“We’re making tacos tonight! ” That was the last text I received from Sierra.
“Yum! That sounds amazing, I’m starving. I can’t wait to see everyone!” I responded.
Exhausted from the flight from New York, I watched family members reunite and solo travellers hail down Ubers to their final destinations. My anticipation grew as I thought about what it would be like to see my best friends from college after over a year apart.
With each car that passed by the SFO Arrivals gate, I got increasingly excited. Finally, I saw a silver car driving towards me carrying Sierra, Camelia, and Erin’s smiling faces inside. My heart skipped a beat and I immediately started jumping up and down to wave them down. As the car pulled up, my friends rushed out and pulled me into a hug. Ignoring my suitcase as it toppled over to my side, I held on tight as sleepy travellers looked over at the commotion we were causing.
I was in San Francisco for a week—park work, mostly play—and it was my last opportunity to visit two of my closest friends before they moved to Washington D.C. and Brazil.
As I sat in the car on the way to Sierra and Camelia’s home, I surrendered to a wave of exhaustion and joy. I kept looking over at them, women who profoundly shaped my home-away-from-home during college.
When we arrived at Sierra and Camelia’s house, the smell of spices had already filled the hallways. We immediately got to work. The guests (Erin and I) helped throw tortillas in the oven, slice creamy avocados, and mix different kinds of salsa. It was the perfect welcome to the West Coast. As my jetlag began to set in, we sat down together to eat. We dug in and began to share our tiny victories at work, embarrassing dating experiences, and insecurities about changes that were coming. It felt like home.
My trip to California was filled with meal after meal just like this. Unlike the quick fixes I prepare living alone in New York, every breakfast, lunch, and dinner felt like a celebration. In a place like San Francisco, it seemed totally normal for salads to come with delicate edible flowers as garnish, or for oysters to taste like they were caught fresh from the Bay.
From exploring art at First Fridays in Oakland, to soaking in hippie-culture in Haight-Ashbury, it was hard to believe how quickly time flew by.
Wiped out from a week of wining and dining we decided to make lettuce wraps and enjoy a final home-cooked meal together on my last night in SF. We avoided the topic of our departing flights, we peeled layers of lettuce, seasoned the minced chicken, sliced water chestnut and more. Carefully following a recipe (and eventually abandoning it), we began to work our magic with our fingers in the kitchen again.
As the fresh smells of steamed rice began to intensify, I was reminded of our first meal together in college. We set the table and sat down, this time reflecting on how nourishing it had been to be with one another, laughing over embarrassing moments of our trip, and looking ahead to the next time we would see each other.