What’s The Best Goddamned Cup of Coffee You Ever Had?

Dateline: Barbados, 1988 –

Judging from when the interwebz place Hurricane Gilbert, I’d say it was likely about September 6th or 7th of that year that I found myself a guest at the table of a place not far from an odd compound of a resort on Crane Beach. So, St. Philip Parish, if you’re familiar. We had to take a taxi to the restaurant but it wasn’t far… I couldn’t tell you what was on the menu but that cup of coffee still makes me misty.

Dark as the night around the cane fields out there and I can still smell it… Jamaican Blue Mountain the waiter said and I believe they must have been real Blue Mountain beans back then… you could float a skiff on the aroma alone and when I poured the evaporated milk the waiter brought when we asked for cream… it made a sound not unlike the way oil drains out of your oil pan when you’ve let that Jiffy Lube reminder sit on the kitchen counter a couple’a 10 or 20,000 miles too long… “plop” and then it was gone as in desaparecido.

That cup of coffee swallowed the milk up like the whale took Jonah… and I didn’t miss it for a minute… not a bitter note... just pure perfection. I believe I heard angels begin a chorus of “LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH…” or maybe it’s Ri-Ri doing another round of Stay… hey, it was my perfect goddamned cup of coffee, I’ll insert my own goddamned angelic choir… 

If I let myself, thinking about it can just about make me cry…

Ok? You’ve had that cup of coffee somewhere in your life, right?

Yeah. This was not that.

This was another flipping awful cup of coffee topped with an awful plate of VERY. SIMPLE. FOOD. that was too expensive by half if I’d paid for it with YOUR money and it was just another one of those things I canNOT figure out how this town manages to suck at so hard.

Am I to tell you the name of the place I was trying to get some breakfast in about 11:30 this morning after a hard hour and a half of Sharp Shoppering at the Middletown store? Well? Am I? You want to know what Highspire eatery with the parking lot that's always packed gets away with calling the watery stuff that still manages to taste burnt “coffee”? I was trying to find a place to eat on that side of town that doesn’t suck. This wasn’t it.

But I’m not telling you what it is…

INSTEAD:

I’m gonna tell you about the one shining light I HAVE located in this cowtown and it isn’t on the south end of this north-bound town... it’s


American Dream Diner
1933 Herr St.
Harrisburg, PA 17103

Open pretty standard hours and I think they only take cash despite that Mastercard /Visa sticker on the door which ought not be a problem because two of you will get out of here under 15 bucks and that includes a tip and for the love of all that’s holy, tip the woman!

She’s killing herself for you.

Also, pay no nevermind to the window only slightly marred by that .32 hole… it’s across the street from the State Cop’s garage... it might’a just been a stray, yano…

Yelp will tell you all about how to get there (it's right up Herr St. off Cameron up where Arsenal Ys off from it... heading away from town it's just before the Harrisburg East cemetery on the right. So if you get to the cemetery, you passed it) and show you it’s not just me telling you… this is an honest-to-dog diner with my kind of people in it: 

People who are happy because they got to start their day with a cup of coffee that wasn’t swill.

When you walk in a stranger, you don’t get the Harrisburg stare followed by the look up and down and then the blank face that goes back to whatever they were staring at before they were staring at you… Jagoffs.

Not in this place. The true democratic nature of the town hall moved to this shiny aluminum car where you can get a pretty great breakfast and news of the day about any time of day and they have BISCUITS, people... and GRITS! Perfectly fine ones, I’m telling you. Eggs that come out the way you asked for them. Sandwiches and melts, platters and pie and all of it good and some of it really good.

In MOOVILLE!!

I wouldn’ta believed it if I hadn’t seen it and I saw it with mine own eyes. The Man In My House pronounced it: “The only way this food would taste any better is with a hangover.”

Is there hope for this burg? Well, let’s not get carried away.

So, then, what’s the best goddamned cup of coffee YOU ever had, hm?


Next up: Another Bad Food Store.

Outlet Grocery Review: Whispering Pines Fruit Farm, Mt. Pleasant Mills, PA

There was just too much fun to be had in northern Juniata and Snyder Counties on Friday night to go home after hitting only ONE salvage grocery store jackpot. The Pallet Grocery Outlet of the last episode was in Brian and Susan's rear view mirror as we partied on...

Whispering Pines Fruit Farm

1652 Martin Brothers Road

Mt. Pleasant Mills, PA 17853

Phone: 570-539-2757

November - March:

Mon - Th: 8 AM - 7 PM

Fri: 8 AM - 8 PM

Sat: 8AM - 5 PM

April - October:

Mon - Fri: 8 AM - 8 PM

Sat: 8 AM - 5 PM

Accepts cash, local checks and credit cards and they have GIFT CARDS for crying out loud. They'll bag your groceries in free bags too.

How To Find It:

Ok, If you went to the Pallet Grocery Outlet in Mifflintown to start this trip, loop around the back of the store to go L on Lost Creek Road. THAT is the name of the road you turn onto off of Rt. 35 S to get there but you won't see a sign that says any such thing on your way in. Go L on Lost Creek and make a L when you get back to Rt. 35 towards Selinsgrove. At the light with the Juniata Bank in town, stay on Rt. 35 and I mean STAY on Rt. 35 for about 10 or 15 miles through some just chest-swelling beautiful Mooville countryside as long as it isn't snowing or dark. Finally, you will come to Rt. 104. Go R towards Harrisburg. There is a nifty, over-decorated snack shop right there where you could stop for a sandwich or something but why? You are on your way to the Whispering Pines and there is NO time to spare on a Friday night.

About 2 miles after you turn south onto Rt. 104 WATCH... you are looking for a sign for MARTIN BROTHERS ROAD. It is actually SR 3004 but you won't have time to look for the segment markers. Just watch and take that L onto Martin Brothers. Follow the road up a ways... maybe 2 more miles and you will see the place on the left.

What's In There:

OH.

MY.

GODddddd... D.

This place is incredible. This time of year there are piles and piles of apples and tomatoes and peaches and pears just piled up everywhere. But this is no fruit stand, my little sparrows... Pull into the lot and brace yourself...

It is not the best organized but that is its terrible beauty... it's a Hall of Mirrors for foodies. Remember foodies? The front door opens into the check out but you won't know that until you finally tear yourself away from the place... this is a smallish room that has bagged up bulk foodstuffs... flours, 25 and 50 pound bags of sugar, cocoa and noodles and all the stuff these Amish people bag and package up for us... some Health and Beauty Aids... I saw 99 cent BIG tubes of Close-Up and Pepsodent toothpaste that, yes, you COULD get at the Dollar Store but you can't get THIS experience at the strip mall... some paper products are also in there and then the spices towards the back but then you notice a little doorway...

The Grains Group

You are led into an anteroom of baked goods and if it doesn't bring true tears to your eyes to see this you have no heart and I can't help you.

Racks and racks of spelt, 5 grain, multi-grain, 7 grain, pumpernickel, rye, wheat and white bread that JUST came out of the oven all of them loaves as big as your head and mostly about $2 each. Long 2-inch-thick slabs of bread with tomatoes and cheese folded into it that weigh about 4 pounds a loaf...

I got the most beautiful day-old Swedish rye for $1.65 and I am NOT sharing. There is a pie case with Shoofly wet and dry bottom. Peach pies, banana crème pies, pumpkin rolls the size of your Uncle Ned's thigh for $7 and some as big as your forearm for $3.75.

The thing I couldn't leave alone? Oh. My. Godddddd. There was a plate of peanut butter cookies sandwiched together with peanut butter icing on a paper plate for $2.50. I don't know how many were there but they were going in that car with Brian and Susan and the 4 kids because if I took them home I was gonna eat them all.

Sorry. This is all that was left after we got back to the ranch.

They were so good the sugar buzz didn't wear off until long after I was back home.

Come out of the bakery room and into the light of the main grocery. Here are the shelves of stuff that will be old hat to you if you ever get the hang of seeing cereal in bags but not in the box for a dollar. Every kind of bagged and boxed and canned good is in here, some of it a little banged up and some not. Freezer cases with pizza and frozen chicken breasts and vegetables. Then.

The Dairy Case.

Oh. My. Godddd.

They had 30 oz tubs of whipped cream cheese for $1.59. The 8 oz. bricks of cream cheese were 79 cents, I think. Butter was about $2.49 a pound. There were case boxes of yogurt for about 20 cents a container and 24 oz. containers of sour cream for 75 cents. Yep. THEN the refrigerated case of cheese.

There is more organic cheese in this store than I have seen at the Giant, The Wegman's and the Whole Foods in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, put together. And some of the sharp aged cheddar, garlic cheddar and Monterrey Jack was getting a tad strong. That's what they say... it's getting "strong."

This means the cheese, which is still alive and not killed dead like the common and vastly inferior cheese-like product you have been brain-washed into believing is cheese as you buy it in the plastic wrap at The Giant, is off-gassing and you are about to get some honest to god cheese taste if you pony up the $1.49 and $1.65 a pound they were asking for this stuff last night.

There is every other kind there at prices of about $3 - $6 a pound, too... but the deal... real cheese for SO cheap...

A lot of it is made by the Grassy Ridge Farm in Thompsontown which is just a stone's throw and you won't need a lot of it grated up on some of that rye bread with a slather of mayo and a slice of some tomato to take you off to a sweet place where the summer never ends until it hits the tip of your tongue. Yum.

Don't Stop There...

Turn around past the 5 pound tubs of peanut butter for $6 and the 12 feet of shelf space devoted to broken pretzels and the bagged up loose jello in every candy color of the rainbow and you will see the gift of this land to these people...

RACKS of pecks and half pecks and 1/4 pecks of apples... Honey Crisps, Jonathans, Galas and 5 more kinds... Pears... red Bartletts and Sekels ... Plums... damson and Santa Rosas, red and purple... Peaches... Sweet Sues, Crest Havens, Madisons, Blazin' Furies, nectarines and so many more... all of them for half the price you'll pay at a roadside stand. The tomatoes were $9 a peck. The apples were $16 a half bushel...

Keep going... there are more things in the case... some cherries, some celery and other salad stuff but then... the Fresh Express 8 oz. bags of chopped triple Romaine hearts were 3 / $1 and...

Now, I know what you do with the 8# bags of shredded lettuce I saw for $2.99 at the Sharp Shopper in Middletown last month.

Brian says they are actually 5-1/4 lbs. to the bag and they are usually packed 4 to the box and you can dress TWENTY-FIVE submarine sandwiches with a bag of this lettuce. He knows his shit. He used to shadow cater the gun shows at the Farm Show Complex when he knew how to smuggle stuff in there in his own salad days and you could get these $2.99 bags of shredded lettuce at the Whispering Pines yesterday for...

...wait for it...

$1.49.

It was a beautiful thing but I didn't have 25 sandwiches to make...

No lie. I got out of this place for $20 and that included the $7.65 I paid for nearly 5 pounds of aged organic cheddar cheese I could NOT live without AND the plate of peanut butter sandwich cookies ...

I only got as far as the parking lot before I saw the tomatoes out there on a table at 99 cents a quart and they were so red and gorgeous I had to go back in...

I nearly made it to the car when I saw the watermelons... orange-fleshed seedless for $2.99 and nice 10 pound seeded ones for about the same price... You know I would have picked at least one of those up but I'd promised the women at the checkout that I would not come back any more that day.

Besides, those peanut butter cookies were calling my name...

How To Leave:

If you aren't going back to Brian and Susan's, head back down Martin Brothers Rd. and turn left onto Rt. 104 S. Follow it out to where it hits Rts. 11/15 S just above Liverpool and you'll be back in Mooville, tearing open those bags of peaches and plums in 30 minutes if you hurry.

Next time: I don't know. I'll think of something. Just now, though, I need a nap.

Outlet Grocery Review: Pallet Grocery Outlet, Mifflintown, PA

The Pallet Grocery Outlet is a real-deal bulk food / salvage / close date / dented can grocery in the middle of nowhere: almost as much fun to get there as it is to find.

Pallet Grocery Outlet

RR1, Box 669 Rockland Rd.

Mifflintown, PA 17059

Phone: 717-463-9200

Mon / Tues / Sat: 9 AM - 5 PM

Thurs / Fri: 9 AM - 8 PM

Wed / Sun : CLOSED

Accepts, cash, local checks, food stamps, debit AND credit cards!

They'll bag your groceries in free plastic bags.

You will never find this place if you go looking for it without a guide and I will put a banana box of dented cans on this bet. Lucky for us both, my pals Brian and Susan and their 4 way too cool kidlets invited me to go with on a forage to Salvage Grocery North Country on Friday.

How to Get There

From Mooville Center find Rt. 322 W or Rt. 11/15 N and get on Rt. 322 towards State College somehow. Take the Thompsontown exit off Rt. 322 onto Rt. 333 E. Follow that to Rt. 235. Make a L onto Rt. 235 towards McAlisterville. At the light for Rt. 35 S go L. There will be a Juniata Bank Building on the left corner as you face the intersection but I don't know for how long because Brian said they just built a new one with a horse and buggy drive-through further up and he was right. They'll be selling this off and you could have a nice McAlisterville property if you wanted one pretty soon. Now. Once you get yourself on Rt. 35 you have nothing to help you but paying attention. WATCH for a low to the ground sign that says "J & M Pallet" and hang a R at that sign. I don't know the name of the road. WATCH for another sign that says "J & M Pallet" and make another R. At the third "J & M Pallet" sign, make a L and you will find the store on the L.

It is an immaculately clean metal pole building with lots of eaves and additions and the pallet mill is directly behind it. There is a hitching post for the horse and buggy if you brought one but the parking lot is large enough to accommodate whatever you drove there with.

What's Inside:

Regular cheap cleaning supplies, soap and vitamins and toothpaste, cereal, cake mixes, canned everything, tea and coffee, bulk flour and noodles and spices.

The vitamins were 150 count Centrum Silver for $1.99. Yes, the seal was broken and they had a February 10 code date on them but they're for the dog and I'm sure they'll be just fine.

Way cheap salad dressings that were 50 cents each or 5 for $1. They were very heavy on the Caesar's yesterday. Paul Newman, Brianna's, very good salad dressings. LOTS of mustard. LOTS of Grey Poupon at 99 cents an 8 oz. squeeze bottle.

Boxes of 16 oz. Bellino Arborio Risotto for 99 cents I had to have. Nonni's Biscotti, the 7 ounce boxes of Turtle Pecan were 79 cents each. A nice deli case and some dairy products. Frozen food. All 30 - 40% off what you would pay at a standard grocery store and clean as a whistle inside, too.

Yesterday they had 4 oz. bags of really good Springer Mountain Farms dog treats for Shadow the Wonder Dog at 79 cents a bag. Made with free-farmed chicken raised with NO antibiotics, NO corn, NO wheat, NO soy, NO preservatives and pomegranate. In a DOG TREAT! I KNOW! For 79 cents a bag. Shadow almost didn't mind being left behind for this trip when he got a whiff of these. But none of this is the big deal as big as it is.

THIS Is The Big Deal:

These wonderful people will sell you banana boxes for $5 a clip.

No, not an empty banana box although you and I both know the last time you moved you would have given more than that for a good banana box. These babies... when they have them... and they don't always... are a Big Fat Surprise Pak and you can't have this much legal fun in Mooville for five bucks, I'm telling you.

Yesterday, Brian asked one of the ladies stocking the shelves if Jesse was in. I thought this might be Mennonite code for who knows what but it turns out that Jesse and Carol Meyer run this place and Brian knows them. Jesse wasn't actually available (I think he is the J of J&M Pallet and was busy making pallets, I'm guessing) but it was enough of a tip that they were willing to admit to him that they only had 3 boxes of unsorted stuff just then.

Brian and Susan relieved them of 2 and I took the last one.

When we got it back to their house we opened them up and traded around for what we all wanted and this is what comes inside a $5 banana box at the Pallet Grocery Outlet:

What I Came Away With...

(9) cans solid white albacore tuna in water; Bumble Bee, 3 Diamonds, StarKist and Chicken of the Sea

(2) cans chunk light tuna in water

(2) 35 oz. cans of Cento peeled tomatoes

(2) 28 oz. cans of Luigi Vitelli tomato puree

(2) 15 oz. cans of Hunt's tomato sauce

(1) 8 oz. can of Hunt's tomato sauce

(2) 26 oz. cans of Hunt's spaghetti sauce - Four cheese and Garlic and Herb

(3) 15 oz. cans of Joan of Arc kidney beans

(1) 15 oz. can of Furman's crushed tomatoes

(1) 15 oz. can of Bush's black beans

(1) can Bush's Chili Magic chili starter

(1) can Hunt's Manwich Original Sloppy Joe sauce

(2) cans La Choy Chop Suey vegetables

(2) 15 oz. cans of Silver Floss sauerkraut

(1) can Del Monte sliced white potatoes

(1) can IGA green beans

(1) 8 oz. can Giorgio mushroom pieces

(2) 14 oz. cans of One Pie squash I'm not sure what you do with

(1) 32 oz. can of Campbell's tomato juice

(1) 10 oz. jar of Smucker's Simply Fruit Blueberry Spreadable Fruit

(1) unlabeled can of what turned out to be mixed salted cashews, pecans and Brazil nuts- no peanuts!

and...

(4) unlabeled true surprise cans. I haven't opened them up yet. If you have to know what's in them, send me an email and we'll look together...

44 cans of things @ $5 for the lot = 11 cents each.

Nope. Not with a stick...

Now:

Brian and Susan's bunch will not eat tuna fish and I don't eat meat at all. I gave up an unlabeled quart of apple juice and 2 jars of Smucker's Simply Fruit Blueberry preserves because there were three of those in my one box and how much blueberry preserves can one person and her spoiled rotten dog eat?

I don't eat tuna fish, either, but I'm thinking some very deserving people at the office are going to get cans of fancy white albacore for Christmas. I gave them a couple of cans of meat-based spaghetti sauce and they gave me one of their two cans of mushroom pieces and the Bush's chili starter. I think I gave them one of the 3 cans of sauerkraut and some carrots and peas and they forced me to take a couple of extra cans of black and kidney beans.

Not pictured here was a can of sardines from my box that had leaked a little oil and I wasn't having any of that but the kids agreed to open it up the rest of the way and feed it to the cats and Brian and Susan's porch smelled like the Edmund Fitzgerald as I was leaving out of there last night.

Everyone was a satisfied customer of the Pallet Grocery Outlet Friday night.

Next Time: Brian and Susan weren't done yet... Whispering Pines Fruit Farm, Mt. Pleasant Mills, PA

Mooville Roadside Attraction #2: Kipona

Our good Steven Reed, Harrisburg Mayor For Life, declared the 2008 version of this particular Mooville Roadside Attraction open for business on Saturday, August 30 and so begins my attempt to explain this Mooville Staycation-- Kipona to you, Dear Reader... wish me luck.

Kipona

August 30 - September 1, 2008

Up and Down Front St. and City Island

FREE! You can't pay for this kind of entertainment... I mean... no one would...

This is one of the three reasons each year that Steven Reed, HMFL, closes Front St. from the Harvey Taylor Bridge to Market St. so people can mill around to take in the spectacle.

I have to tell you, I have no idea what a Kipona is. But it qualifies as a roadside attraction by virtue of the fact that it occurs by a roadside... it occurs ON the road, for crying out loud. And the side of the road. And half way across the river on the City island.

This year the sponsors are advertising it as an Art festival (sort of), Bass Fishing Tournament, Boat Race, Kiddie Park, Drum Circle and Chili Cook-Off.

You know there was a committee involved, right?

What does a Rubber Duck fundraiser for the March of Dimes, an Iron Chef demonstration, a bunch of people paddling canoes with dragon heads at the front and dragon tails at the back up and down the Susquehanna River, a rash of bands you've never heard of, a karate tournament, bad fair food and the Bath Fitter company have in common? I mean other than they're ALL happening on Front Street RIGHT NOW?

No. Seriously. I want someone to tell me what the hell ties all this activity together.

I mean. Bath Fitter?

The music , I am so sorry to tell you, is really not the draw with the incredibly notable exception of Darcie Miner who holds forth on a stage next to the Market Street bridge on Monday at noon if it doesn't rain again and drown her set out as it has the last 3 of the 4 times she's been a good enough sport to show back up in Harrisburg to play for free. She's got a real alt.country approach and this chick can rawk... I love her and you do, too, if you've ever seen her. The Martini Bros. are also worthy and are listed to close this moneymaker down at 8:00 PM Monday evening.

The only other thing I can truly get behind would be the fireworks.

They are supposed to be happening at 8:35 PM tonight-- that would be Sunday, August 31 and I have to get a move on here to let you all know about this in time to get over to my secret Harrisburg watching site because I won't miss a fireworks display if I can help it.

I'll even go to a pretty poor showing and I will say that Harrisburg has redeemed many of its shortcomings with decent fireworks. I'm going to cross my fingers and toes to make sure they send the Summer off in a manner becoming the season...

The food is the same bunch of folks hawking the deep-fried fat balls wrapped in powdered sugar and then dipped in chocolate you see at every gathering... you're not expecting haute cuisine, I know, I know but rest assured that if you are feeling a little fat, salt or sugar deficient today, these people will fix you right up.

The Broad Street Market is open part way through the day on Saturday so you can get some good Indian at Curry In A Hurry if you feel the need to eat while you're here. These people operate Passage to India at the bottom of Front Street and that is the only restaurant I would eat in willingly the first three years I lived in Mooville. It is, hands down, the best Indian in town and to this day one of maybe 4 in the city where I would send anyone I liked. I saw cantaloupes for $1.50 at the vegetable stand at the front of the Brick Building and there was some real nice-looking produce at the stand set up between the buildings... very nice peppers... beets... watermelons... the little sweet sugar-babies were a dollar a piece. It wasn't Kipona which is why they were probably the best thing about the day...

But I digress...

The Kipona part makes you pay to go see the Art and I wasn't in any mood by the time I schlepped all the way from Broad Street to Market Street so you're on your own with whether there is anything remotely art-like there. The drumming over at City Island was very primal and rhythmic but I don't know why all these indigenous people come to Harrisburg to drum. Maybe it's to irritate the people who took their land. It worked on me and I swear I bought my house from a guy in San Francisco.

The Kids Village is all slap fulla people painting children's faces and making balloon hats and shoving them on kid's heads and getting them to make what purports to be edible sand art. This seems like a set-up for a real cruel pair of shoes... teach a kid to eat sand then take him to the beach. Nice.

The chili cook-off in the middle of State Street was more Halloween Party than serious chili and I've been to Hatch and I know the smell of real chiles roasting in the air... this wasn't it... Sorry, again...

The weather HAS been cooperating this year. It was overcast mostly yesterday and that kept it from being really pain in the ass hot and sticky... Today it's been a perfect low-humidity, sunny Mooville day... really a sweet fairytale of a day to make you think it will be like this until it gets nice again... I wouldn't ruin a day like this by slogging through the masses at this Kipona thing but maybe you haven't yet filled your dance card of odd things people in Mooville do and if that's the case, you have another unknown band / footbag tourney / art show/ kid ride / drumming day ahead of you.

You really ought to try to catch Darcie Miner...

And don't forget the FIREWORKS!!

Next time: I'll tell you where my secret firework peering place is and where to see the best fireworks in Mooville.

Introduction to Outlet Grocery Shopping - Part 5: Neither fish nor fowl, The Grocery Outlet Store

What IS it?
These are the Highlanders, the Tribecas, the Subaru Foresters of the discounted grocery world... crossovers between true pallet store salvage and the limited assortment discount groceries: some salvage goods, some private label stock, some manufacturer overstock, label changes and close dated product but all of it priced 30 - 60% less than you've been paying at your local, friendly big box supermarket...

In Mooville, the players in this sandbox are Amelia's and the Sharp Shopper.

Amelia's Grocery Outlet
Clemont Plaza / 600 North Mountain Rd.
Harrisburg, PA 17112-2398
Just off Exit 72B of I-81N
Phone: 717-724-2223

1951 Lincoln Highway East
Lancaster, PA 17602-3343
(New location - across from Wal-Mart)
Phone: 717-392-0635

Hours: Mon. - Sat. 8:00 am - 9:00 pm
You get free bags and they'll bag your groceries up for you.
Cash, local checks and debit cards only.

Amelia's has eleven locations including two Mooville stores in Harrisburg and Lancaster. They are proud to be actual manufacturer's outlets for national brands like Kraft, Sara lee, General Mills and Proctor and Gamble to name a few. This arrangement lets Amelia put close-out lots on her shelves that are still in pretty good shape.

I know they have a deal with Hershey because you can find red and green foil wrapped Christmas Candy there until the following Halloween... Hey... it's chocolate and it's half the price you'll find at The Giant. Does your kid know what a Sell By date is? I didn't think so.


Sharp Shopper
1595 Jamesway Plaza
Middletown, PA 17057
Phone #: (717) 944-6606

Rt. 322, 1041 Sharp Avenue
Ephrata, PA 17522
Phone #: (717) 738-4948

340 West Main Street
Leola, PA 17540
Phone #: (717) 656-2156

Monday - Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Saturday: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Cash, local checks, debit AND credit cards
They give you free bags and bag your groceries, too!

Six stores make up this group including two in Virginia for some reason. The ones I've got listed are in our neck of the pasture.

You'll find fewer dented cans and taped up cartons at these places... and you will find a lot more private labels... in fact, you can almost do your regular weekly grocery shopping at one of these stores if you're not hung up on fresh meat... they generally have at least one flavor of just about everything else. You won't find 5 brands of sliced peaches, say, but there will be cans of sliced peaches for .69 to .89 cents.

When I was cooking Brutus the Giant Boxer's food myself, I used to get some outstanding marinated frozen pork loins and beef loins there... Brutus spent his last days eating lime marinated beef stew courtesy of Butterball and Sharp Shopper at something like $1.99 for a 3 pound roast.

Amelia's are smaller; about the size of an Aldi's or a Save-A-Lot. Sharp Shoppers seem mostly to have taken over the old Ames and Jamesway Discount Department store buildings. Those chains fell victim to the Wal-Mart march to the sea 15 years ago so the footprint is larger and there's a lot more stuff in them.

You still are better off shopping early in the week and early in the day.

And there you have it.
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it, either. People in Central Pennsylvania have elevated grocery shopping to a kind of participatory performance art. Only in Mooville.

Let me know if you find one I haven't, would you?

Next time: A big fat list of these places.

Introduction to Outlet Grocery Shopping - Part 4: The Discount Grocery Also-rans

Here in Mooville you're talking Sav-A-Lot and Price-Rite when it comes to the discount grocery, the value, limited item supermarket, the stores that are NOT Aldi's.

PriceRite of Harrisburg
3812 Union Deposit Rd.
Harrisburg, PA 17109
Phone: (717)545-1689
http://www.priceritesupermarkets.com

Price-Rite is owned by the same bunch that owns Shop-Rite which is a regular plain vanilla supermarket chain and does not concern us here. Price-Rite, though, sports 35 locations throughout the Northeast and there's one right here in Mooville Proper...

You do have to bag your own groceries in your own bags or buy them from the store but the prices are pretty good.

I had a coupon mailed to my house from them for a 99 cent fresh pineapple the other week... and the best part of THIS store is the Spanish food you can find here. If you want to get fresh plantains to slice up and fry, make some arroz y morados and knock back some cafe Cubano in advance of the siesta you're gonna want after you get some honest to god flan out of the deli case... well, this is the store you've been looking for.

There isn't a decent Mexican restaurant in this town despite a pretty healthy Hispanic population and that's a fact but if you're wanting something other than those pasty things they call tortillas at The Giant... or autentico enough to want to pit-a-pat your own... the big fat bags o' masa harina are right here and so are about 25 kinds of the ones that are already made at the Price-Rite. Smaller than the big boxes by half, the produce here is first rate and I like this store a lot.

Save-A-Lot

2963 N 7Th St
Harrisburg, PA 17110
Phone:(717) 255-9880

Save-A-Lot
1045 Mt Rose Ave
York, PA 17403
Phone:(717) 771-5491

Save-A-Lot

222-26 S. Queen Street
Lancaster, PA 17603
Phone:(717) 392-9978
http://www.save-a-lot.com

Save-A-Lot, on the other hand is not so bright and shiny as Price-Rite.

The chain is a lot bigger than Price-Rite with more than 1100 stores nationwide and 3 right here in the Greater Mooville area and I don't know why the home office won't spring for an upgrade... even though the Harrisburg store shares it's strip mall at 7th and Division (an aptly named street if ever there was one) with a liquor store, a beer distributor, a rent-to-own furniture place and TWO dollar stores... do they HAVE to remind the poor people of Harrisburg that the big box groceries don't care enough about their money to build stores to take it from them?

Nice.

A little shopworn, a little dingy, a pretty sad produce section and small even by limited-item store standards, the prices are good on almost everything and it IS the only supermarket in the city.

Next time: The Conclusion to our series - In Part 5 we learn about The Hybrid Grocery Outlet. It's hard to contain your joy, I know.

Fast, Cheap and Easy Tip #2 - How To Save Fifty Bucks

How To Save 50 Bucks

First of all: get yourself to one of the Harbor Freight places that have sprung up all over. There's one on Eisenhower Blvd.

Buy yourself one of their $20 live traps... it is a wire contraption that you will have to spend 5 minutes putting together if you don't stop to laugh yourself silly at the Engrish instructions and just put it together like a man... you know... like you know what you are doing...

STOP IT. Men have gotten VERY far with this technique. Y'all are just mad that we know about it...

Then buy yourself a house in the City. Then sit tight for a minute until a groundhog shows up and starts making your life miserable.

It won't take long.

Then put out the trap. Bait it with a bit of cucumber end or one of those tomatoes it so evidently covets from your ONE lone tomato plant you forced yourself to plant this Spring... the pig...

(it IS a hog, after all)...

and trap it.

THEN get the really big fat plastic bag that you have lying around that was too big to put anything else into... a couple of them if you have them... The ground hog is getting ready to pee and poop all over everything and this is your only defense.

Double or triple plastic bag the trap with the groundhog in it and put it in the back of your truck if you have one or can get someone who has a truck to do this for you. Otherwise the whole ball of wax and the groundhog must go into the trunk of your car and if you have a hatchback... well, yes, it will have to go in there... Oh, quit screeching about it. It's not going to be in there too long...

You're going to take it for a little ride, all right, but you're not going for a mafia hit, for crying out loud... just over to the City Island where they will not mind at all if you do not ask to free your groundhog...

Even if you do manage to strike up a conversation with the guy running the
Susquehanna kayak rental place he won't tell you not to. He does have a little doggie with him most summer weekends and I liked her immediately. She has an obvious intolerance for crapola. Black and white and some rat terrier in her, I'd say, and she LOVES groundhogs...

But despite what he says about being infrequently consulted on matters of relative moral turpitude... he told me to go over to the other side where the parking garage is now so his dogger wouldn't be too easily amused with it... so I did... and I cut off the plastic bags and opened up the trap after the hateful creature inside tried to bite me or make me think he would... he jumped out and ran for the river's edge and I wished Darwin well...

Darwin who I so named after the guy at the Susquehanna Rental place told me about the guy who invented City Island. It seems the place had to be repopulated with wildlife after they cleaned the Superfund waste site enough to sell it to Harrisburg as the premier sports and entertainment complex it is today. He had to bring rabbits and squirrels over in order to attract the hawks and so invent an ecosystem right there on the reverse New Zealand of Dauphin County... so, far from being wrong in loosing my Eleventh Ward groundhog there, I was actually participating in a rich tradition, he said...

I was just happy to have the ground hog gone from my back yard... and under my deck... and chewing on the underside of my sun room where I heard him gnawing away at the joists all damn summer without having to kill it.

And I was advised to kill it. I was advised to dose it with Coca-cola and antifreeze. I was advised to drop it, trap and all, off the Harvey Taylor Bridge like Billy Joe McAllister. I was advised to hit it with a Louisville slugger and to use a propane torch on it.

I mean.

I was even advised by an ex-82nd Airborne Paratrooper to pull its rodent head back and slit its throat in an effort to avoid the city ordinance against discharging a weapon.

I am not kidding about any of this and certainly not about the propane torch.

And as greatly as that furry rat on 'roids stunk up my car... and as poopy as he left this stupid trap that I'm about to hose off with bleach and whatever other non-biodegradable detergents I can find in this house... it made me happy to know I helped that stupid, destructive, tomato-eating creature...

I might have had more immediate sympathy for him if I had moved in on HIS territory out in the country... but he moved in on MINE... and I've gone to a lot of trouble to live in this ridiculous place!

But it's good to be good...

And Now For The Fifty Bucks Part:

This S&S is a very reputable service... there are many like it. Look up "Pest Control" in your local friendly yellow pages and you will find a whole raft of them. They will set a trap for you for about $35 and they will come and take the trapped creature away for another $35 or so. Now, if you didn't spend that $70 on having your little problem handled for you and instead bought that trap at Harbor Freight and spent your Saturday morning making your mind up to free Darwin at City Island instead of watching him die a horrible, double-plastic bagged death on your back porch... you will have saved... yes, it's all true,fifty bucks

So you will have to decide: What IS your time worth and what is the cost of a clear conscience? In my case: Priceless.

An Introduction to Outlet Grocery Shopping, Part 3: The Germans

Here we begin the discussion of those Outlet Grocery Store shopping categories known as The Discount Grocery Store, the Limited Assortment or Value Grocery.

Aldi’s

3437 Simpson Ferry Rd.
Camp Hill, PA 17011

50 Westminster Drive
Carlisle, PA 17013

6445 Grayson Road
Harrisburg, PA 17111

1302 Lititz Pike
Lancaster, PA 17601

105 N. 11th Ave
Lebanon, PA 17046

280 Northern Way
York, PA 17402

And 61 more in PA alone! The Germans have come to Mooville in a big way.

Aldi’s is the first among them all.
This German-owned bunch are exhibit A in How They Won the War… E-FISH-EN-CEE. I’m talking low-cost grocery world-freaking domination. Not yet in South America, Africa or Asia, the Germans are EVERYWHERE else and they are all the same, every last one: clean, well-lit, lots of aisle space, 1300 items not 30,000, pay a quarter to get a cart but get the quarter back when you slide your cart back into the queue and bag your own groceries in your own bags. Hey, these guys invented "Arbeit macht frei," remember?

900 stores in the US means there’s one close to you and Mooville has a whole batch of ‘em… the one they just opened on the West Shore next to that other behemoth of weird stuff that’s pretty cheap all the time Big Lots is as lock-step sterile and cookie-cutter organized as any of them. And while it does have the personality of a cardboard box, they have not quite figured out their inventory par levels yet: I found the 1 lb. bags of every day 99 cent chopped lettuce (Easily $1.99 at The Giant) for TEN CENTS A BAG!!! I ate salad every day for a week!

Go there before they tweak the traffic counts and start ordering closer to the edge.

Set your watch by:

5# of sugar – 99 cents [Ed. note - As of 8/20/2008 this is bumped up to $1.19]

5# of flour – 99 cents [Ed. note - This, too...]

1 dozen large eggs – 99 cents [Ed. note - Ditto]

The $2.99 bouquets of fresh flowers as you walk in the door are a nice touch of the natural world in a box of straight lines and enforced calm that is pretty much the atmosphere here... but they don’t hold up that well, considering.

If you want the freshest flowers really cheap AND performance art... you have to go see Mike the Flower Guy at Third and Market Sts. in Harrisburg…

Next time: The Discount Grocery Also-rans...

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