The Sunday Traveler ~ San Antonio Goodbye Gift

Three weeks seemed to have spun by in a flash. Friendship, fun, memories in this city I grew up in.

 

No trip to San Antonio is complete without a visit to the iconic Mexican Restaurant downtown, Mi Tierra. If you visit San Antonio, this is a high priority place to have a meal at…and maybe a Margarita

The famous San Antonio Mercado (Market Place) is right across the way, within the same little complex where Mi Tierra is found; and here, one can get a good taste of Mexico’s art and souvenirs.

A little aside…The main objective for this trip was quite a sentimental one, I’ve begun work on a little book of family recipes for my kids, and one of those recipes started with my grandmother who lived in San Antonio. Oddly enough, this Mexican grandmother handed down the most incredible turkey stuffing recipe that is a family favorite, a fried oyster stuffing. The stories vary a bit on how my grandmother came by this recipe, but it wasn’t from Mexico. And the story only adds intrigue. My grandmother owned and ran a little hamburger joint across the street from one of San Antonio’s oldest city parks, San Pedro Park. But I digress; I ran across an old photo of the hamburger place, and I decided to go and see what was now in the spot it used to be in.

And San Antonio’s goodbye to me was also finding that my grandmother’s home a few blocks away is still intact, a bit updated on the outside from when I had last seen it. Stopping to take a photo of the outside of the home, the owner happened to be going outside, and I  told her who I was and how this house had been my grandmother’s.  I was invited inside! To walk through the rooms in this house, where I spent so much time with my grandmother when I was a child, was more than I could have imagined. It was the kitchen, where I sat and shared so many meals and stories with my grandmother, that grabbed my heart. So, the Sunday Traveler recommends travel, always; but travel home if you can. One never knows what gifts you will find; and not necessarily in a market place.