Target...or BUST!

I have a friend in our region of Kentucky who has just gotten her kitchen back after several months of tending to an active, all-consuming, litter of adorable puppies. They took over her kitchen and she just reclaimed it. During our time at Casey County Apple Festival, after watching the parade go by in front of her porch, she brought us in to see her "new" kitchen. I had forgotten how warm and inviting her space is but also the large, lidded glass jars that she uses for storage.

Several readers and friends have been hearing me moan on of late about finding "the perfect pantry" storage for dry goods. I have a lead on a good wooden flour bin in Asheville, North Carolina (and cheap) but need something short term for some bread making I intend to tackle again in earnest (good breads are hard to find down here, let alone a bakery).

"Where did you get those glass jars?" I said, my eyes popping out of my head, remembering I'd probably asked the question before on another visit but had forgotten the answer. Target or Wal-Mart, she said. Well, I'd already scoured every Wal-Mart (and K-Mart) within a 50 mile radius but Target, given its locations 90 miles away and further, still eluded me.

Saturday afternoon, a day later, I decided I had to get some jars. I checked on-line and the nearest Target that had them in stock was Elizabethtown, a two hour drive. Now we're always up for a new road to explore and with Target as our destination it seemed like a good idea. This is after weeks of looking on line at bins and tins and jars and plastic containers. I wanted something bigger than my flour bin and ideally something big enough to store a lot of flour or sugar but not ugly and not plastic. These 2.5 gallon jars seemed perfect for the kitchen space I'm working on now.

So off we went, a few complaints from our boys but even they enjoy Target on occasion. When we arrived in late afternoon (we left at almost 3pm and even stopped at "The Dairy Dip" in Columbia--spontaneity was key that afternoon), I found they had two jars in stock, which is really all I needed for two kinds of flour at this time. We were also able to pick up a few pairs of school pants for the boys and some items for upcoming fall entertaining. We didn't go too crazy. The drive itself was a pleasing journey of new sites and architecture and we actually came up, the back way, to Lincoln's birthplace where we'd been before.

In this era of high gas prices, I would have done better to just pay for the shipping and be done with it. But sometimes you just have to get into the car and you just have to take a journey that you might not have otherwise anticipated. And who knew that on the way home we would happen to hit gospel karaoke night at The Porch in Russell Springs? I was feeling just spontaneous enough that day to sing...well, almost! Maybe next time.