Hello and good morning!
It’s a quick little post today. I’ve been having a craving for Publix’s Southern Style Potato Salad and I was able to find a dupe recipe online. Brian made it over the weekend and it’s a pretty good replacement. My only critique was just a touch more mayo and mustard as it was slightly dry for me.
Do you ever get cravings for very specific brand foods or regional foods?
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Sarah’s post on Books as Luxury Items had a mention on Ep 466 – Buying Dracula Himself – Is Reading for Rich People Now? of Reading Glasses.
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Interested in vintage romances or collecting romance paperbacks? There’s a blog for that!
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If you’re a big fan of the 1984 Ghostbusters, now there’s a Gozer doll. I’m just tickled by its existence.
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Darker Times is a new a worker-owned, reader-supported horror magazine. Right now, they have some Pride content up!
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Grocery store potato salad is my go-to when I’m stressed out, so have been consuming a lot of it lately. I am intrigued by the Walmart Amish potato salad which is apparently a cult fave, but nervous about potentially not liking it because some store brands have been fails.
My sibling visited recently from the midwest, and their one request was to go to Taco Time, a Pacific Northwest fast food “Mexican” restaurant. Taco Time was the fancy fast food place we’d go growing up, and our favorites were/are a crisp bean burrito (kind of like a flour tortilla taquito but larger), a veggie soft taco (confusingly burrito shaped with refried beans, corn salsa, roasted pumpkin seeds and like, purple cabbage) and mexi fries dipped in ranch dressing (which is made with sour cream and the literal best).
Taco Time is comfort food for me!
@Penny: So interesting that you mention Taco Time because I saw an IG reel about Taco Time and Evil Taco Time.
OMG Evil Taco Time – don’t be fooled!
The sea salt peppercorn prepared wings from Costco are my latest obsession. So delicious.
When I travel, I end up craving sauteed spinach. Probably because most restaurants’ idea of vegetables is potatoes, whether they are baked, mashed, fried, or one of the million other ways to make potatoes. Usually they’ll also have salads and sometimes you can find a spinach salad. But I don’t see a whole lot of cooked leafy green veggies on the menu. This is true whether I’m traveling in the U.S. or abroad. About a week in, I start longing for sauteed or creamed spinach or roasted brocali. I do sometimes see roasted brussel sprouts on an appetizer menu. I was so happy two years ago when on a cruise in Australia that the ship’s buffet had sauteed spinach at their omelet station. I would just get the spinach and grab some scrambled eggs and sausage from the buffet to go with it. As for store bought foods that I crave, Wegmans has some good mac and cheese with Maryland crab on their wings hot bar.
@KarenG: Wegmans is my partner’s favorite grocery store and probably one of the biggest things they miss after moving out of the area.
The Walmart Amish potato salad is our go to. I even had it requested for Memorial Day. Sometimes I dress it up by adding some extra chopped sweet pickle and celery, but it’s fine by itself. I will get the Publix on occasion, but the Walmart is my definite go to. It does have some sweetness to it so if you don’t want any sweet, then it won’t work for you. Otherwise, it’s absolutely the best and one of the few reasons I will go to Walmart.
I love the Gozer doll! And her two little hellhound puppers. I wanted to be Gozer when I was little.
The thing I miss most from New England is Birch Beer. Boylan’s and Jones make a variation I can get here in the South but it’s not quite the same and much more expensive.
Something I miss here (because I’m not allowed to eat it anymore, now that I am a Medically Mandated Vegan) is Publix Tarragon Almond Chicken Salad (made with Duke’s mayo, which is the best mayo in the world IMO and I will miss that terribly if I ever move back up North.)
I have been to a Taco Time NW and I live in original TT territory. They’re both fine. I once got an aesthetically pleasing order of nachos from my local.
@HAT I don’t mind sweet as long as there’s a balance. I do like sweet pickles so will try it next time I’m at the Walmart market. Thanks!
@Amanda, I’ve long thought that Southern style potato salad as purchased from Publix has more mayo than potato.
Publix is the GOAT. Texas has never been able to convince me that HEB is better.
What I miss when I leave the NY metro area is the wide array of dairy products to put in my coffee in any convenience store. There’s cartons of whole milk, 2%, skim, half & half or light cream, oat milk, almond milk, artificial creamer cups and more. In other parts of the country you’ll get the artificial creamer cups, which I detest, and maybe little half & half cups.
Like Karen G., I crave those dark green veggies, and in NJ I can get roasted brussels sprouts or broccoli rabe or spinach in any decent supermarket like Wegman’s. I’m afraid to buy cooked veggies down South because they put bacon, which I don’t eat, in EVERYTHING.
@HeatherS, I agree, except for all the money donated by large shareholder(s) to support the incumbent’s presidential campaign. Sometimes I feel disquiet when I shop there.
I grew up in the Chicago area, and I long for Jay’s Potato Chips. Also Fannie Mae Candy, which was such a treat as a child. That Fannie Mae is long gone (several new owners came in over the years), but I can still remember the taste of their milk chocolate vanilla buttercreams!
Also the sour cream cucumber salad relatives used to make. I’ve tried different recipes but it doesn’t taste the same.
Maureen, my mother made cucumber salad this way: you peel & slice the cukes very thin(use a mandolin), salt and let them sit with a weight on them to draw out the water. The dressing is equal parts sour cream, mayo, sugar and lemon juice. After the cukes are limp, rinse and drain them, squeezing out the excess water. Mix in the dressing and chill well before eating.
@Karin– I am probably misunderstanding your mother’s recipe, but 1 part sour cream, 1 part mayo, 1 part sugar and one part lemon juice sounds like an odd hybrid of frosting and dressing. Other than the proportions, however, sounds promising.
@Merle, you can cut the sugar down if it seems too sweet for you, but the lemon juice and sour cream do offset it.
@Karin-thank you for your mother’s recipe! My problem is when a recipe says equal parts-I have no idea what that means unless I get a beginning measurement. Like @Merle mentioned, if I went with a cup-a cup of lemon juice sounds like a lot. But I’ve never successfully made this so what do I know? I do remember the salad had a slight taste of dill though. It bugs me because I wish I would have paid more attention to this when I was young!
@Maureen: I just made tzatziki with some left over cucumbers. Still have more so went looking for a recipe. Google offered up quite a few different versions of creamy cucumber salad. Most of them seem to be based on sour cream. They also call it a Southern classic. IDK. I’ve lived in the South all my life and I’ve never had cucumbers that way. But again, doesn’t seem all that different from tzatziki. The cucumbers aren’t grated, and sour cream substitutes for yogurt.
@Maureen, if you have 2 or 3 big cucumbers, I would start with 2 tbsp. of each ingredient for the dressing.
@Karin-thank you! I’m going to give it a try.