Drinking The Kool-Aid: Why Is Everybody So Nice? Seriously.

We love Sioux Falls! Just when we thought people here in South Dakota were about to “let down their guard” and had fully expected a leveling off of "genuine Sioux Falls hospitality"; I walked into Cleaver’s Gourmet Market to look around and take stock of the place. The store manager (Penny) not only treated me like a long lost friend but also took my order for coffee like an attendant at the Ritz Paris.

“…Regular or decaf? Light roast or dark roast? Flavored or unflavored? Cream? Sugar or Sweetener? What kind of sweetener? ….”

and they don’t even sell coffee. They just offer it to everyone who walks through their door.

Everyone here is so patient and moves at a noticeably slower pace it almost throws you off balance. I don't know why everyone is so nice... It’s almost too good to be true…and now we fear, in the back of our minds, that although South Dakotans may seem to epitomize warm hospitality...perhaps it's because they aim to eat us.

Can’t help but to occasionally think about the conclusion of The Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man"...   "IT’S A COOKBOOK!   IT’S A COOKBOOK!!!” 

Psychographics : Our New Digs & The Dissipation of Culture Shock

The above ticket was waiting for me after I knowingly parked at an expired meter and decided to chance it rather than go trollling the nearby shops for change and risk being late for an introductory meeting with a local developer in town. I took a breath before pulling it from my winshield wiper and as I opened it, thought: "Geeze, how much could it be? After all it's Sioux Falls...surely not the $36-$115 fine I was accustomed to back east." As I sat in my truck and scanned my bill for a "total due" I was shocked to find that not only was there no charge or penalty...but someone actually took the time to print up this ticket as a "courtesy notice" and thanked me for visiting downtown Sioux Falls. If this happened in Philadelphia, I would have been searching my surroundings for the hidden cameras and practical jokers at play.

Culture shock such as this has been occurring almost daily.  We have a new and surprising tale of random hospitality and kindness to share with our friends and family back home every week.  I know it must sound like we're simply "making the most of things" here but people in Sioux Falls, South Dakota really make New Hampshireites almost seem blase. 

We arrived here with what I think is a typically common mindset of those relocating or visiting from any major city. We ignorantly suffered the ego-centric assumption that a large population equated not only with a cosmopolitan lifestyle but with quality of amenities as well.

What we discovered rather quickly was that although there may be fewer offerings in a city 1/10th the size of Philadelphia, they were no less in quality. For example, my wife and I are foodies who have grown accustomed to big city privileges like:  Dean & Deluca, Eatily, Reading Terminal Market, The Italian Market, Carlino’s, DiBruno Bros., Wegmans, Chestnut Hill Coffee, Whole Foods, Fox and Obel and Trader Joe’s….we were shocked to find great butcher shops like Look’s Market & Cleavers as well as incredible local mainstream grocers (Hy-Vee and Pomegranite ) who not only stock what we thought were more obscure staples like: Mary’s Gone Crackers Pretzel Stix, Nut Thins, Haloumi, Boucheron, Jamon Iberico, Guanciale / Salame,  Sunbutter and Pop'd Kern… but also have cattle-chutes of  Melissa & Doug-sized  real shopping carts (in addition to the racing car carts of course) for “Shoppers in Training”.

The specialty markets here offer everything we thought was exclusive to big city markets or small European towns (cured meats from Italy, truffles, truffle honey & oil, fois gras, fennel pollen, Illy Coffee, etc…) There are also some amazing local coffee roasters here too… like Black Sheep and  Coffea Roasterie. The local Co-Op sells Peace Coffee and Breadico Breads (best I've ever had in the U.S.) made by David Nepolitano in his local garage turned commissary.

Wonderful beer & wines (Monk’s House of Ale Repute” and “Taylor’s Pantry”) although it is tough to find a reasonably priced ’09 Bordeaux ready to drink now.  

There are no Midwest high-concept restaurant giants or native geniuses like my Philly favorites: Michael Solmonov, Konstantinos Pitsillides, Pierre Calmels, Lee Styer, or Robert Halpern....and quite frankly they would probably only intimidate rather than impress here.

There are, however, restaurants like Bros. Brasserie who would give The Oyster Bar and Royal Tavern a good run for their money with an “Oh My God” burger of their own. A nice mature "old guard" sort of comfortable place: Minerva's, surprisingly wonderful gourmet Mediterranean fare from Saanas, fresh(ish) sushi from Sushi-Masa and cerebral, light-handed (and beautifully executed) haute cuisine from Minnihaha Country Club and Parker’s Bistro whose dishes would not be out of place beside many from the kitchens of Daniel Bouloud, Stephen Starr, Stephanie Izard, or Todd & Ellen Grey.

I think it’ll be a while before the South Dakota sees anything as progressive as Vedge or as hip as Amada, NoMad and Ichimura. But "The Cities" (Minneapolis and St. Paul) aren't too far off.  Nothing here comes close to Birchrunville Store Cafe, Dillworthtown Inn, Per Se, Lacroix or LeBec and that’s ok…we go back to the East Coast occasionally and will always take vacations.

But I do miss offerings like good Pho, Thai, sit down charc staples like Amis and Tria, The Kibitz Room and Wawa’s Turkey Shorties… with salt, pepper, oregano, oil mayo (lil bit) and extra meat (YES)! so perhaps there are few opportunities for me here…

The Power of a Secret: Discovering Something Special

Sanford is recruiting some pretty talented people (like Kimberly Simpson Earle and Chris Orzechowski) and empowering them with phenomenal resources like significant funding and the most technological devices that few places, if any, in the world are able to avail their researchers and physicians…like the 4th and 5th cardiac stent placement robots in the country and the world’s largest tissue bank for breast cancer research. This tissue bank is Denny Sanford’s greatest advantage in his mission to eradicate breast cancer through genetic isolation of the disease as opposed to only focusing on treatment in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry. And they’re making significant progress. Already, they have identified many more types of breast cancer that respond better to treatments previously reserved for what were believed to have been “completely different” cancers.

Those of you who watch the Big Bang Theory may also appreciate the fact that the Higgs-Boson particle (dark matter) was also discovered here in South Dakota. (In a lab deep within a gold mine under acres of prairie grass and pines in the Black Hills).

What also surprised us was the fact that Sioux Falls really is a great place to raise a family. Their clean air and clean water (cleanest in the country in fact) is almost as impressive as the culture we’ve experienced at every turn during our visits. It’s been like the Chevy Chase film “Funny Farm”. After every encounter, I catch myself looking over my shoulder to see if the mayor is actually dolling out $100 bills and thanking residents for a “great performance” and reminding them to “keep smiling!”.  

Sioux Falls offers us the opportunity to raise our daughter in, what feels like, more of a community than a city or town. It’s interesting to see that, even with all the various funding, many of the rooms at Sanford Hospital have been donated by local families.

Good to Great: Moving from East Coast to Midwest

My wife brought home a refrigerator magnet one day that read: ”Life begins where your comfort zone ends.”…and so life is certainly about to "begin".

After a lot of careful consideration, lengthy discussion and exhaustive research we decided to sell our dream home in Pennsylvania and move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The plan is to pack up the contents of our house in the next few weeks (making most of the headway while my wife takes Catherine to see her sick Grandpa in Tampa next week) and store everything neatly in the back basement.

We will list the house just in time to hit the tail end of the summer market with hopes that it will be an attractive situation for someone looking to move into the area before the school year starts in September. We will be shipping my wife’s car and drive my Suburban with one week’s worth of supplies in our (just purchased) Thule Atlantis 1800 (Sonic XL) rooftop carrier, along with a 2yr old and a 125lb Newfoundland... should be interesting to say the least. Below is my navigational chart which is an example of how over-thinking and over-planning allays most anxiety for me. It took quite a bit of time to determine the best times to travel, how long to travel and where to stop based on a myriad of variables including everything from nap times to doggy’s potty breaks and anti-anxiety meds (the dog’s). I learned a lot in my 1 week intensive course in trip planning…like the fact that zoo keepers and vets most often move animals under cloak of darkness when possible to avoid additional visual stimulus and potential anxiety / motion sickness…but we also wanted to see most of the trip as well since neither one of us could ever imagine needing or wanting to make a drive like this again.

Although this level of organization may seem like the science of qiyas when equipped with a state-of-the-art navigation system in my truck, I can’t help but think that a 5-day trip with 5 planned stops for a family traveling with a dog and a baby (neither of which have ever traveled in a car for more than a couple of hours) it’s imperative to identify additional potential stops at dog-friendly hotels in advance. We need alternate targets that can serve as half-way markers between stops in the event Catherine or Lulu just aren’t doing well…AND potential stops / hotels just past our scheduled stops in the event we are able to / need to make up time and can comfortably survive going on a little further….so that explains the thought process a little…