Shop-Rite has largely abandoned its previous Kosher commitments, mostly for understandable reasons. Skeletal fresh poultry, almost no beef. Trader Joe's has added steaks, ground beef, and sometimes cubes. This mostly suffices a couple of empty nesters. But I really got spoiled on my visit to Baltimore. Seven Mile Market is apparently the largest dedicated Kosher market in the USA. I could find anything on my visit. Its distance makes it impractical for the few things I'd get. Much closer sits a project similar to our Shop-Rite agreement, of blessed memory. It serves a much larger Orthodox and Conservative group of kosher consumers. The GPS set the trip at 45 minutes to cover the thirty miles, including a bridge crossing.
The challenge to my driving skills aside, I found the scale of the surroundings intimidating. This supermarket probably has twice the square footage of my local Shop-Rite. It sits at the edge of a shopping complex with its two entrances separated by 0.4 miles. The parking area and the store just seemed vast. People take their carts from dedicated sections where the previous shoppers left them. Apparently they economize on gofers to harvest the carts back to the store's entrance. Not seeing any at the entrance, I went back to the parking lot to retrieve mine.
Knowing that the store was immense, I started at Customer Service to inquire which sections contain the kosher products. Unlike my local store which had cases of meat with other meet, a bakery, and a deli case with other deli, this Shop-Rite consolidated their kosher offerings as effectively a mini-store within a store, though keeping the baked goods with other baked goods, but labelled as kosher-pareve. I walked in, where I greeted the attendant. As I conveyed my story of my local arrangement shutting down, he responded that he also lived in my town for two years during the early days of the agreement.
I came for beef and found quite a lot. Big slab of raw pastrami. An eye roast, beef cubes. I even found a veal chop at a price acceptable to me, something I've not had for years. They had prepared stuff. I got a chicken pot pie. And a salami and a tube of kishke. A few other things not available to me at home. The kosher nook even had a tzedakah box, a tradition at kosher shops. I added a dollar. As tempting as the meat cases looked, I did my best to limit purchases to what could fit in my freezer. All fit into the single insulated bag that I brought with me. $149. As I added to my cart, I also considered when I might use each item. Beef cubes, Rosh Hashanah which spans Shabbos and Sunday. No guests coming, have to be able to get to services. Crock pot of cholent or stew will satisfy that. The eye roast: guests in the sukkah. I bought a slab of beef: subdivide for three shabbos dinners. The pastrami: guests, as we have no upcoming birthdays. Tub of chopped liver, that's mine. Turkey slices, weeknight dinner probably.
Waze took me through places I'd probably not choose to drive on my own. Interestingly, when I first came to the Philadelphia area as a student, then borrowed my parents' car to visit my girlfriend the last two years, many of the highways I use now had not yet been developed. The NJ Turnpike exited me near Cherry Hill, followed by a drive past strip malls and auto malls, into some parts of Camden where you try not to stop, then across the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia. I've not driven across the Ben Franklin in decades, and can't remember the last time I took a bus from Philly to NYC that crossed it. Yet the highways on the NJ side had a familiar look. The shopping places had greatly expanded with chains that did not exist 50 years ago. And the life of the roads also showed deterioration with partial repairs. I remember transitions from one numbered route to another that required drivers to express some chutzpah to claim the lane they needed. On the route from home to Shop-Rite, it spared me the dangers of Camden itself, but skirted it more closely on the way back. Waze's algorithm returned me home by a route better maintained, roads more suitable for modern highway driving.
I am hoping that my purchases will last from about the Holy Days through Thanksgiving. Shop-Rite and Trader Joe's offer enough for ordinary uses. Now that I have a few hard to obtain treats, though, I have to invite more guests.
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