Anybody got a bagel?

Yesterday Herman and I left the big metropolis of Waynesville and headed out west with Katie so that she could attend General Conference in Salt Lake City. It is a Blau family tradition to take each of the kids out to Conference when they turn 12 so that they can get a big picture view of the Church, feel the excitement and energy of being on Temple Square with thousands of other LDS people, and have some one on one time with Mom and Dad at such a pivotal time in their development. 

So here we are.

Yesterday was mostly spent travelling the skies between St. Louis and Salt Lake City, so we didn't do much when we arrived in Salt Lake. After getting settled in our hotel we decided to head out for a late dinner and a grocery run so that we had stuff for breakfast while we were here. 

We decided to eat at the famous Crown Burgers in Salt Lake City for Katie's first culinary experience of the long weekend. This restaurant was featured on Man vs. Food, so those familiar with that television show should know that that means that we shouldn't be expecting anything good for our diets. There would be fat ... lots of fat. But unless you are violently opposed to tapping your inner carnivore, you really haven't had a burger until you've eaten a Crown Burger.

What is a Crown Burger?

Well, it is an obscenely large hamburger topped with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, onions, and a crazy amount of shaved pastrami. The burger I'm holding above is actually the junior sized burger. I can't imagine anyone being able to eat much more than this. By the time I willed myself to finish this I felt as if I had helped myself to an entire cow. So much meat. It is delicious. So delicious. But I couldn't help but feel horribly guilty after I got done eating. Something tells me that my old lady gastrointestinal system is going to be paying for this for a long time this weekend. Yummy ... but ugh!

Katie doing her best to finish off her first Crown Burger.

Our Adventure of the Day (not counting our race through the Denver airport to make a connecting flight after our St. Louis to Denver flight had been delayed. The gate was close. We made it. Fun!) occurred when we headed off to find a grocery store. We brought one of our GPS units from home to keep us from getting horribly lost while we are out here. (But to be honest, it is almost impossible to get lost in Utah. The streets are planned out almost perfectly with street names and numbers that make sense. Plus the mountains help keep you oriented all the time, as long as you can see them.) Still, we liked having the unit to get us where we were going. 

Just one problem ... it has been awhile since this particular GPS has been updated, so many of the businesses listed have changed. We headed to the local Albertson's grocery store to grab our breakfast yummies only to find a Rancho Market in its place. Now, I'm not familiar with Rancho Market at all. They don't have those in Missouri as far as I know. But as we pulled into the parking lot of what looked like a normal grocery store I made an assumption about what we would find inside. It looked like Rancho Market was a Latin market with food specially catered to the Hispanic population. But it looked like a regular super market. In Missouri the only Latin markets I have found are usually tiny little shops in tiny little strip malls. This was not. This was a huge super market with its own large parking lot and a surprisingly large number of shoppers at 9:00 at night ... like an Albertson's.

We headed inside and I began to have China flashbacks. We definitely stood out as we walked into the store. Everyone inside, from the employees to the shoppers was Hispanic. Everyone. But just like China, although I noticed this, it didn't really make any difference. I didn't feel weird or unsafe. Maybe I felt a little touristy ... especially once I pulled out my camera so I could take some pictures.

It was just so cool!

The produce section was amazing. We walked through that section before I thought about pulling out my camera, so I don't have any pictures to go with my description, but the fruit and vegetables in this section were AMAZING. The grapefruit there were the size of bowling balls. Huge! Unfortunately I am traveling with a couple of anti-grapefruit fuddy duddies, so we didn't grab one for our breakfast. Everything looked and smelled so fresh and delicious. After having to get the heavily preserved produce of the Walmarts back home, it was nice to actually be able to smell what fresh produce should smell like. 

There was an entire aisle dedicated to Goya products ... an entire aisle! For those who don't know, these are the Hispanic products that are often found in the Mexican cooking section of many grocery stores. But I have never seen as many Goya products as I saw in this store. They were so important that the aisle was even labeled as a Goya aisle. Nothing can make me realize just how inexperienced I am when it comes to Mexican food preparation than walking down a Goya aisle unable to know exactly what food products I am looking at. So many things I have never heard of!

I loved being in China and seeing American food items with a Chinese twist. I found the same thing here. There were so many flavors of Doritos. I should have grabbed a bag to try, but every single one looked like it would set my mouth on fire. After putting my system through the Crown Burger experience I thought my body would come out in open rebellion against me if I added a fire Dorito to the mix. 

At one point Herman left us to head to the drug store next door, and then Katie and I were left to our poor Spanish language skills to figure out what to purchase. It really wasn't all that difficult. There were lots of pictures to help gringos like us. But it was still an adventure. Katie and I decided we were going to be DARING. We wanted to get something we hadn't eaten before, but something that was hotel room friendly. Our choice?

Microwave popcorn with a flavor we had never heard of ... MANTEQUILLA!

Now all of you Spanish speakers stop laughing at us. I mean it. Stop laughing. We really thought we were buying some exotically flavored popcorn. We were so excited ... until we got to the cash register, turned the box over, and saw exactly what the word 'mantequilla' means ...

BUTTER!!!

Total gringo moment. Herman thought that was hilarious. We could have used his fancy Spanish language skills at that moment.

When we got to the register I remembered that I wanted to have bagels to eat for breakfast. We quickly headed over to the "bread" aisle. 

I know that the sign says bread, but this was no bread aisle ... at least not what we expected. I didn't find one bag of yeast risen bread. Not one. Instead I found an entire bakery dedicated to making tortillas. Hundreds and hundreds of tortillas. I had no idea that there were so many different shapes, sizes, thicknesses, and flavors of tortillas. So many.

This picture really doesn't do the section justice. It was a huge section filled with so many bakery made tortillas. No bagels.

We did eventually find a spot with yeast bread. It was a tiny shelf near the checkout lanes ... like a specialty shelf you would see in any other sort of super market. Interesting.

So I didn't get my bagels for this morning, but that's okay. We did get a couple of items that made Katie and Herman almost giddy. Katie got a chance to buy a Mexican made Sprite. Word on the street is that Coke and Sprite made in Mexico is soooo much better than American made soda because they use real sugar and not the high fructose corn syrup used in our country. We'll see. We are saving the drink for a bit later on the trip.

And Herman found an entire shelf dedicated to one of his cravings developed during his years in Brazil ...

Guarana!!

I would love it if a store like this showed up in Missouri someday. It was an unexpected but fun way to end our day.

So our day wasn't full of great momentous occasions, but it was a Blau Family Adventure. I love those! Looking forward to a great weekend full of them with our sweet Katie!