Food: Super happy magic food land!

There is a food mecca about two hours from our house, and that food mecca is Jungle Jim's. We have been talking about going there for a long time but never managed to make it down. There isn't a lot in that direction to see- although that's about to change, because they put an Ikea about 5 minutes from Jungle Jim's so we'll be down there all the time now- so we hadn't made it down there before now, but since we had the day off yesterday and I got paid last Friday we decided to make the trek down.

We met friends of ours, Q and B, for lunch at a nice Italian place called The Spinning Fork for lunch- tasty manicotti. I am truly a cheese whore. We refused dessert because come on, JJ's has to have samples, right? It's magic happy super food land! Other than a cinnamon apple walnut spread, we were sadly mistaken. Anyway, in preparation for our visit, we wiped the camera's memory card so we could take pictures as we ooohed and ahhhed over things. Headed in the door, the first thing we saw? A sign that said no pictures. Damn! I was tempted to draw pictures to go with this entry, but I am not that talented.

Anyway, the first thing that hit us were the carts. You know how most grocery carts are wire grid like things? Well, these carts were like SUVs. Like Target carts on steroids. The handles looked like they were designed by a team made up of people from Jeep and Oxo, they were thick and bumpy. I let the Husband push the cart while we wandered. Poor man. The first thing inside that we hit was the cheese section. There's a huge provlone that looks to be the size of a telephone pole in it's own glass case that they're aging. They had the cheese arranged by type, like cheddar and jack and swiss, but then they also had them arranged by country, France, Italy, Germany. There were cheeses I'd heard of, but never ever seen. You will probably see that phrase multiple times. We ended up with a smoked gouda cheese ball and some baby swiss for the Husband.

Next to the cheese was a stand full of butter. Oh wow. Tons of butter. Not Land o Lakes, but Presidente and fancy European butters. I was kind of surprised to not see Plugra, but hey.

After the butter we wandered the wine section. I am a picky wine ho and I have to say, I had to use all my strength to not come home with a case. Again, they were broken up by region with some sections of specific types. I was pleased to see they had some wines that we had at home. It made me feel like we were doing something right.

Next to the wine was the bakery. Oh my bakery. The fun thing was they had cakes and pies and things for sale by the piece, so the Husband went home with a piece of chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. Yes. I debated what was in the case, and thought about bringing some of the fabulous looking fancy cakes home to put in the freezer until my birthday, but ended up with some whoopie pies, both chocolate and oatmeal. I love whoopie pies, but they're a pain to make so this was a super treat. The Husband also got a baguette, because he lurves baguettes. Next to the bakery was a little stage where an animatronic lion was dressed as Elvis giving musical performances. Um, yeah.

After the bakery we hit the meat department where it was like being on Top Chef. Duck? Check. Alligator? Check. Turducken? Check, and ew. They had a super sale on ground beef (boring, I know, but we need it) so I got some, as well as the boneless beef short ribs to make my cousin's chianti braised short rib recipe. We hadn't been able to find boneless ones anywhere here in town- everyone had bone in except for Whole Foods, who only had a small package and didn't have any more. Amazing, the amount of meat they had.

I think after meat we took a turn into the produce section- which, actually, I'd been wondering when we were going to get to that. Usually that's the first thing you pass when you're in the grocery store- and they had long aisles of stuff. Standard fare, really, but that didn't matter. We were entranced. I've been on a fruit kick lately so I picked a bunch of stuff up. One thing we got that made us laugh? Satsumas. Real satsumas, a la Doctor Who. Lovely.

The produce kind of spilled into the International section, because they put the fresh international produce next to the other produce and walking that aisle was, again, like being on Top Chef. Things I'd only heard of but never seen. Amazing. I should have taken notes.

I should mention, Q and B were doing their regular grocery shopping there so they set off on their own but periodically we would see them, like in the wine section where we peeked into each other's carts to see what the other might have missed, like the smoked gouda cheeseball or the chocolate covered cheesecake or the random blue soda. That was fun and led to a lot of back tracking.

Next to the international section was the seafood area, and so we detoured. In the center of the seafood area they have live fish aquariums. Not only for crab and lobster, but if I so desired I could have had my own fresh catch of tilapia or catfish or flounder. At first it was really cool, watching the tank of fish going nuts, but they kind of swarmed and freaked me out so we moved on. They also had a shellfish bar with, again, things I'd only seen on Top Chef.

We went back to the international food section to wander some more and found a bunch of cool stuff. Smarties for our friend who studied abroad for a semester and fell in love, Mexican Coke for the Husband, who loves Coke and was interested when he discovered in other countries they don't have a rule for what sugar you put in, so this Coke was made with cane sugar and it came in a bottle, and a crazy Mexican religious candle for our friend's crazy Mexican religious candle collection. We laughed about the little rooms to the side with various country themes- we called the Swedish room Little Ikea and B wanted to get a pair of the big fuzzy wooden shoe slippers in the Holland room. About that time, we were starting to think maybe we'd wandered enough, so even though we missed out on the frozen food section and I hadn't seen a durian yet, we checked out.

The check out was an experience in itself. Q and B got bacon and their check out person was of a faith that didn't allow them to handle pork. Never fear, she had paper towels for just such an occasion. The Husband had put our groceries on the belt indiscriminately, so I worried they wouldn't get bagged well but the checker, bless her, bagged everything the way I would have without my needing to say anything. Awesome!

All in all, it was a really great trip. It was totally worth it to see all the "mythical" food items that we'd never seen before. We're totally going to again when they have the Ikea open.