First upfront I will tell you I take horrible pictures and forget to take pictures too so I can’t give as good of a “picture” of my day as I would like. But here was our itinary and some of my favorite purchases!
First we stopped at “Family Health Foods.”
Jenny and I had a wonderful time going up and down the isles looking at the supplements, herbs, and other health foods. I got some local super hot peppers and some garlic from there as well. My favorite finds were these purchases though:
Empty Capsules! The only other place I have seen these is Nolt’s Bulk Foods in Liberty, KY. What does one do with empty capsules you ask? Well we do a lot of natural remedies around here and one of our favorites is raw garlic. So good for so many things and makes a great natural antibiotic as well. But I’m not a big fan of the taste of raw garlic so I like to chop it up and stuff it in my empty capsules when I take it!
Manuka Honey! Honey is a great ointment for burns and scrapes and cuts. It has a lot of properties that have been shown to speed wound healing and also has antibacterial properties. Manuka Honey though is honey from New Zealand where bees are getting their pollen from the Manuka trees. This plant in itself is medicinal and I believe where we get Tea Tree Oil from (another staple in our natural medicine cabinet). But the honey that bees make from the Manuka Tree has been shown to be extremely effective in treating burns and also MRSA infections. With MRSA getting more and more common I was happy to find some of this without having to order online and pay shipping and this little jar will last for many a scraped knee or cut finger!
Xylitol Gum and Candies! These are probably not THAT hard to find but I had just recently learned about them and had yet to run across any gums or candy that were purely sweetened with xylitol. It is a sugar substitute that has showed a lot of promise and has been used for decades in other countries to prevent tooth decay. Soft teeth enamel runs in my family and this is one thing that I am hoping will help save them a few cavities. There is something about this sugar substitute that helps kill the bacteria in your mouth that causes cavities. And the other plus side to this- its one of the few sugar substitutes that to me still tastes like sugar. I’m not a fan of most sugar substitutes. I think they taste too fake. This tastes like regular gum or candy to me though!
Next we headed to Beachy’s Bulk Foods.
It was pretty crowded. I didn’t get any pictures inside because I was too busy just trying to find the things I was looking for while trying to keep Corban content and also stay our of other peoples way. I got a lot of stuff- blueberry jam, flours for baking, a bag of lucky charms type marshmallows (yes just the marshmallows my kids are going to love me when they find out I bought that for them!).
I also bought some seasonings, spices, and soup mixes. The only thing really unique that I bought there was Black Cocoa. And I really had no idea how it was different from regular cocoa or what I would use it for, it just intrigued me and mmmmm pregnant lady has got to buy chocolate something. After getting home I read it has a higher alkalinity than most cocoa so I’ll have to be careful in subbing it in some of my baking but it just has a slightly different taste and obviously will give your chocolate baked goods a deep dark fudge chocolate color. I read when I was looking it up yesterday it sounds like this is the cocoa they use in oreo cookies to give them their dark color.
After our shopping we headed to Yoder’s Kitchen which is THE place to eat in Arthur. Because of the Cheese Festival going on it was also super crowded. But they still seated us fairly quickly and the wait was worth it. Buffet food I’m sure is always better when the place is crowded and the food is all super fresh but this was fabulous home cookin! They had some wonderful fried chicken, super mashed potatoes, yummy bread with apple butter and Amish peanut butter (pretty sure that is peanut butter and marshmallow cream mixed together- not fancy but tasty!), and they had a vegetable beef soup that tasted just like my Grandma Price’s used to. I have heard that sometimes they have a “Stuffed pepper soup.” But that is not an everyday thing they carry on their menu. I’m hoping to be there someday when they are serving it though- it sounded so yummy!
Next we headed towards the cheese festival. I do think it would have been fun but it was starting to rain and parking was a little crazy and we decided to just have a quick look from a distance. If the weather was nicer and we had more time it might have been nice to have a closer peek but there is always next year. Or the BBQ cook off festival next month to try and make it to.
Last stop was Country Salvage Store. Louisville has a pretty nice salvage store. Sometimes you go and find not too much but sometimes I would find a lot of really great deals on things that had just barely expired (like soda, granola bars, cookies) or even some great deals on things that were not expired but just had been over stocked – like mango orange juice made for starbucks and some pepper cheese that I’m pretty sure is what Subway uses and somehow they had just ordered too much and sold the bulk extra at a great price to Salvage. And by great deals I mean easily 50-75% off the retail price. I was hoping this one would be similar but it was more like a typical grocery store. Some salvage stuff but the salvage stuff did not have all that great of prices or a very good selection. I did buy some local produce they had at it. They were selling “candy onions.” I’d never heard of candy onions before but they were big pretty onions and they did smell really sweet. I’m looking forward to frying them up with some potatoes this week!
That sums up the highlights of my purchases. I don’t have a picture of my tour guide. But Nancy and I were going to go with her mother in law, Jenny and then Nancy got sick. Jenny was sweet enough to take me anyway and I got to hear stories about her twin boys when they were little (who are now grown men that attend our church) and also Jenny is a pastor’s wife so I got to talk with her about her life as a pastor’s wife. We had a sweet time of fellowship in the car and she was an excellent tour guide of Arthur for me!