Onondaga Park Fire Barn
W. Colvin St. and Summit Ave., Syracuse

Adam says:
I grew up in food. Mom studied under Julia Child. I remember nights of after-school prep, peeling quail eggs (badly) and stuffing a million mushroom caps (groggily). I captained my first wedding the summer I turned 16.

Later I went to grad school for Critical Theory (too recherché), then got into events in NYC, running big, splashy soirees for Gucci and Bentley and Krug. In the months I wasn't working for the $50,000 handbag crowd, I'd disappear to Cameroon, Cambodia, Morocco, India, Nicaragua, Turkey, etc., indulging a yen for travel.

One day I met a waitress with dark brown eyes. We hatched a plan to move upstate to raise a family. I had this long-simmering dream of building a multinational food court, stalls run by people from all over, making what they knew, what they loved. My therapist warned me off moving up north, far from polyglot NYC. Where would we find talented people arrived from all over, bearing recipes and whisks and well-loved stockpots?

(My therapist – usually right – was wrong this time.)