Fried Green Tomatoes

I heard a commercial on the radio the other day about a new store in town called "Sweet Gourmet." It said something about "if you’re a foodie" and that they featured Paula Deen salad dressings, Rachael Ray EVOO and Barefoot Contessa Outrageous Brownie Mix. I stopped by there today to see what’s up. There was huge banner out front promoting the Paula Deen products. The store itself was very much like the food section of Williams Sonoma, more "gourmet" oriented than Food Network. They also had Godiva chocolate and even Scharffenberger bars. Even though we have the usual strip mall stores here, we don’t have a lot of what’s in the Big Cities, so that’s a big step forward. The Texas-themed items included spicy microwave popcorn ($2.99 a bag), BBQ sauces, and assorted grilling paraphernalia. I was surprised to see candy cigarettes among the "joke" items for kids. I thought those were banned or deemed socially inappropriate ages ago. There are a lot of smokers around here so I guess it fits, although it was sad for me to see something like that.

At the grocery stores, there were quite a few vendors with samples to promote for the Memorial Day weekend. Wal-mart had boudin samples. Even though this is Texas, we’re close to Louisiana so a lot of the cajun & creole foods trickle over. While I was tempted, I declined, because the sausages were an ugly grey, which made my brain immediately start to wonder what is in them. And when you think about what goes into sausages …yuck. Oh, the other Food Network tie-in at Walmart is the overhead TV's in the produce section. They play a loop of tips from Rachael, Paula, Emeril and Tyler. It's almost disconcerting to be pushing the shopping cart along and suddenly hearing their voices. Brookshire's and Super 1 have overhead announcements promoting Paula's association with Smithfield Foods, and her tour. Anyway, I also went to Super 1 and they had a crawfish boil going on outside. Inside a lady had fried green tomatoes! I’ve always wanted to try them, of course, because of the movie. They tasted like what you would expect. It must be something you get to liking because you grew up with it. I didn’t think they were anything special, but it was fun trying them.

These foods were almost like they were from another part of the world. Even though I grew up in an area of California with a lot of diversity, it was diverse in more of an international way. I really miss California and often just going grocery shopping makes me homesick. I miss the freshness and variety of produce. I miss having more options for affordable shopping than Walmart, especially Trader Joe's. I miss running into my sister at the store. But sometimes little things like the "taste of the south," such as fried green tomatoes, make living here more tolerable.