So Jefe, whom I hold responsible for my starting this blog, has moved to Austin. Or he’s in the process of moving. Even though I hardly ever see the guy, and was no part of his life in Oklahoma, it all brings a little tear to my eye.

It’s not really a sad tear. Or, it’s not really a tear for him. It’s more for me. Because now I’m to the point that unless something truly awful happens, I will not be picking up and completely starting my life from scratch in a new place. And that can be one of life’s most delicious feelings. (I got similarly misty-eyed when my brother left the country for the first time last year, to visit his girlfriend in Italy–just think of tasting really good gelato for the first time! Of getting off the bus and being totally disoriented! Of it finally sinking in that you’re in a completely different culture!)

Loving this feeling might be a little bit of a cop-out. I felt a little addicted to it for a few years, because when you’re busy finding an apartment, getting settled, finding a job, finding your way around your neighborhood (or, if you’re traveling, finding a hotel and a good cafe), you can’t possibly be bothered with bigger life issues and goals. I mean, you get credit just for surviving, right?

(I think this might be a lot of the appeal of long-term living in foreign, difficult cities like Cairo–you get props just for crossing the street without getting killed…who cares that you work for a dull investment bank? And of course, you’re allowed to drink your head off to smooth over daily aggravations. Oh wait–I’m now realizing all of this logic also applies to living in New York. Uh, career? What career?)

Anyway, I digest. The really important thing about Jefe moving to Austin is that he gets to live near amazing grocery stores!

Austin is where Whole Foods got its start, and just about every other store there is fully competitive in terms of olive selection and gorgeously stacked produce. When I first went to visit Jim G. there, one of the weekend’s big activities was grocery shopping, which for me meant running my hands along the shelves and drooling. (I was living Bloomington, Ind., at the time, which didn’t have a lot going for it–although there was one good international grocery, but small, and an Aldi, that pinnacle of socialist grocers.)

But above and beyond Whole Foods was Fiesta Mart, a vast warehouse of Latino goodness that was truly mind-boggling. I might have felt extra boggled, especially by the live mariachi band welcoming shoppers, because I think we went there on a Sunday morning.

A couple of years later, in Cairo, I met the scion of an air-conditioning empire in central Texas, and he told me a funny story about being on a bus tour of the “Holy Land,” a weird, central-Texan-style perk for his dad’s biggest customers, the privilege of being a bulk buyer of air conditioning systems. One of the beneficiaries of this free tour was the owner of Fiesta Mart, who every day wore a polo shirt emblazoned with his stores’ little parrot logo. This guy also might’ve had something to do with running the American flag up a pole next to the Dead Sea and inspiring everyone to sing the national anthem, but I can’t remember exactly.

Jefe also gets to be near Las Manitas, a Mexican restaurant that glows brilliantly in my mind, primarily for its very generous use of avocados, and its great hibiscus drink. And then there’s the good barbecue on the “bad” side of town, the name of which I can’t remember, but could probably navigate myself back to if I had to, and The Salt Lick, outside of Austin a bit in ranchland. It was in Austin I really got schooled on the difference between white and black barbecue.

I’m feeling all teary-eyed here, but it’s only just dawned on me as I’m typing that, duh, now I know someone to visit in Austin again! I’ll pencil in Las Manitas for sometime this summer, then… In the meantime, Jefe, I live vicariously through you. Eat, shop, eat! Go go go!