We live in a fairly small town. Yes, there’s a major military installation here, but still, it’s a small town—as evidenced by the fact that we have CRAP for grocery stores around here. We’d kill for a Meijers—or hell, even a Krogers. Here, we have Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly, and the commissary.
Um, blech.
Today, we went to Wilmington (big city an hour south) and decided to stop by Harris Teeter to grab some sushi. And oh…my…goodness. We fell in love with everything—there was so much selection of everything…an entire organic section, about 5 varieties each of nectarines and apples, two types of asparagus (they have white asparagus?), a whole section (!) of fresh mushrooms (not that I want any of them, but just the fact that they have a whole secion!), fresh herbs, homemade breads, an enormous deli, fancy schmancy bakery items, pre-made ice cream cakes, and fresh meat and seafood to die for…
We felt like we were hicks from the country ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over everything, like we’d never been to the big city before!
We filled our cart with stuff like alaskan salmon, smelt (!), jalapeno monterey jack hamburgers, crabmeat, and fresh shrimp (stuff no one in Jacksonville even carries), as well as two of the varieties of nectarines. 🙂
If you can believe it, we are actually discussing the possibility of driving the two-hour round trip to shop at this store for our groceries… as it is MILES (okay, more like LIGHT YEARS) ahead of what we have available to us locally. (Oh, and gas is cheaper there, as well!) We probably won’t end up doing it, but we will surely make it a point to go at least once a month.
Wherever we move next better have a KILLER grocery store. KILLER.
“Smelt” got an exclamation point? an exclamation point – for SMELT?
To me, smelt = pelican food. You actually EAT that stuff??? 😉
I guess if you’re not from California and you don’t work with birds….smelt is yummo!