Tuesday, August 16, 2011


I don’t care for shopping and try to stay home when my spouse is involved in this activity. During my high school years I worked in a grocery store and don’t mind helping in this area of shopping if it’s not at Walmart or HEB. I hate those two stores because they are so large and impersonal. I can’t find anything and they are usually full of tattooed fat people standing ahead of me in line at checkout with baskets brimming with every item in the store.

My favorite store is located in the Village of Salado where we lived for 20 years. The store is Brookshire’s. It has been expanded and contains everything you need. They even have fresh seafood. It’s a clean place that is usually not crowded, and the shoppers are decent looking folks. I love the section with cheeses, hams and other goodies that must be sliced, The salesperson is friendly and will even let me sample the goodies. The cheese from this area is much better than the prepackaged stuff.. The salesperson usually gives me all sorts of helpful advice, like what kind of meat to buy at his favorite country meat market.

I love the store because I usually see someone I know and we strike up a friendly conversation. Yesterday, while I was waiting for my cheese to be sliced this old cowboy looking guy, who must have been in his late 80s, started talking to me. He was wrinkled and weather beaten but friendly as a puppy. We started up an interesting conversation about this country meat market where he bought hogs head cheese. I hadn’t thought about hogs head cheese for years. He claimed it was one of ihs favorite foods. That’s the kind of people I like to visit with. He made me think of all sorts of goodies I sampled when I was a kid. Most of these have been forgotten in modern times. Most people never heard of scrambled hog brains and eggs. I have also eaten fried chicken’s feet, pickled pigs feet and tongue. The old cowboy got me to thinking about hogs head cheese which is really not a cheese at all but a mixture of various scraps from the hog, such as ears, tongue and all parts of the head except the eyes. These parts of the hog are cooked and prepared in a gel like mold. It’s not bad if you don’t think about what you are eating.

Anyway, I enjoy shopping at Brookshires because of the colorful characters you meet and the interesting things you learn. It’s great entertainment.

2 Comments:

Blogger B(O)B said...

"....hogs head cheese...."
No thanks! Ugh! Hee, Hee!

7:03 AM  
Blogger Calvin Bowden said...

My avoritegrocery sore as a boy was also a Brookshirestore, located on theedge of the "Hitchlot"wherefarmers let teir mles and wagons when they came to town on Saturday. What a great sight that was, viewing all tose trays of food, candies andfruits. My favorte was th large Delicious apple, sent from Washintton state. They wee much large then, and sweeter. And ou could buy one for a nickle.

1:02 PM  

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