Taste of Home . . .

is the name of a popular cooking magazine. It is also the best way to describe my recent longings. I want a taste of home. Since moving to Illinois I've gone out for Indian food, Thai food, Italian food, diner food, and to coffee shops galore. With the notable exception of a great Italian food restaurant, , none of the food here compares to Spokane.

Spokane isn't considered a foodie city nor does it get a lot of attention for it's cuisine despite the best efforts of the Spokesman Review and their various online enterprises. Nevertheless, when I look back on my time in Spokane I think of good food and good coffee. I miss Frank's, of course. But there are other places I miss too. I miss Madeline's, , and I miss Thai Bamboo desperately, . I went out for dinner with friends last night to the best Thai restaurant in Champaign-Urbana it could not hold a candle to Thai Bamboo in service or in quality of food. Sigh.

Coffee is another story. If you ask people in the Midwest who they're favorite roaster is they will look at you like you have three heads. I miss Doma, , and Thomas Hammer, .

There's a place I go to here, almost everyday. It's a cafeteria on campus. First and foremost, I should probably note that it's very strange for me to go to a school that has a bazillion cafeterias, but I do. So, this place I go, my friend Devin introduced me to it. It's run by the hospitality and food service students. The food is pretty cheap, an entree is about $5, and it has good coffee. Every day of the week has a different flavored coffee and, yes, I know them all by heart. This place is near my office, so it's convenient. It's also kind of cute. It's a get away. Despite the fact that it's near my office not a lot of people from my office eat there so it's a good place to get away for a few minutes in the middle of the day. It's good for me in the sense that I eat lunch everyday. Sure, it costs between seven and ten dollars a pop, which adds up, but if I didn't go there I wouldn't get lunch most days so it helps keep me healthy and sane. Good, cheap food that I eat everyday shouldn't make me complain. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. It's just that my food experiences in CU leave something to be desired. Perhaps it's the simple familiarity I had with places in Spokane, even places that weren't Frank's. I know it's partly that I do miss the camaraderie of Frank's regulars and staff.

I know that, in my new home, I begin to understand why people love Starbucks. It's a taste of home. The coffee I had at Starbucks in Spokane is just like the coffee I had at Starbucks this morning and they all look the same. Its a false sense of continuity. No, that's not true. The continuity is intentional and real. What is false or, more accurately, projected, is the emotional significance I give that continuity.