Eating through the dark times – A mini food blog

[Kim Shook]

This is very delayed, but I thought it might make fun reading for some folks, so I’ll go ahead.

 

We left Richmond on April 7^th to drive to Ohio/Indiana for the solar eclipse on the 8^th. Breakfast was at Kathy’s in Staunton VA.  Mr. Kim and I ate there last year on our anniversary trip and loved it.  I had the biscuits and gravy with fried eggs and their fantastic fried potatoes:

The gravy looks so blah, but it is delicious – loaded with sausage flavor even though it doesn’t seem to have a lot of crumbled sausage in it.  Mr. Kim had the country ham breakfast with potatoes, grits, biscuits, and eggs:

The ham was SO good, though oddly the fat on the edge wasn’t snipped and it curled into a bowl.  Unfortunately, Jessica wasn’t happy with her meal:

She got the lemon-blueberry pancakes.  I’m not sure why, but she expected that the lemon flavor would be IN the pancakes instead of a drizzle of what seemed to be lemon curd.  I thought they were fantastic. 

 

Determined to hit as many of our favorite restaurants as possible in the OH/IN area, we stopped for dinner at Big Boy in Ohio south of Cincinnati.  Big Boy is less “Big” than I remember:

 

I got the Big Boy burger and crinkle cuts:

 

Jessica got a double cheeseburger and onion rings:

 

Mr. Kim got the pork tenderloin and rings:

The burgers, fries, and rings were great.  The tenderloin tasted good, but it was a little too thick and not quite crisp enough.

 

Eclipse Day!!!  We were so fortunate to find a church that was taking donations for parking at their lot to watch the eclipse.  We’d seen up to $50 and they said any amount.  We gave them $20.  It was far enough out in the country that there wasn’t a lot of noise or buildings or busy-ness.  They were selling hot dogs, chips, and drinks – so that was lunch.  Sun gazing:

 

They were even selling T-shirts!

 

 

Dinner that night was White Castle:

 

 

Cheeseburgers, onion chips, and crinkle cuts. 

 

The 9^th was the drive home with two important stops before we left Cincinnati.  The first was the incredible Jungle Jim’s grocery store.  It was amazing when we shopped there in the early 1990s when we lived in Batesville, IN. 

 

It is truly mind blowing now.  Calling it a grocery store is hardly sufficient.  There ARE groceries, of course, but SO much more including a section of housewares and kitchen equipment larger than any Williams-Sonoma I’ve ever seen.  They also have an entire room devoted to modern culture kitsch – Funko, lunch boxes, action figures, etc. – on TV shows, movie franchises, Anime, etc.  And then there’s the food.  The cool thing about Jungle Jim’s is that while you can get an incredible assortment of specialty and “gourmet” foods, you can also find everyday items.  Some of the deli/charcuterie area:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheese selection:

 

 

 

c

 

 

 

The butter bar – which is actually two sided:

 

Gummy candies:

 

 

The Pez display – half of it.  It’s also two sided:

 

Part of the bakery/pastry case:

 

 

All kinds of meats:

 

 

They have an incredible seafood section – especially considering that they are in the Midwest:

 

 

 

A small part of their hot sauces:

 

 

Jerky:

 

 

Their international food is arranged by country and some of them were amazing to see – Sri Lanka, Iceland, Nepal, Togo.  My anglophile self was, of course, drawn to the British section.  Cadbury selection:

 

Sauces and canned/bottled things:

I can get HP and Branston pickle, but they had Daddies which I can never find in my area. 

 

My mother would have been so excited to see the Bisto powder.  She always preferred it to the granules:

 

Frozen stuff:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The oil aisle:

 

Popcorn stunt eating:

 

Our last restaurant stop in Cincinnati was a late lunch at Skyline Chili. This is how our food was delivered:

 

I got a four way with beans (spaghetti, chili, beans, and cheese) and Mr. Kim got a 5-way (all that plus onions):

 

 

Jessica opted for a new, to us, item – a “Chilito”:

Basically, a flour tortilla stuffed with chili and cheese.  Kind of underwhelming.  All three of us had Coneys – little hot dogs topped with chili, mustard, cheese and onions:

Rode all the way home wishing I could have another one for dinner, so I think that means the meal was good!

 

Just a portion of the culinary goodies we came home with:

 

I’m actually embarrassed at the top picture.  We love trying interesting and new foods for videos that Jessica posts to FB, but that is ridiculous.  In the bottom photo, the mock turtle soup is something that we discovered when we lived in IN.  Folks would get together and make gallons of the stuff – the ones that I had were all made with beef, turkey, and vegetables and everything is ground up.  It’s quite a production, so I thought I’d see what the canned stuff was like.  The next two cans are probably mistakes – I saw the “famous” names and neglected to read the ingredients.  They are both mostly beans – one has NO meat at all.  The crock, lid, and weight are probably the most interesting purchases.  Mr. Kim has decided that he’d like to try making sauerkraut.  I’m looking forward to that!  One more Jungle Jim purchase:

Really good cheese balls.  From the left: olive, beef & onion, and white cheddar. 

 

We had a really wonderful time and even got to go back to the little town in Indiana that we used to live in.  Mr. Kim and I had been back more recently, but Jessica hadn’t been since she was in grade school and it has changed so much.  It was fun watching her see what has changed and what hasn’t.  We love road trips and weren’t in a special hurry, so this was a really good one. 

 

EDITED TO FIX PICTURE ORDER

 

 

Edited May 17 by Kim Shook (log)

[weinoo]

And that's without legalized cannabis!!

[ElsieD]

What a place Jungle Jim's is!  Thank goodness I'm not remotely near there.  I can see me coming out of there with at least three grocery carts full of goodies.  That butter section looks interesting.  Where were the butters imported from?

[blue_dolphin]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

I can see me coming out of there with at least three grocery carts full of goodies. 

I can see me moving in and refusing to leave!

[ElsieD]

4 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

I can see me moving in and refusing to leave!

Want some company?  In a grocery store, especially one like that, I'd make a great sidekick!

[gfweb]

Amazing place.

 

How does Jungle Jim's rotate the products enough to keep it fresh?  There can't be a lot of turnover on some of that stuff.

[rotuts]

JJ's must have a very unusual cash flow .

 

not even contemplate the fish situation , in the midwest 

 

a lot of that butter has to eventually go bad 

 

but wow 

 

quite the shopping trip it would be to visit.

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

I would not care to visit that grocery store hungry and with my credit card 🙃

 

[Maison Rustique]

OMG! They would have to drag me out of that place!!

[Shelby]

2 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

OMG! They would have to drag me out of that place!!

Me toooooo.

 

Thanks for this, Kim!  Loved seeing all the food and fun!

[Kim Shook]

16 hours ago, ElsieD said:

What a place Jungle Jim's is!  Thank goodness I'm not remotely near there.  I can see me coming out of there with at least three grocery carts full of goodies.  That butter section looks interesting.  Where were the butters imported from?

The butters are from all over Europe and the US.  I noticed Irish, Scandanavian, French, and goat's milk butter from somewhere.  Also local Amish butter.

 

12 hours ago, gfweb said:

Amazing place.

 

How does Jungle Jim's rotate the products enough to keep it fresh?  There can't be a lot of turnover on some of that stuff.

I have no idea about this, but I honestly don't remember EVER hearing a complaint about any freshness issues when we lived out there and can't find any online complaints on that score.  

[weinoo]

11 hours ago, rotuts said:

JJ's must have a very unusual cash flow .

 

not even contemplate the fish situation , in the midwest 

 

a lot of that butter has to eventually go bad 

 

but wow 

 

quite the shopping trip it would be to visit.

 

https://junglejims.com/about-us/the-jungle-jim-story/

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20070502095358/http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_16/b3929108.htm

[Smithy]

Add me to the list of people who could cheerfully get lost in that store, and stay there until I was dragged out with full shopping carts and an empty bank balance! And all those exotic meats to try! And the charcuterie! And the cheeses! And the butters! And the condiments! And...well, what a delight to see!

 

It was fun seeing Big Boy again, too. I'd forgotten all about Bob's Big Boy, but we had one in town when I was growing up in central California. I thought the statue was bigger. Maybe that's because they had parked it atop the building!

 

Many thanks for the mini-trip!

[MaryIsobel]

Our two daughters didn't realize that most families don't peruse grocery store like museums when traveling until they started traveling on their own. they send me photos from grocery stores all over the world. I am much more interested in those photos than the ones of architecture or museums. Of course I appreciate architecture and museums but our girls know their momma!

[ElsieD]

44 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

Our two daughters didn't realize that most families don't peruse grocery store like museums when traveling until they started traveling on their own. they send me photos from grocery stores all over the world. I am much more interested in those photos than the ones of architecture or museums. Of course I appreciate architecture and museums but our girls know their momma!

What fine daughters you have!

[MaryIsobel]

20 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

What fine daughters you have!

Thanks Elsie. We are pretty proud of them. One is an ER charge RN and the other is a musical theatre/drama/english highschool teacher. They beat the odds by being twin IVF babies on the first round. Back in the late 90's the odds of a successful IVF pregnancy was only 20 per cent and the odds of having succesful multiples was only 10 percent. Once they were old enough, we told them that they had already beat the odds by being here, so the world was their oyster and never to look at statistics!