Bought a kilo from the Mennonites

One of the highlights of my weekend is the trip to the Moldy Store, aka the Dented Can Store, aka Grocery Surplus. The moldy food store, located some twenty miles from home, is run by part of the local Mennonite contingency. When the nearest "full service grocery store" (sounds like a gas station more than a grocery store), located about eighteen miles from home, looks like a Western Family truck overturned, the Moldy Store is a veritable treasure trove of diverse and unpredictable food options for our pantry.

When the Moldy Store received stock from an Asian market, we scored fish sauce, fun sauce, sesame oil, and coconut milk. Salvage from a Latino bodega yielded enchilada sauce, chipotles in adobo sauce, Cafe Barilla espresso drinks, annatto seeds, and the coolest development in sweetened condensed milk: the upright squeeze bottle. My girlfriend's Christmas stocking (her chosen alias is LaVonda (from Sordid Lives)) featured a selection of gum with psycho flavours like Spearmint-Watermelon and Apple-Raspberry. The day I discovered their stock from a gourmet store was a grocery budget buster. At the Moldy Store, you never know what you're going to find, and when you do find something awesome, you'd best stock up and then decide whether or not to tell a friend.

My most recent visit to the Moldy Store yielded a kilo of yerba mate. Imported direct from Argentina, not a speck of English on the packaging ... a kilo of loose leaf yerba mate. For $1.99. Go team! The cashier was pleased that I bought some, as they had no idea what it was. She said they were a little nervous about selling a "loose leaf killed herb" in kilo packages with only Spanish information. That was the best translation they could piece together from their pocket Spanish-English dictionary. I explained that maté is Spanish for "I killed ...", but that without the accent mark, the word had an entirely different nomenclature.

We're still working out the best home brewing method to avoid that whole "grit/sludge at the bottom" issue since we lack a true mate. That being said, however, I'll be looking to pick up another kilo next week.

The Moldy Store is, incidentally, also the source of some amusing additions to our kitchen "doorway of doom". The door frame is, in a throw back to the first professional kitchen in which I worked, decorated with amusing signs, logos, and labels. The best contribution from the Moldy Store is the one that reads "Bimbo Bakeries U.S.A."

In addition to remaindered food items, the Moldy Store is also a source of cheap farm-fresh eggs, local honey, hand-rolled Amish butter, beef, elk, bison, and buffalo, as well as Hutterite chickens and turkeys.

On this same most recent trip, I was excited to find chorizo, but then a closer look at the ingredients thoroughly deflated my elation. The chorizo was labeled as "all beef", but the ingredients list started naming names, or rather specific body parts. Less-than-savory body parts. Total T.M.I. overload. I, understandably, spent the rest of the day pining for the amazing Aurelia's Chorizo that Eggy Confit and I discovered at Spanish Table one day. Oh well; I'll know to stock up next time we're in Seattle. Until then, though, it's the Moldy Store for me!