Not everyone drives hundreds of miles to buy chocolate animal crackers but we did. Well, technically we were driving the hundreds of miles for other purposes; the fact that there was a store selling a specific brand of chocolate animal crackers in the town where we were staying was a bonus...and a tasty one at that.
My addiction to these simple little cookies started last year when we were making trips to and from Kansas every few weeks. Leaving early in the morning put us at either Jackson or Vicksburg, Mississippi, by lunchtime so we usually stopped at a Kroger's store just off the interstate. A little cheese, a piece of fruit and something crunchy/sweet was our normal menu. Wandering the cookie aisle on one of the first trips, I settled on animal crackers because they were small and in a box that would travel well. And they came in chocolate. It became a habit and I picked up a box (or more) on each subsequent trip.
Back home I found a handful of the leftover cookies to be the perfect cure for the post-gym hungries. You know, breakfast was early, I'd burned a lot of calories working out and lunch was still hours away. A few chocolate animal cookies was just enough to tide me over until a regular meal. And while I know I could pick something a lot higher up on the healthy snack index, there are plenty of other things much worse too. Like the Girl Scout cookies that are currently residing in my pantry. (I only bought them to support a good cause...at least that's my excuse.) I don't eat a lot of this crispy snack as evidenced by the fact that the three boxes of chocolate animal crackers I bought on our final Kansas trip in September lasted until mid-February.
The problem is we don't have Kroger stores in our area to replenish my supply. I tried several other brands I could get locally but they just weren't the same. Too sweet or not crispy enough; worse yet, not chocolate-y enough. it seems my addiction is not to chocolate animal crackers but to Kroger chocolate animal crackers.
So when plans were in place for this little trip, I went straight to the Kroger website to see if I could find a store in one of the cities we would be stopping in. Sure enough. And while I was getting ready for our day in Vidalia, my sweet chauffeur headed off to the nearby Kroger to replenish my stash. I confess, when I was looking up locations I made a mental note of the fact that there are Kroger stores in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, cities much closer than our Georgia shopping trip and cities we pass frequently on road trips.
I may not be blue but I clearly have something in common with the Cookie Monster. I love me some cookies...as long as they're Kroger's chocolate animal cracker cookies. Om Nom Nom Nom.
Funny & fun story. I like when The Count & Cookie were doing math together, The Count wanted to add where as Cookie only wanted to do subtraction. One of my favourite things to do when I travel to the US of A. is visit grocery stores, you have so many varieties of everything & the baking, crackers & cookie aisles are my most favourite, ever!
Posted by: Mary-Lou | March 03, 2015 at 08:05 AM
My son headed straight to the supermarket when he came home, to get Jaffa cakes!
When I was in CA last year I bought all the things I needed to makes S'mores, so you could say I travelled 5,550 miles for cookies!!! lol
Jude.x
Posted by: Jude | March 06, 2015 at 01:39 AM