Be not schmuck, be not obnoxious
In which I stare at a wall of jams and have a cultural disconnect. An experience from this afternoon.
Employee of Cardullo's: Hello, can I help you find anything?
Me: (holding a jar of apricot jam already) Yes, please. Do you carry prune and poppy?
E.C.: I'm sorry, we don't sell poppy seeds, but we have prunes right over here.
(The prunes are in a plastic container with a Cardullo's sticker on them and otherwise indistinguishable from the significantly less expensive kind I have at home already, waiting to be made into prune filling if I can't locate any of the storebought kind. Which I was hoping to do at a store with a wall of jams.)
Me: Thanks, but I was looking for prune preserves. And poppy seed paste. I'm making hamantashn.
E.C.: Oh. (after showing me the shelf with tins of almond and pistachio paste, which is not what I'm looking for, either) We only carry those around the holidays.
Me: (mentally) What holidays? What other holidays are there where people buy up stores of poppy seed paste? Bake Mohntaschen? Do you have a run on hamantash fillings around Passover? Do you only celebrate the Latke-Hamantash Debate in this town? And while I'm being incredulous, the holidays? (aloud) Do you know anywhere else around here that sells them, then?
E.C.: No. They're specialty items.
Me: Thank you.
(I purchase a jar of damson jam, because it is plummy and unusual, and my original jar of apricot jam, resisting the employee's hard sell on a different brand, and a couple of caramels because some of them are the salt kind I like and others are made with balsamic vinegar and that's either a stroke of genius or a terrible idea—it's the former, fortunately—and I leave.)
Ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nineweaving; she was there.
On the bright side, even though I had to go to Lexington because we still don't have a functioning oven at home, I made nearly six dozen hamantashn tonight. The flavors are apricot, damson, strawberry (only a few, because the jam liquefied while baking), homemade prune (needed more soaking time, but the taste is good—sweetened with honey and cinnamon), and homemade poppy (totally unsuccessful, but I ate one as soon as it came out of the oven anyway. Tasted like a bagel. Not enough honey. Next year with more prep time). Some of them are coming to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
phi's birthday tomorrow. derspatchel ate one of the apricots when I got home and involuntarily patted his tummy.
So my day was, ultimately, emotionally and traditionally satisfying, and as a side effect of baking at my parents' house, I got to see the completed redecoration of my ex-bedroom into a nursery for the days every week my mother is babysitting her grandchild (it has a violet accent wall, a crib my father built, and art from four generations), but seriously, I didn't think either prunes or poppy seeds were that obscure.
Employee of Cardullo's: Hello, can I help you find anything?
Me: (holding a jar of apricot jam already) Yes, please. Do you carry prune and poppy?
E.C.: I'm sorry, we don't sell poppy seeds, but we have prunes right over here.
(The prunes are in a plastic container with a Cardullo's sticker on them and otherwise indistinguishable from the significantly less expensive kind I have at home already, waiting to be made into prune filling if I can't locate any of the storebought kind. Which I was hoping to do at a store with a wall of jams.)
Me: Thanks, but I was looking for prune preserves. And poppy seed paste. I'm making hamantashn.
E.C.: Oh. (after showing me the shelf with tins of almond and pistachio paste, which is not what I'm looking for, either) We only carry those around the holidays.
Me: (mentally) What holidays? What other holidays are there where people buy up stores of poppy seed paste? Bake Mohntaschen? Do you have a run on hamantash fillings around Passover? Do you only celebrate the Latke-Hamantash Debate in this town? And while I'm being incredulous, the holidays? (aloud) Do you know anywhere else around here that sells them, then?
E.C.: No. They're specialty items.
Me: Thank you.
(I purchase a jar of damson jam, because it is plummy and unusual, and my original jar of apricot jam, resisting the employee's hard sell on a different brand, and a couple of caramels because some of them are the salt kind I like and others are made with balsamic vinegar and that's either a stroke of genius or a terrible idea—it's the former, fortunately—and I leave.)
Ask
nineweaving; she was there.On the bright side, even though I had to go to Lexington because we still don't have a functioning oven at home, I made nearly six dozen hamantashn tonight. The flavors are apricot, damson, strawberry (only a few, because the jam liquefied while baking), homemade prune (needed more soaking time, but the taste is good—sweetened with honey and cinnamon), and homemade poppy (totally unsuccessful, but I ate one as soon as it came out of the oven anyway. Tasted like a bagel. Not enough honey. Next year with more prep time). Some of them are coming to
phi's birthday tomorrow. derspatchel ate one of the apricots when I got home and involuntarily patted his tummy.So my day was, ultimately, emotionally and traditionally satisfying, and as a side effect of baking at my parents' house, I got to see the completed redecoration of my ex-bedroom into a nursery for the days every week my mother is babysitting her grandchild (it has a violet accent wall, a crib my father built, and art from four generations), but seriously, I didn't think either prunes or poppy seeds were that obscure.
no subject
no subject
Better luck to you! (And please report if you do find any in Whole Foods. There wasn't one within immediate radius of me or I'd probably have tried them, although felt weird about the entire thing.)
Went the hamantaschenfest well?