After I moved to California 21 years ago, I paid a pretty hefty shipping charge to have a case of Cheerwine shipped out here. I’ve since learned that while it’s not available in ever grocery store like it is back in NC, there are stores in CA that carry it. But I didn’t know that at the time.
I haven’t resorted to ordering it myself, but I did get my parents to order me some mail order barbecue from Parker’s for Christmas a few years ago.
I’ve tried to get every single person I know visiting from Peru to bring me authentic non processed version of Peruvian chancaca. Only occasionally succeed since apparently its becoming scarce over there also.
Except the original slogan for Jolt Cola was “All the sugar and twice the caffeine” so a sugar-free version is making half of that untrue.
Was it ever any good? I think their slogan was “all the sugar and twice the caffeine” but it was not crisp or jolting in any way.
As a transplanted NYer, my family here in CA insists that I bring back bread, and Black & White cookies when I visit home. Unfortunately, my return is often on a Monday, when many bakeries are closed, so it can be a scramble. I was able to find decent bread on the way to the airport, but no B&Ws. The (small) ones at the Zaro outlet at Newark airport were really dry, but there was another place that had the full-sized ones, so I came home with a lot, but none were great. My daughter has tried many of the Jewish delis in LA seeking a good black and white but none match the memories.
On that same recent trip, a key goal was to have a deep-fried hot dog at Rawley’s Drive-In in Fairfield, CT, where I worked 35 years ago - and it was just as delicious as I remembered.
The cost of shipping my favorite – Blenheim Old #3 Hot Ginger Ale – is $50 for 24 bottles. That puts it in the "yeah, that’s too expensive " category for me. My local Total Wine & More used to have it but I haven’t seen it in stock for awhile.
On my last Rt 66 road trip I was hoping to find some at Pops 66, the famous roadside stand in Oklahoma, but sadly their ginger ale selection did not include Blenheim.
My dad was too cheap to have them shipped to the west coast, so he’d pack a couple bags of NY bagels and bialys in his suitcase whenever he returned from a business or pleasure trip to the motherland. One time, he stowed a NY pizza in his carry-on!
When I took my family back east to visit the major east coast cities, I couldn’t wait to share black-n-whites with my kids. They were not the same as I remember, even in NY. We also tried a box of Drake’s Devil Dogs, and they also were not as I remembered. So we didn’t bring any of those memorable treats back west.
I would kill for any decent pizza. This place (MSP) is a pizza desert.
There was an all night restaurant in Santa Monica, part of a large chain- called Norms. For a very reasonable price, you could get a decent steak dinner. We went there often after all night gaming.
So i was talking about that place, and a buddy found one of the last ones- in West Hollywood, so we drove all the way over, and had an okay meal at a reasonable price.
I still don’t know why all the fish places–LJS, Treachers, H Salt–folded, since they’re just as (un)healthy as other fast food chains
Watta you talking about about?
It was fantastic when it had sugar in it!
Exspecially when youse mixed it with booze, likes whiskery or brandery.
And you’d sit up alls night like the Tasmanian Devil and twitch.
My best guess is the supply chain improved and better seafood restaurants opened throughout the United States. I remember a time when Red Lobster was the place to go for birthdays and graduations but this was when there weren’t many affordable places to get seafood in cities like Colorado Springs. It’s possible LJS was able to weather the storm better than their competitors.
I guess in the 80s having a menu comprised of nothing but fried food became something of a liability. Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their corporate name to KFC and not too long after that had an ad campaign touting themselves as “Kitchen Fresh Chicken.” LJS these days have quite a few grilled items on their menu. But I go there for food I know isn’t good for me and haven’t had any of their grilled menu items.
I guess it’s not so much trouble as much as a long trip. When I go back to Maine to visit my folks I often go to Rapid Ray’s for a cheese and a choc. That is some good late night teenage, sometimes drunken, memories. Rap’s was usually the last stop on the way home. And now, in an odd coincidence, Ray’s son, who now runs the place, lives across the street from my folks.
There has been a decline in the number of food court pizza places in the past couple of years, both at malls and elsewhere. Last month I had a hankering for some, and neither of the malls near me had any, so I drove 80 miles to the nearest mall that I knew had a pizza place in its food court.
(I did pick up some sneakers while I was there so I think it was worth the gas and time anyway. I needed a replacement for my Air Monarchs since the quality of them has dropped a lot lately, and none of the previous shoe store employees knew what I meant when I said that I wanted something like Air Monarchs but that weren’t actually Air Monarchs. I happened to spy similar looking shoes while walking by them at Dillard’s. The shoe clerk was knowledgeable enough about the shoes to correctly guess that they would be water resistant in the same way as Air Monarchs were because they were leather. It was only after I bought them that I noticed that the brand was “Coach” which I didn’t know made shoes. But it’s memorable branding because I’ll look for them in the future if I want more leather shoes.)
LJS remains dead in Colorado Springs (though a local favorite/equivalent of Captain D’s) still has two locations. Fundamentally the exact same sort of super unhealthy fried seafood and chintzy decor.
Red Lobster does stay surprisingly strong, with two open locations (one semi-recently renovated, and one older than time) in town. And yes, the town’s seafood options remain pitiful. We did have a Joe’s Crab Shack as competition for a few years, but it went the way of most of the locations.
I guess the most trouble I ever went to was to recreate a nostalgic food was my grandmother’s varenikis. Her version was comprised of dumplings stuffed with farmer’s cheese, briefly boiled, then sauteed in a mixture of butter, onions and sour cream. She had a Guernsey cow that produced a lot of milk. From that milk, my grandmother made her own butter, cream, sour cream and farmer’s cheese.
I only had her varenikis a couple of times when I was around 6 and 7. I loved them. Now and then, I thought about learning how to make them. I never found a recipe that quite duplicated hers, so I never attempted making them with a recipe.
When I was in my early 20s, I set about trying to recreate her recipe.
By trial and error, I finally figured it out. My first effort was a total flop. I used regular cottage cheese and regular cream. I finally figured out the farmer’s cheese and sour cream components. But commercial farmer’s cheese is not common, so I made that, too. Happily, it’s not difficult.
I can now recreate her varenikis whenever I want to. It’s still a fair amount of work and they are very calorie-laden, so I don’t make them often. But it’s nice to be able to do it when the mood strikes!
I’ve shared this story before, and it doesn’t really qualify for how far I personally went for a Nostalgic food, but it’s adjacent.
Almost two decades ago now, a close personal friend was craving Jack in the Box (before it returned to the state). So badly in fact, that he did a websearch to find the closest one to us in Colorado Springs. The answer was Las Cruces NM, about 630 miles away.
I offhandedly mentioned that was where I grew up, and my folks still lived. So it evolved that we would drive down, in his car, on his gas, and stay a few days with my folks who had two spare bedrooms available (my and my brother’s old rooms). So he got two helpings of Jack in the Box, I got to visit my folks, and also eat at a few places from my memories.
So he drove over 1200 miles round-trip to get Jack Tacos and a Sourdough Jack!
Fortunately there is a local place close by that sells Montreal bagels frozen when just out of the wood ovens. They are slightly pricey, but well worth it. Other bagels don’t really compare.
Brent’s Deli in Northridge, in addition to being the best deli in SoCal, has some very good black & white cookies. I highly recommend them (for all their food, not just the cookies).