And if you come to Cleveland, I will meet you here. We will have a cubano. Or a shish tawook. Or a falafel. We will buy salted licorice and incense and pita bread to take home. We will sigh over the gleaming Buddy's precisely lined up over at Cleveland Scooter. We will laugh and I will tell you the stories. This is where I am from. This is who I am.
God, I Iove this place.
33 comments:
Considering that the company that just bought my ass (along with the asses of everyone in our office) is located in Cleveland, I'd say that there's a good chance that I'll be out there as some point.
That market looks like the kind of place where a guy could get a decent espresso. Because I did a stint in Wisconsin, where their idea of 'coffee' is a weak, watery, bitter, light brown fluid boiled for hours in a stained urn.
Edawg,
Little pink houses, for you and me
FITZ
Cleveland Rocks!
Been there.
There's a pasta stand that sells ravioli with every imaginable stuffing. There's an Irish bakery that sells the best Guinness cake I've ever had. Not to mention the Great Lakes Brewing Company across the street...
West Side Market makes me want to have a seizure out of pure food ecstasy.
Thats it.. Im coming up there..
Now I have a reason to come to Cleveland. Salted Licorice! Yes!
I'll ring you up -- I mean it.
Mmmmm falafel! Mmmmm! Havent had good falafel in several years!
~d heart Erin
What does it say about me that the first thing I noticed is that in Cleveland, yellow peppers are the same price as green, and cheaper than red? Here in Vancouver, reds and yellows are the same price, roughly twice the cost of greens.
Weird pepper price structure aside, Cleveland looks like a cool place to visit. I have added it to my list.
Like I said before the only time I visited Cleveland I ate at Hooters, thats all i know.
Where are the lubricants?
Erin - I am holding you to this next time I am in Cleveland. We will laugh and sing and reminisce of days past and run and jump through the hilly brush.
Oh yes we will, we will indeed.
Respectfully,
Warren Zevon's Evil Twin aka Sleepydog
You may even witness a total klutz drop a bottle of black cherry pop, or someone eat a leaky falafel, because this will be...
The Erin O'Brien Cleveland Dream Date.
I just re-read your Ham-a-Thon post and then my response to Kristen in MA. Damn, that still makes me laugh.
Mmmmm, still thinking on falafel. And now some tabouli Mmmm would be quite tasty as well!
Yummmm
(hi flamingo!)
Hi Tilde...come here often?
Nice to be in a place you love, I feel the same way about where I live.
I never was in cleveland but now i saw cleveland sweet sweet erin showed me ;-),Erin my dear were we go next ?
erin where have you been
i thought we had an arrangement
you are playing with fire
tell me one of the tragic stories
and maybe ill forgive you
as if
can I get a raw yellow pepper?
yahoo me damn
i lived in Stockholm and always enjoyed the indoor markets just as you do
I heart falafels.
bloggers!
help! I'm a-drowning in shit!
Stick with me babies ... will be back regular-like in a few days.
you are pulling a flamingo
i never thought you would swing that way
what the fuck
*how does one pull a flamingo? Is it anything like pull my finger?
Yo: Flamingo, I come here often enough.
Want a drink?
Tilde, babe: 'pulling the flamingo' is the same as 'waxing the dolphin'.
Or 'polishing the pork sword'.
Just came back from Cleveland last week.
Hated it...what a freaking dive.
Very cool pics Erin. Good choice for dipicting Cleveland. Now I definitely want to pay a visit. You know, Genet has been to Cleveland not long ago. The thought of you two meeting crossed my mind. He was even willing to call you up. Seriously.
Satan is back! YAY!
Tilde, I would love a drink. Wanna stop by my nest and I'll show you how to pull the flamingo.
why do the red peppers cost twice as much as the yellow peppers...?
Pepper factoids.
Yellow peppers are yellow all their lives. Red peppers are ripe green peppers and always more expensive- but I see yours are half as expensive as ours here in Noho. A bit of a trek for peppers though.
Now I have Peter Piper stuck in my heaad.
Erin, you have a very good eye. Not so surprising since you are such a finely detailed writer. ;-)
Cleveland's not a place I ever thought of travelling to but you give it appeal.
Thanks for sharing insight into a place you love. I look forward to learning more.
Hope everything's cool.
Look JJ's here. Hi Jane!
The most shocking thing about these photos, to this native Clevelander, is the blue sky. When I close my eyes and remember Cleveland, all that I can come up with is brown skies, brown buildings (that if you accidentally rubbed up against them, would turn your sleeve brown) and, of course, the river on fire. And the dizzy stench of mostly empty 80,000-seat Cleveland Municipal Stadium while watching the Indians lose. And the strange objects floating along in the Cuyahoga River or Lake Erie. And my great uncle Charlie's grocery store on the eastside (Ziska's).
Helen keeps bugging me that I need to go back home to Cleveland. "It could be wonderful, but you wouldn't know it!"
Now, I'm thinking about it. Jeez. Cleveland. I dunno.
Hey John,
From your comment above it would seem you're tenure in Cleveland roughly coincided with mine (1970's to mid 80's), and indeed, it was much like you describe.
The "Cleveland's A Plumb," era.
I especially remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire in 1969 (for the second time in the 20th century, by the way, the first one being in 1937).
During the '04 election, my eyes rolled as reporters constantly misprounced the name of the river and the county in which Cleveland is based as ki-YOO-ga, but I digress...
The city has changed quite a bit since then. It's cleaner, and there's a lot more to do. I am always pleasantly surprised to find new gems whenever I am there that I never knew about when I was a kid.
It is, indeed, a wonderful and largely unknown place rich in history.
In my angry young man era, I loathed Cleveland. It could have fallen into Lake Erie, for all I cared. Now, I love it, and can't wait to make return visits.
Post a Comment