Baby steps

Citrus & squid salad @ Flour + Water

It could take a small lifetime to really know a city.  It took me my lifetime up to this point to feel like I really knew New York and even so my expertise was concentrated in and around the East Village.  But in recent years I had been feeling that I really knew the NYC restaurant scene.  And just when I reached the point in life when I felt comfortable calling myself a real New Yorker we go and uproot our lives and move to San Francisco!

Smoked trout w/ beets, huckleberries & toasted seeds @ Central Kitchen

Here I find myself, a little over one week in to our West Coast life, and I'm a bit overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed by the newness, by the unknown, by the odd weather, by creating a new home for us but mostly I'm overwhelmed by all the restaurants I'm yet to try.  I feel so behind the curve.  It helps that the content of our home (including all our kitchen supplies) are still on their trans-America road trip and we've had out-of-town house-guests which has forced us to eat out almost every meal. In the last few days we've been able to sample some of the amazing gems in our neighborhood - Flour + Water, Lot 7, Universal Cafe, Foreign Cinema, Hog & Rocks, Namu Gaji, Mission Chinese, Blowfish Sushi and Central Kitchen to name a few.  And for good measure we threw in a cone at Bi-Rite Creamery (holy cow, that was possibly the best ice cream of my life) and Humphry Slocombe to round out the week.  I feel like my head (and stomach) is spinning.

Sushi @ Blowfish SF

I plan to revisit and hopefully write about many of these but for now I'm just trying to take it all in.  I'm trying to learn my new neighborhood and gradually expand the radius of places I can say I "know".  I'm hopping on my new bike (which I named Harrison),  exploring my new surroundings and giving myself a little time to just live.  And once the dust settles and our stuff arrives from New York I'll take more than a baby step towards knowing our new life.  I'll take a leap right into the thick of this new place.  And one day, in the not so distance future, San Francisco won't feel so strange and new...it'll just feel like home.

Adventure awaits

Sometimes fate steps in to shake up your life.  In my case I've recently been tempting fate by becoming enamored with West Coast living.  And as she tends to do, fate is delivering.  Because as of tomorrow morning I am a San Franciscan.  And aside from leaving my beloved NYC, my family, my friends and the home I hold so dearly, I am ready for this West Coast adventure. I am ready to take a leap outside my comfort zone; to take a chance on a new locale, a career change and embrace the exploring spirit.  I'm ready to take husby's hand, close my eyes...and jump.  And most of all I'm ready to see what I find out about myself when I shake things up.  What will happen when I leave the city and community I've lived in almost my entire life?  What will I create when I am out of work for the first time since I was 15?  How will I face each morning when I am completely autonomous over my days; I can choose to create and seize my own opportunities over and over.  And who knows, I could miss the frenetic pace I know in NY and be overcome by homesickness.  But even if that happens I know this adventure will be a positive one in the story of my life.  Because what is life without a little nerve racking, unplanned, eye-closed jumping.

....New York will always be in my blood and in my heart.  But I think my mind and soul are ready for California.