Father's Day

 I don't know what other families do to celebrate Father's day, but this is what our family did.

Any of you who are regular readers, know that our family gets great joy from supermarket tourism. Our kids began discussing what to do to celebrate their father. Initially they thought that we should go to a Lower East Side pickle festival, My husband loves pickles. I can't eat them and our youngest detests pickles and the smell of brine. Those of us who are not pickle inclined were ready to go along for the ride because we love the honoree.

We had discovered that the festival would be less attractive a destination than anticipated. So we suggested instead a visit to Netcost in Rego Park. The last time we had gone, in addition to the vast array of Eastern European foods they also sold kosher meat. We thought that the perfect Father's Day activity would be grocery shopping.

We all met at the market.

There are two different sour cream departments. One of them showed

Israeli style and Canadian style sour cream cheek by jowl. I don't know the difference but it did make me immediately think of our friends Kobi and Kara who are both Canadian and Israeli and how much I miss having them as neighbors.

I just loved the label on the beautiful mini  cucumbers.  

This isn't a mix of vegetables and they are in a box and not in a bag, but they are really lovely.

We didn't buy the jarred pickled sorrel.

Nor did we buy the cheesecloth bag of cottage cheese. I admired the packaging.

Of course I found the funny mushrooms to be amusing.

We didn't buy the salted butter fish. I have heard of butterfish but have never seen it before.

The Rego Park branch of Netcost used to carry kosher meat but alas didn't yesterday. They still have the blessing one recites after using the bathroom posted outside of the restroom

You can buy packages of kosher deli meat but they no longer had a kosher meat counter or the large cases filled with precooked kosher dishes.

We are very fond of the packaging on this brand of chocolate which we call Ugly Baby Chocolate. The chocolate isn't very good.

In addition to Ugly Baby Chocolate they also sold Glamour Baby chocolate

as well as

Terrified Child chocolate.

We all did lots of shopping.

There was an aisle filled with nothing but sunflower seeds. I can't tell you why I chose this particular bag.

We bought a large bottle of the green tarragon soda which looks like Lestoil and is something of an acquired taste. We are very fond of it. My husband also chose a large bottle of rye bread soda.  it is a Russian delicacy. It's definitely weird.

I bought a container of farmer cheese as well as a very dark and heavy loaf of pumpernickel. I had the farmer cheese on the black bread and topped with thinly sliced cucumber and red pepper. It was a deeply satisfying lunch.

My husband paid for everyone's groceries and then we walked over to Cheburechnaya where we ate

such a glorious lunch that I didn't eat any dinner last night.

These pigeons were standing in formation on the top of an art-deco building in Rego Park. No, that isn't a flying fish but another pigeon.

Our older son biked home. Our daughter took a taxi and we drove our youngest home to his apartment in Brooklyn.

SOMETHING is on the top of the Empire State building for the promotion of a movie.

We all had such a great day together.