Plantains from Spain are far from plain

I do much of my grocery shopping at the Towers Mall Kroger's, thanks largely to the new gas station at the bottom of the hill and the fact that I get a dime off gas for every $100 I spend on groceries (or gift cards!).

I may not be proud of basing my entire shopping habits on the consumption of oil, especially since my commute is a whopping 15 minutes at worst. But that Kroger's does have other qualities, and one of those is the selection of weird foods I've never tasted.

Enter the Plantain. Now, I know Plantains aren't from Spain, but none of the other countries rhymed, and I needed a snazzy title. The plantain is a really big banana, though obviously not a regular banana like you had in your grade school lunchbox because the hide is thicker.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who's unfamiliar with how you're supposed to eat these things, cause the sticker clearly stated specific instructions on how to tell when it's ripe (it's mostly black) and how to prepare it, which is by frying it up after chopping into 3/4 inch slices.

So last night, that's just what I did, having no idea if I was supposed to spray the pan with Canola or maybe throw in some olive oil. I opted for the latter when they started to stick, and because it made a far more gratifying sizzle that made me feel like I was doing something.

The wife was out with a friend, so beyond the sticker's instruction, I was pretty much winging it. I figured that - since it was fried - it must not be too sweet, so I slapped some Red Hot on it, and some of that other hot sauce with the rooster on it like you see in Indian food restaurants.

The end result you can see for yourself, but the taste: delicious. I got off kinda lucky there, I think; they probably tasted good to begin with, and there was only so much I could screw up. But I dipped them in a little ranch and they tasted a little like chipped sweet potato.

The morale of the story? Sure, Roanoke's not as big or as cosmopolitan as some larger cities where plantains surely play second fiddle to really creepy foods, but it's nice to know that if I want to play around with my dinner, exotic food is only minutes away.

The Roanoke Rush

During an inevitable and long put-off trip to Wally World, I discover that dog food is still missing in any significant quantity, forcing my to buy a paltry 17 pound bag for my 45 pound dog.

As you might imagine, this is the aftermath of the mad rush to stock up on anything from bread to milk to dog food whenever inclement weather threatens like it did late last week.

Friends and co-workers alike knew of and acknowledge the indefatigable routine of Salemites and Roanokers stocking up like it's the Armageddon when a day or two of ice or snow looms, and yet they still likewise acknowledge the need to "pick a few things up" despite the rush.

I spent a few winters in Montana where maybe such a habit is justified, but Roanoke? A friend of mine who works at Atlas Cold Storage (which supplies frozen goods to Kroger's) tells me how business there booms whenever weather predictions turn gray, like some pre-cognition of winter storms if anyone missed the weather update on the way to work.

Now, this might have some historical context, like maybe back in 1903 Roanokers faced a giant winter storm for which they failed to prepare, resulting in dozens of unfortunate souls sealed in their homes without a spot of food or wood to burn.

That or some likened story might have been the catalyst for this mysterious hoarding instinct (and if so, I'd love to hear about it), but otherwise, it's a little odd from bird's eye view.