Ode to the Independent Grocery Store

I taught this morning in Rocky Mount, NC. Since it was a one class day I finished at noon. I looked at my map (still call GPS a map). To see what was around the club where I was teaching. As I squeezed my fingers closer together giving me an ever wider view of the surrounding area I noticed the name of Dortches.

One time when I was staying at the beach with Reba Huckabee she said that her husband Jim was making a detour to the Red and White in Dortches on his way to the beach. I had never heard of Dortches, but I have had some good local shopping experiences at various Red and White stores through the years.

Jim arrived with store made sausage and barbecue, store made jams and cheeses. When I say store made you should think homemade, by your grandmother. I tucked that bit of information about the Dortches Red and White in the back of my memory and when the name popped up on my map I decided a trip there was in order on my way home.

Thanks to my “Map” I had no trouble finding the store, whose actual name is Smith Red and White, which I think makes up all of Dortches. I went inside and it looked like most grocery stores, until you looked at the giant display of cheese straws by the front door labeled Smith Cheese Straws.

I rambled by the vegetable displays, putting a bag of $3.99 sweet potatoes in my cart. I had mentioned to Russ that I might make a sausage , sweet potato and kale casserole and since this place was known for its sausage I got the requisite sweet potatoes. The display of pork offerings was overwhelming. Since I did not bring a cooler and we are not home that much I held off.

What I did enjoy was the huge display of Smith branded pickled and preserved jars. There must have been 300 different things from cling peaches in jars, homemade sauces and dressings, fig and damson preserves to the pickled jalapeños and okra I purchased for Russ. Giant quart jars for under $8.

I sashayed passed the sweet potato pies and Carmel cakes for $14, looking a lot like the $65 version of Caroline cakes. I skipped the cole slaw, looking like it had too much dressing, on the way to the barbecue, an easy choice for dinner with some homemade sauce, homemade at the store and not at my home.

I did pick up one non-store item, some red pepper flakes we ran out of last night. The small side trip on my way home seemed like it was a good idea. The cost was minimal and the variety was huge. It was a store my father would have loved. Local produce canned and put up just the way his mother did it.

As I was wielding my way back towards the front of the store to pay I lingered at the canning supplies aisle. I have my own produce I grow and could put up, but after seeing the prices at Dortches I decided it’s not worth my time. I am better off teaching Mah Jongg and buying their “homemade.”