If you live in the south, you know that we all speak reverently about the joys of our favorite grocery store: Publix! We have other options including Fresh Market, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Winn-Dixie and they all have their good qualities but nothing beats Publix for its wide aisles, stocked shelves, variety of products, and cooking schools! I’ve had a love affair going with Publix since I first crossed her threshold in 1984 in Jacksonville, Florida.
After years of following my mom around in our local grocery store called Kwik-Chek, I was blown away by all the joys, sights, sounds, and luscious aromas of Publix. Kwik-Chek was a small Pensacola store that was perfectly fine and certainly sold everything a person needed but it was simple, dimly lit, and didn’t sell anything out of the ordinary. Salads were made with iceberg lettuce, chickens were sold whole, lunch meat came in pre-made packages, and cheese was American. It certainly fed my childhood family of six just fine but there was never anything exotic, ethnic, or spicy. The most excitement came at Christmas when they would bring in toys and bicycles to line the aisles and tempt every child in sight!
Even though Kwik-Chek was simple some of my fondest childhood memories involve wandering the aisles with my mom. We shopped on Friday when my dad got paid, and he would drive us to the store. My mom did not learn to drive until she was sixty years old. Yes, you read that right, sixty years old. So, when Daddy came home on Friday’s he would take us to the store to shop for the week ahead. Daddy never came into the store. He just waited patiently in the car week after week. I do not remember a Friday in my childhood that this did not happen.
One of the treats I got for going to the store with my mom was to pick out my very own frozen dinner, which we called TV dinners back then. I loved it and looked forward to it like a trip to DisneyWorld! It was a simpler time. Each week I would wander up and down the very small TV dinner section picking up a box to examine its contents, put it back, and explore another option until I was 100% sure of my choice.
Tv dinners in the 1960s were a simple lot: an aluminum tray divided into three sections containing a meat, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable. They were really only a small step above an MRE.
From Wikipedia: “The Meal, Ready-to-Eat – commonly known as the MRE – is a self-contained, individual field ration in lightweight packaging bought by the U.S. Department of Defense for its service members for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available.”
There were no microwave ovens so we would put them in the conventional oven as soon as we got home and let them cook while we unpacked and put away the other groceries. As I recall, it took about 45 minutes for the TV dinner to cook. We’d set up the TV trays, turn on the TV, and enjoy the joys and wonders of a frozen dinner while watching The Brady Bunch or the Carol Burnett Show. It really was a delightful time!
Fast forward to today and things are just a little bit different! Publix is a mecca of delights for the senses with her bright lights, taste testing in the aisles, deli meats and cheeses piled high, sandwiches made-to-order, and the ever-present scent of chicken frying somewhere inside the store!
As I said, I do love Publix and enjoy it every time I find an excuse to make a trip to one of my local stores but I think I’d give just about anything to walk around Kwik-Chek just one more time with my mom, daddy waiting outside, and a TV dinner in our cart.
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