Not At MY Corner Cafe

What food and drink you can get at your friendly neighborhood corner café depends, of course, on where you live. Here in small-down Midwestern America, what you get is pretty generic.

HOWEVER, we have a discount grocery — sort of a scratch’n'dent shop for food instead of furniture — and I scored big today, getting some stuff that’s available other places but is not often seen around these here parts.

I got some Nestlé Aguas Frescas Horchata. Horchata: a milk-and-rice drink flavored with cinnamon that is heavenly! I mean it is divine! The angels drink horchata! Alas, the web site says Aguas Frescas have been discontinued, so I’ll just have to enjoy what I have.

I also got some Irish Moss Drink, with ginseng. Irish Moss Drink is very popular in Jamaica, and I had some once at a Jamaican restaurant in Louisville. It’s really made of Irish moss and algae and seaweed and nasty stuff like that, but I remember it as being delicious. We shall see.

Now all I need is a local source for Dr. Brown’s sodas, specifically Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Tonic. I used to get this at a deli in downtown Louisville, many long years ago, when the world and I were young. Cel-Ray Tonic is a soft drink made with — yes — celery. Very refreshing. If celery soda is a little too exotic for you — although, you must admit, it sounds downright homey after seaweed and algae and moss (say it with me: OH, MY!) — Dr. Brown also makes root beer and cream soda and so on.

One thing we CAN get here that one can’t get just anywhere is a cherry phosphate, and I wouldn’t trade that for one of each of those others. It’s what I used to drink at the corner cafe where I grew up.