Tag Archives: shamokin

Bacon Strips and Bacon Strips and Bacon Strips

Really America? Deep fried snickers wrapped in bacon? Triple patty cheeseburgers with slices of bacon? Panera Bread serving a simple salmon croissant sandwich to include a slice of bacon. Oy… America…our society is already in such an extreme obese state and now we have this brilliant idea to top everything off with a bit of bacon. Eek… I’m curious, what are your honest feelings or thoughts on this?

I can’t fib to you, we have been no exception to the rule with our food intake. To be frank with you all, we’ve gained collectively around five to ten pounds since landing back on our US soil. Everything has revolved around food on our trip. I felt like we barely would be finished with one meal and we’d be planning or chatting about our next. Truly the American way, right?

I wish I could tell you that we stuffed our little bellies to pure bliss, however while yes we did stuff our bellies, we honestly didn’t find the same satisfaction or fulfillment that we thought we’d have afterwards. Food now tasted much more rich, sweet, salty, all around different.

Poor Mr. B ate a Wendy’s cheeseburger on the way home from our flight arrival into the airport. The first thing out of his mouth was that it tasted like eating a stick of butter. I never did get a burger from Wendy’s while I was home so I really couldn’t concur or deny his thoughts.

Has the food really changed this much over the past two years? Or, is it us that has changed so much in our taste and diets while living abroad? Whatever the case, the best meals to us were our good old fashion families home cooked meals. Our central Pennsylvania Dutch and polish cuisine roots. Yes, pork and sauerkraut, chicken corn soup, chicken and waffles, pittsburgh chicken cheesesteak salads, raisin filled cookies, shoofly pie, sweet lebanon bologna sandwiches, hot lettuce, whoopie-pies, fresh beef burgers from my families livestock, soupies, capicola ham, Troutmans ham spread, dry beef gravy, and ice-cold birch beer. Mmmm Mmmm!

Prepare yourself for the following… these are just a few fun food photos we  got to savor  while home.

Thanks Brad for the blog title inspiration from your tee.

James’ Pizza

Speaking of another place that hasn’t changed, we visited James’ Pizza. You know the type of place where all of the locals know each other and when you walk in the whole place turns and looks at you, they know you are an outsider. It’s okay.. we figured they don’t get to see many Korean’s in this part of the world. Just kidding.

James’ is known for their hot cheese pizza. We know you are thinking, what makes this hole in the wall so special? Three words, hot, cheese, pizza! Not just any cheese, but spicy american cheese served on a rectangle shaped pizza.

Mr. B and his family have such fond memories of James’ and have been frequenting for years and years. I was lucky to get introduced to this dusty coal region gem when I first met Mr. B. In the summer we’d swim and run up to James’ pizza and order a half-baked hot cheese pizza, take home bake the rest of the way and devour it. Those were the days!

Yes, the menu is very small and hasn’t expanded very much over the 50 some years that the doors have been open, but that’s okay with its crowd. James’ knows what they do well, and boy do they really do it well!

This time our friend Scott tagged along with us, this was his first time. He’s now hooked and is already planning his next visit. Unfortunately Scott also learned the hard way about James hot cheese pizza fresh out of the oven. Molten lava temp’d cheese! Eek! Watch out for that! The melting of the roof of your mouth will be with you for days, but the experience is well worth it in the end. Just ask Scott!