Pickles

I'm settling into a routine-- get up at six-fifteen, drink as much coffee as humanly possible, wake the girls at seven, fix breakfast, ladidadi, take them to school, then write (ok, fine, revise-- I'm not producing anything new.  It's the story of my life that once I decide to put together a short story collection all I want to do is write nonfiction) until 11:30, then ride my bike to Weilands to buy lunch and anything we need for dinner.

If you're not from Columbus (or maybe even if you are), Weilands Gourmet Market is a really expensive grocery store where you can find lots of random stuff you never knew you needed, plus some amazing stuff that you know for a fact you don't need.  But the other day I discovered their deli kosher pickles, and now that's become my reward for revising for three hours every morning instead of watching reruns of Jersey Shore (Do YOU! No, you do you! No, I'm doing me!)

I have a pickle problem.  No one else in my house likes pickles, but I love them so much.  When I lived in Iowa, my friend and I would go to Stringtown Grocery and pick up bulk goods for my mom, then run over to the Kalona Cheese Factory (right down the street) and buy cheese curds, 7 year aged cheddar cheese, and kosher pickles.  And, ps, we were usually hung over.  So wrong. And then we'd eat all this nastiness on the way back home-- probably 15-20 miles of hilly country roads. So, so wrong.  But so good.

Stringtown Grocery is the official name. Really, it's the Amish store.  It's this tiny bulk foods store with no electricity.  They sell these weird, old beauty products, local baked goods (almost always burnt and dry, and yet I rarely don't buy some), and bulk foods.  I mean like bulk noodles and fruit preserves, not like Sam's bulk foods.  Everything comes in huge, clear plastic bags labeled with the store name.  And it smelles funny in there.  I'm not saying Amish people smell bad.  I'm just saying it smells funny.

The Kalona Cheese Factory is a place where they make cheese the old fashioned way, and they have a store built into this cellar-type room.  You can stand at a foggy, dirty window and watch them make the cheese, and see the cheese curds being run back and forth by these huge hand-like machines. And they have an off-brand soda machine where you can buy orange-orade pop for twenty cents.

The Amish girls are very sweet, and they don't talk much.  They stare, though. And who can blame them? Generally, my friend and I were dressed in tank tops and shorts, our tattoos hanging out (among other things). Or, more likely, we had pajamas on (which I would totally still do if I could pull it off).

So, there's no Amish store in Columbus.  And today's pickles from Wielands weren't as good as expected.  Boo. Boooooo.