Today is my last day of vacation (boo!), not counting the weekend, of course, so we threw the dog into doggie daycare and headed out for some shopping.
There's a little family butcher shop about two hours from us, but it just so happens that for a short stretch of the road, there are four other places we like to visit, so that was the plan.
First stop was a diner about 30 minutes away. We'd heard good things about it, but found the place rather below average.
We both ordered two over-medium eggs, potatoes, and toast.
First up, the server brought over a little dish full of convenience packets of jams, jellies, and margarine (I hate margarine), and grumbled, "New county health board rule - We ain't allowed to butter your toast no more!" Ok...
When the food came out, the potatoes were obviously straight from a bag of frozen cubed potatoes, and they had no seasoning whatsoever on them, and they were dry as dust. The eggs had been cooked in about half a can of butter-flavored cooking spray and absolutely reeked of that fake-butter-and-propellant smell cooking spray has.
At least my wife managed to knock over her travel mug of tea when we were paying for the meal. That was the best part of the whole experience.
Then on up to Wilson's Butcher Shop:
Mom Wilson's | Country Sausage Mart
We bought cracker sausage, ring bologna, regular bologna, all made in-store, as well as potato chips and a small fruit pie. Two hours to get there, then 10 minutes in the shop, because we always get the same things. We also got a little bag of chopped "variety meats" to use as dog treats.
Then we started making our way back, and the next stop was:
Butcher Shop | Plain City | Bluescreek Farm Meats
We like to stop there for steaks and chops, though we didn't need any of that today. They also have an excellent little cafe, but it was also too early for lunch, so we just picked up a slice of cheesecake for later, and some spun honey for the wife.
Toddling on down the road a little farther, we made a stop here:
Der Dutchman - Plain City, OH | Dutchman Hospitality
Der Dutchman is a massive Amish bakery, restaurant, and gift shop. Their food is so-so, but their baked goods are fantastic. We picked up some cheese spread, plum butter, and two big fat doughnuts.
Next stop:
http://yutzysfarmmarket.com/
I got chopped ham, ham off the bone, dried beef, some sandwich spread, sandwich dressing, and I'm going to get our Thanksgiving turkey from them, special ordered from a local farm.
Last stop:
Deli Meat and Cheese Market | Homemade Gourmet Foods
There, we got some butter cheese, Colby cheese, Muenster cheese, some crackers, and some ice cream.
I don't normally eat ice cream, but they have a peanut butter ice cream that I love. Most peanut butter ice cream is just vanilla ice cream with chunks of chocolate and peanut butter mixed in, maybe some nuts as well. I don't like that, I like a smooth peanut butter-flavored ice cream, with chunks of peanut butter mixed in, nothing else, and that's exactly what this is.
Here are a couple of pics of our purchases: