I do not like change. I do not like changes done to me. I do not like travel. I do not like when I am forced to travel. Sometimes, familial duties require change and travel, though. Each year, my family has a reunion just east of Destin, Florida in one the cousin’s beachfront homes. It’s an upscale, exclusive area, and I’m sure the property taxes in a month are higher than my rent for a year. Over the years, I have tried to evade this annual trip with subterfuge bordering on sin. As a teen, I more than once faked illness. As I’ve grown older, family has caught on, so my excuses have gotten more complex and outlandish. Last year, I fabricated a story whereby I was in charge of a week-long dinner plate sale to help Mayor Ray Nagin’s defense fund. While I was involved, I was not essential to the just cause. This year, Mother let it be known that no excuses, save death, would get me out of the 2019 TulaneLSU Family Reunion. Life belongs only to God, so this year, I went.

Leaving New Orleans is such a sorrow of sorrows. It requires leaving the place I love and of which I feel a part. I am a homme du nouvelle Orleans. Outside it, I am L’Etranger Leaving also bears with it the physical burdens of traversing many bodies of water, which gives me great unrest such that my eyes are forced to be shut. Some borders God placed for a reason, and crossing them is akin to hamartia. The Industrial Canal, a seven mile stretch over Lake Pontchartrain, the Pearl River, the Pascagoula River, Mobile Bay, Pensacola Bay, and that final bridge over Destin leave me in a cold sweat every time. I usually am passed out from shock by the time we reach Destin, so I have few remembrances of that overpass.

My family often likes to meet at McGuire’s Steakhouse in a small city called Pensacola to break the trip a little and fill the bellies before the beach. I made it known to Mother that under no circumstances would I be entering McGuire’s this year. I learned last time that it is its own brewery and it also has a bar in it, both of which are prohibitive to me. Beyond that, though, is there a campier Irish steakhouse in America? If the Ruby Tuesday of 1988 had a child with Steak and Ale and decided to tactlessly tack dollar bills to the ceiling, it would be McGuire’s.

Mother, knowing that I would not be party to her family’s party, dropped me off at the restaurant of my choosing. While traveling, I scoured online reviews and articles to find a suitable alternative. I came upon a restaurant called Taste of Jerusalem on the west side of Pensacola.

At once, I felt at home, or as much as I can be away from Home. The restaurant is part of set of three shops, all connected: one a 24 hour convenience store with groceries and car washes, one, a fried chicken, pizza, and BBQ takeout called Papa Ray’s, and the last, Taste of Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Israeli restaurant. The three are in quite the derelict part of town, or are all parts not in New Orleans inhabited by itinerant intravenous drug users? The parking lot full of twenty-year old rusted, hubcap-less vehicles parked at random, some perpendicularly and some at angles. These cars probably would not earn a brake tag back home.

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Entering the restaurant, I was greeted by the waitress and host, a smiling middle-aged African American lady who called me “sweetheart.” She seated me and quickly brought me a complimentary bottle of Sam’s water. A minute later, she brought out a stack of freshly baked na’an and a panoply of complimentary appetizers including baba ganoush, garlic hummus, tzatziki, Greek yogurt, pickled olives and cucumbers, smoked red peppers, dill sauce, and three others of which I cannot remember. All were served on styrofoam plates. In fact, everything in this restaurant is served on or in styrofoam, I assume because they do not have washing facilities, and perhaps to keep their costs down. These samplers were bottomless, and each time one would run out, the waitress/host replenished it. All were good, but the baba ganoush and garlic hummus were exceptional. I could see other restaurants charging at least $20 for an unlimited sampler like this one.

This post was edited on 10/6/19 at 12:31 pm