Monday, August 30, 2010

A Travel Adventure

When my neighbor proposed an impromptu car trip to Westfield recently, I agreed.

At Stop & Shop, I scored three loaves of my favorite Pepperidge Farm Oatmeal Bread. At Trader Joe's, I got shortbread cookies with raspberry or apricot centers plus grilled lemon chicken strips and the inexplicably-named oatmeal/raisin/walnut cookies, "Druid Circles."

For someone who hardly ever leaves Plainfield's boundaries, these were exciting acquisitions.

Along the way, I found out that Pepperidge Farm now has a bread called "Ancient Grains" that includes amaranth, teff and quinoa. What a concept! I only heard of such things in the mid-1980s when I lived in a commune on West Eighth Street, where a varied group of seekers explored religion, philosophy, dietary practices, poetry and other forms of living and expression.

We had a pantry full of such items as turtle beans, adzuki beans, dal, millet and many other non-mainstream food items. A myriad of healing spices perfumed the air.

At the time, there was a related heath food store that sold such things.

Recently, I have come to be fond of pupusas, empanadas and other Central American specialties and of course enjoyed the commune food, but every so often, I just want to have a good old grilled cheese sandwich.

Thanks to my trip, it is now possible.

Given the layers upon layers of food enjoyment, I encourage readers to go a little bit far afield and try both the old and new in Central Jersey. What have you enjoyed recently?

--Bernice

3 comments:

  1. Trader Joe's ROCKS....but then again..so does downtown Westfield...not so much the stores, as opposed to clean, neat and well thought out. I am going there this weekend to spend some of my $ at Trader Joe's.....

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  2. Stop & Shop tends to have high prices, but with their card it all becomes reasonable again. You know I take regular forays into Westfield on runs to Trader Joe's (love it and not expensive!) and Stop & Shop.

    As a fellow pedestrian by choice, I tend to travel the same routes a lot. Next week, I will get to explore a bit around Elizabeth with my camera. I'm not sure if I'll shop any, but I do want to get shots of some of the city itself. Oh. I get to take the 59 into Elizabeth for jury duty. But it gives me a chance to explore!

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  3. Let's get some of these stores into Plainfield. Enough with the clean, low class stores.

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