Living 3000 miles from home has it advantages--family drama doesn't need to be dealt with face to face, you don't have to see those people you went to high school with and hated on a daily basis, no snow and ice, no sweltering heat, not a lot of redneck/white trash to deal with. Yes, I from the South and have every right to bemoan those folks so get over it or click away. But then again it has a few (and really just a few) drawbacks like seeing family members you like regularly and most of all you miss some of the foods you grew up with and excited your tastebuds. Having been away for over 20 some years now you just get used to the fact that unless you order online and pay some exorbitant shipping charge, you just have to move on and find other things to excite your cravings. Of course, on a recent trip back home I was able to indulge, okay, over-indulge, on treats I used to eat and as I gorged I couldn't help thinking why can't I get these where I currently live?
What you may ask am I missing that I can't get in this--a town obsessed with all things food? Well, here they are.........
What you may ask am I missing that I can't get in this--a town obsessed with all things food? Well, here they are.........
yes I can see your expressions now, "you've got to be kidding" or "why would you eat this stuff?" And to that I would of course reply--f**k you--I like what I like, not matter how disgusting and unhealthy it would be for me. I mean, I from the South, the land where gravy is a beverage and butter is a condiment. But hey, outside of the pies the other two are sugar free at least. Krispy Kreme is a product of Winston Salem, North Carolina, a small local chain that went big time national. In NC you didn't necessarily have to go to their stores to get donuts unless you wanted the "hot now" ones or a special flavor. You could just go down to the local Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly or Winn Dixie (those are grocery stores by the way) and pick up a box of glazed or filled donuts or the as seen pies. Granted everything from them is a little bomb of sugar but it's a tasty rush we used to love. I know there is a Krispy Kreme location out here but it is just donuts and quite inconvenient--I mean it's Daly City for goodness sakes. Though if one does go there is the double bonus of an In-And-Out Burger---an obese gorging delight to say the least. Still, why the don't they sell the Krispy in stores here? Safeway, which just got bought out, could always use the traffic, particularly with the way folks smoke pot in this city and then get the "craving", I'm sure the location on market would do a bang up business.
The caffeine free Diet Mtn Dew I know has people wondering why, I mean the caffeine is why people drink it right? That whole do the Dew thing? Well, yes that is true, and as a point of fact I'm one of, if probably the only person in this town who doesn't drink or like the taste of coffee. Instead, in the morning I have a glass or two of Diet Mtn Dew to kickstart my day. It's really a product of my youth, my mother was always on a diet of some sort so we grew up with diet soda constantly in the house--Tab, Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, etc. I just got used to it and in college started the day with a Diet Mtn Dew (or two or three) and a 2 PopTarts (because there are 2 in the pack), and when you are young you can do that. These days no tarts but still the Dew and I'll gladly say I like the taste. Thus, a number of years ago when they started doing the caffeine free version I was ecstatic, to say the least, until I found out that they had no plans to sell this outside of the Southeast. How do I know this? Well, I called the company, yes I really did. I had a long chat with a lovely woman who explained they felt it was more of a regional soda and had found success there and they just had no plans to roll it out to the rest of the US. Of course, I expressed my displeasure and told her there would be a great market here due to the health consciousness of the area, but alas to no avail. To this day you just can't get it here or anywhere past like the Mississippi. Though in the past I have packed a bunch in my luggage and brought it back or had it shipped to me--it is costly when it's already expensive enough to live in San Francisco.
As for the sugar-free cherry preserves from Smuckers you'd think this would be a no brainer. I've searched a bunch of grocery stores in the Bay Area and the only sugar free you actually see is for strawberry, apricot, raspberry or possibly blackberry. All fine and good but nothing beats the juicy, tart taste of cherry preserves. For that matter Smuckers does also make sugar free versions of grape and peach, both of which you can get in North Carolina but like cherry not out here. Yeah, I know, grocery shelves are full and sometimes companies have to pick and choose and sometimes pay to get their product on store shelves and I can see strawberry showing up as popular but you'd think at least the sugar free grape would make it out here of all places. Again, a brief call to the company say it comes down to what works regionally, which I get but think still sucks.
These are just a few of the things I miss and I would mention NC pulled pork barbecue but that would be a whole other post on how hard it is to find good barbecue out here and hush puppies too--so I'll let those go. I know this all sounds like silly belly-aching and it is, but sometimes you have yearning tastes that need to be satisfied by something you can only get from your hometown. Where one taste takes you back to fond remembrances of your childhood--and no I'm not stoned right now either--sometimes you just want a taste of home and I think we can all relate to that.
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