{ traveling cupcake : jungle jim's }

Hello from Ohio!

I accompanied my mom on a little trip out here--she'll be staying awhile, but I'll need to go back for work before too long. Still, I was able to get a bit of time off. We decided it might be a nice idea to come out to Ohio and house-hunt for a few days (well, Mom will be at it for a lot longer. She's also got some promising job prospects out here!) before we actually moved here. The way my family tends to procrastinate on big events like this, it was probably a good plan to get started now.

That said, today my aunt and one of my cousins decided they needed to show me this mysterious store they kept talking about called Jungle Jim's. (At first I thought it was one of those places where you could rent bounce houses--my second guess was a further-east version of the Rainforest Cafe). Turns out, it was neither! Jungle Jim's is the biggest, most diverse international market I've ever been to. I wanted to live there! 

I probably could have taken about sixty more pictures of the exciting foods I came across, but I figured I already looked pretty tourist-y taking any to begin with. (Not that I minded, I guess, since I sort of am a tourist right now.) To summarize, I saw innumerable spices that will now need to be purchased for my cabinets. Seriously, I don't even want to think about how many curry recipes I could try with the correct seasonings. Even at Sprouts, which has a pretty wide selection of out-there spices, I usually just had to substitute something different when I was experimenting with international cooking. There were adorably-packaged snacks (which I picked up for Marcus), great prices on produce and about a thousand samples. My cousin and I took turns pointing out the little counters when we could find them. Off the top of my head, I think we tried salsa, pierogies, cheese, a cheesecake spread on little cookies and dumplings. They only gave you little bite-sized pieces of everything, so it was pretty tempting to try to go back for more!

I also got to try a really interesting drink called...rum-chata? I don't actually recall very well what the lady called it, but it was a churro-flavored alcoholic beverage. The exchange was pretty funny, actually.

Katie: Do you have samples here?

Lady: Uhm...well, yes, there's some cheese!
Katie: Do you have drink samples?
Lady: ....Yyeeeess...
Katie: ...I'm 21, want to see?
Lady: Yes!
Katie: I thought you might.
Lady: It's just that...well...you're so cute! Look at your little cupcake hat! You look about seventeen. Do you hear that a lot? I bet you do. Do you hate it? I bet you really do. I used to, but now nobody says it to me anymore.
Katie: ...is there a limit to how much of that I'm allowed to "sample"?

The drink was actually really good. And no, I don't actually believe I minded too much about her comments. I think I decided a little bit ago to just lean into it. People think I'm seventeen? Might as well wear the cupcake hat and enjoy myself. 

Which I did!

I can't wait to live here. My kitchen's going to be so packed.