Category: Beyond the Olympic Peninsula

Take mine. They’re free.

Okay. You say “escargo,” I say, “escargot.” Maybe the free range kind, you know, the native-born U.S. sort used to the wide open spaces, maybe their species has a different name spelling.

This was in front of a restaurant in Annacortes. They can have all the free range escargot they can find in my garden. They’re hearty. And well fed.

You are what you drink

I had a rush of memories when I saw these Coke bins recently at Gere-A-Deli in Annacortes. I remember galvanized bins like this at outdoor events filled with bottles of soda – bottles, not cans, mind you – and never, ever enough ice to combat the heat.

I suspect nonfat milk was the leading edge of our dieting obsessions, or, more accurately, our fantasies. Trade out one or two foods for a lighter alternative and the pounds melt away. Wouldn’t it be nice?

A trip down memory lane

We recently visited the Gere-A-Deli in Annacortes and in addition to a delicious lunch they served up a big side of nostalgia. He peaked before I was old enough to follow him (really!) but Hopalong Cassidy was a huge cultural icon, first through books, then via movies in the 1930s and 1940s. By the early 1950s Hopalong was on television and became an early branding franchise as his image was the first produced on children’s lunchboxes and 100 companies eventually producing products with his image. (I do remember Butternut bread.)

I don’t remember either of these brands; the big size of the cans makes me wonder if they were for restaurant use. But around our house we often had tins from various purchases or gifts that had second lives holding collections of sewing bits, nuts and bolts, small toys and the like. Tomorrow we’ll head back to Gere-A-Deli for a couple more – uhm, am I really that old? – artifacts.