When I blew over to Crestview from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, all my friends back in the battered Crescent City laughed and said I’d be returning as soon as I possibly could. Little did they know that I had already fallen in love—with Crestview, with the relaxed life in rural north Okaloosa County, and with the people I encountered here. I’d visited here quite a few times before, as my Tulane school chum Leon Curenton lives over here.

Oddly enough, this area reminds me quite a lot of the small town in which I was raised on a mountain in New Jersey. The people actually care about each other here. Amazing! On top of it all, Crestview has something the entire New Orleans metro area sorely lacks, and which I really missed from back home (besides people who know how to use turn signals): a culture of customer care.

I was only in Crestview a couple days when I went in Publix to do some grocery shopping. Looking a little lost as I tried to orient myself to a new store, not one, but two people came from opposite directions and asked if they could help me find something. In New Orleans you have to scout out employees when you need assistance, and they can sense you coming, scurrying away like roaches when you flip the kitchen light on late at night. If you do encounter a clerk and are able to ask about something on your shopping list, you’ll be lucky if you can get a grudging, “It be on Aisle 5.” Usually you get, “I be on my break.”

In Crestview it was “Can I help you find something, sir?” I wasn’t sure how to respond, so resigned was I to never experiencing customer courtesy again. When I finally stammered out the grocery item I needed, one of the helpful clerks actually took me right to the commodity. It was about then that I knew I’d picked the right place in which to be a hurricane refugee, and later to resettle.

During my visits, Leon would take me to worship with his family at the stunningly charming turn-of-the-century Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church. (Its congregation is older than the town.) It reminded me considerably of the simple little church I attended back home in New Jersey, right down to the kind and hospitable congregation. Once I realized I’d be here a while, I joined the little congregation.

My New Orleans friends, whom I dearly miss–just as I do the Penthouse Nachos at the Sun Ray Grill, reading alongside the Mississippi River, and the city’s rich theatre scene– have resigned themselves to the fact that I’ve become a Floridian. “So what’s the biggest change in your life?” they ask, expecting me to cite the change in cuisine or an imagined lack of cultural activities. They’re surprised when I respond, “The church supper.”

Southern church ladies can COOK! Now I don’t want to say they try to one-up each other when preparing their church supper dishes, but I can truthfully attest to the fact that they do pour their hearts into their contributions. Leon’s mom makes the world’s best chicken-n-dumplings, one of my favorite church supper menu selections. His sister, Tracy, makes a remarkable salad out of Ramen noodles and cabbage. Their Aunt Kitty’s baked beans are exquisite, as is another lady’s “best-ever” blueberry pie. And the list goes on and on…rather like some of the church supper buffet lines I’ve grazed since moving here.

Fortunately, the Crestview area’s rolling hills give me the opportunity for a bit of uphill effort during my 2-mile morning walks, and the large pond in the backyard is about 50 metres across at the point where I swim laps almost daily from mid-March until mid-October, so those church feasts haven’t gone entirely to my waist.

Some borders we cross are culinary. I’m sure glad I made this border crossing!

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