Howard County Shopping Odyssey

I set out this afternoon to fill a prescription and ended up with a bag of empanadas, and that's why I love Howard County. I walked into the Target at Long Gate and was immediately greeted with good news.

The idea of being able to get my Target shopping and grocery shopping done all at once is something I have been looking forward to for a very long time. While I was waiting for my prescription, I was wandering the aisles (always dangerous) and remembered that I needed a new 12" frying pan. But I was disappointed in what I found at Target, nothing seemed to be decent enough quality to justify the price. So after I finished at the pharmacy, I headed down Route 1 to see what I could find at Sysco, the restaurant supply store.

Too bad I forgot they close early on Saturday and it was almost 4pm. But since I was there, I decided to wander through the flea market and maybe grab something to eat. Sadly, the flea market was closing up too with most of the stalls already covered in tarps and the food court in the process of shutting down, watched over by My Little Militia Melanie.

Since we were already on Route 1 and had run out of coffee this morning, we headed over to MOM's to grab a bag of Zeke's but when we got

there, we realized we were far too hungry to go inside a grocery store so we headed around the corner to Pollo Fuego to eat our body weight in plantains and some chicken too. Stuffed full of Peruvian poultry goodness, we were able to get out of MOM's with just the bare necessities; coffee, half and half, and garlic powder.

As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I remembered reading on HowChow that the Latin market across the street sold frozen empanadas. I haven't had a decent empanada since Produce Galore went out of business so I have been eager to get over there. I wandered around, looking through all the freezer cases but no empanadas. I resigned myself to the terrible fate of buying fresh-baked empanadas and having to eat them immediately and ordered a bunch from the really friendly employee at the counter. I asked her about the frozen ones and she explained they keep them in the back, you just have to ask. Good to know for next time. I got the chicken, beef, ham and cheese, and spinach flavor so I will know which ones to stock the freezer with.

Bonus: they had a flavor of Goya soda I had never seen before.It smells like Worchester sauce but it really does taste like carbonated sangria, which is to say it tastes really good.