Sunday Drive ISO food

[snowangel]

One of the things Paul and I have done, both with and sans kids, is a lot of Saturday or Sunday drives, weather permitting. When I say weather permitting, I mean a day in which one needs one's sunglasses. We go in search of food. Not destination dining, but foodstuffs.

So, it was the first brilliantly sunny days we've had here in MN (yes, it has done nothing but rain, and I'd love to send it South), and primo colour season in S. MN, so, it was off to New Ulm. We have close friends there.

So, our route was planned around meat markets. Within about a 10 mile radius of New Ulm, there is a plethora of meat/butcher markets. We hit 5 of them. At Schmitt's in Nicollet, we got summer sausage, beer sticks and jerkey ("best in the state!"). We also stopped at George's in Nicollet and got bacon and pepper summer sausage. In Lafayette, we got bacon and some more jerkey. Then, off to Sleepy Eye where we got bacon (sense a theme to this trip?) and maple breakfast sausages. Sleepy Eye is a huge pork town. A slight detour to Lafayette where we got yet more bacon. Then, at the Sausage Shop in New Ulm, we got brats, purportedly the best in the state. Oh, and since our friend's parents own an apple orchard, we scored big on apples, and also managed some Schell's beer and 1919 root beer.

Now, were we to do a Saturday or Sunday drive in January, we'd probably look for ice cream, or more meat, but a food item would be the destination. Come late spring, it will be S. MN for morels. Come late June, we'll do one for strawberry picking.

I'm not sure I should count the trips to the cabin for blueberries as a Saturday or Sunday drive for foodstuffs, because we go for far more than that, but we do time the trip to coincide.

Any other day-trip drivers out there? Do you go for destination dining, or for foodstuffs?

[potsticker]

I wind up doing this all the time over weekends. Except, I don't really have a theme - unless "food" is a theme. In fact, today, I went all around Atlanta:

Dekalb Farmer's Market (cheap spices!)

Chicago Supermarket (for lunch at the taco counter and Mexican Coca-Cola)

Costco (general browsing, berry sundae)

Perimeter Mall (not that food related, though I did hit Yoforia, the new froyo place)

Super Target (general foodstuffs)

White Windmill (Korean bakery/cafe for coffee and pastries)

Buford Hwy Farmers Market (vegetables!)

Decided against going all the way north to Super H for dinner and other food shopping. It did cross my mind though. That would have made quite a day.

[Megan Blocker]

Oooooh, this makes me want to go book a Zipcar and hit some farmers' markets!

[Meanderer]

In our neck of the woods, Sunday drives for non-supermarket food are limited. Many of the farm stands and markets are closed on Sundays because they are owned and operated by Mennonites who do not conduct any commercial business on their Sabbath. Saturdays are another matter, as we have a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, flowers, pork, beef, lamb, and poultry sold at the farms or within a few miles of the farms where the products were produced. A few cheese makers are beginning to spring up as well. We always try to take a cooler with us on our Saturday drives to be prepared for impulse purchases from any farm stands we happen to be passing.