where we found this syrup that was better than any bottled ginger beer out there. (Add it to soda water and you’ve got your brew!)

My new farmer’s market might be five blocks from the coast, but I’ll miss my weekend trips to your Regional Farmer’s Market, where we’d stock up on free-range bison meat—something I have yet to see here—and where I got the ingredients for my first adventure in canning. And the Syracuse Real Food Co-op, a tiny place that was always bright and welcoming and only a few blocks away? I’ll miss that too, where I could always discover cool new ingredients like tempeh.

And, of course, your restaurants. You may not have the celebrity chef institutions of California, but Eva’s perogies are almost as good as my great-grandmother used to make. You have Lao Village for deliciously fresh Thai. And you are home to our mainstay, Alto Cinco, which I never posted on, but who’s burritos and beer fueled my first triathlon.

You delivered so many new experiences, like eating a whole fish at China Road (a restaurant I stupidly only visited once), and my first life-changing BBQ at the oft-patronized Dinosaur—home to many pig-out nights with friends and family.

And your little hole-in-the-walls, like the Mexican restaurant in the back of a Tipp Hill bar called Steve’s and the greasy breakfast joint, Mother’s Cupboard in Eastwood. It’s these little spots that made me feel at home in your streets for my four-year stint.

Yes, North County San Diego is pretty. The ocean is a nice thing to wake up to, and I wouldn’t trade my morning commute for a thousand walks down Euclid. The weather here is a calm glass lake to your turbid currents, and there’s more variety being near to a big city. But it’s not home here yet, and I want to thank you for all the unexpectedly memorable experiences. You were a stop along the way, but also a signpost, and I will look back on my time with you as I do all the other great places I have known.

With fondness,

Jen