Friendsgiving in San Diego
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting San Diego to spend my Thanksgiving with a college friend and her new husby. Being my first time in San Diego and my first Thanksgiving away from home, you could say it was a weekend of firsts. Oh, and my first experience on the cesspool of sadness and bacteria that is the Megabus (don’t do it. Just don’t.). So I don’t know the origin of Friendsgiving, but it seems to me like a relatively new tradition among people my age. It still gets the red squiggly line underneath it in this here text editor, so that’s saying something. Basically what it is, is our solution to not being able to go back home for Thanksgiving is to gather with friends and cook our own feasts, trying as hard as we can to duplicate Grandma’s cooking in our shoebox kitchens, with our meager Ikea kitchen utensils and counter space no wider than our torsos. I kinda wonder how old people feel about this. I mean, Thanksgiving is a relatively young holiday, but as long as it’s been, it’s been a holiday that’s generally reserved for family time. Remind me to ask my grandma next time we talk. But unlike our grandparents’ day, the tendency to stray away from home is so common nowadays. How cool is it to think we’re redefining an entire holiday around the changing way we live? We could just not celebrate, y’know. Just skip it. But we’re all just romantics that love our traditions and a good excuse to be together. Say what you will about my generation, but we have each other’s backs. So yeah, this is the second Friendsgiving I’ve been a part of, and although I felt the absence of my family’s cooking, it was the next-best thing to spend the weekend with a lovely friend and fellow-Southerner who shares my obsession with Sister Schubert rolls (the bomb). What’s more, I became completely enamored with San Diego. Especially the area where Lauren lives, which is walking distance from Little Italy. Oh, I wish I’d taken a picture of the Italian deli she took me to when I first got in. This place was the real. deal. We’re talking dry-cured meats hanging about, fresh pasta, about 90 types of olive oil available in only 3-gallon sizes, like… the most Italian. And I’m convinced there is no greater cure for airport hunger than the sub that I took home. Okay, that sub took me home, and it was an unforgettable one-night stand.
Lauren and I had a bomb cooking together, and she made most of the food herself. She’s like a little Ina Garten. Friday morning, I got up to explore the city. It was about a ten minute walk from Lauren’s house to this point on the waterfront, and I’ve got to say, San Diego is exactly what I thought California would be like before I moved here. Breezy and slow-paced— so very different from the work-oriented San Francisco that I’m accustomed to.
One of the high points of the trip, both literally and figuratively, was Mount Soledad, a veteran’s memorial with a 360-degree view of the San Diego and what felt like on into Mexico. It was a little bit of a drive up, but the view is remarkable and SO worth it. Instead of a steep overlook, the summit sloped down into winding hiking trails that I’d love to go back and explore.
