10/19/2017
Make someone’s day. 👩🏼🌾
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After waking up at dawn and tracking down a Whole Foods to pick up our favorite brand of , we were just about to reach our campsite to cook breakfast when I yelled, “we forgot the butter!” Ralph (our puppy & navigator) perked up from the backseat and we did an about-face towards the foothills of Superstition Mountain. We stumbled upon an antique of a convenience store where an old man named ‘Dale’ walked out of the shack next door with his walking stick, dog/best friend, barefoot. We said, “hi sir, do you by chance have any butter?” He replied, “heck no! We don’t have no butter in here, but we've got jerky and beer.” A combo that most of the people stopping through craved. We told him we would stop back for some jerky but were really craving pancakes! Just as we turned around to look for our next option, he piped up that he had mesquite firewood for our campfire and "some of the best butter we’ve ever tasted" in his refrigerator. I jumped for joy inside and scrambled for my wallet. Dale brought out an entire stick from his little house. Made of sweet cream and salted, it was old-school delicious! We returned his favor with a heaping stack of . After cooking at the campsite, we returned to Dale's shop and grabbed some iced tea, wild-boar jerky, and sat at his picnic table to enjoy the pancakes together. Originally from Detroit, Dale told us he had been running the Blue Bird convenience store in Youngberg, AZ for 50 years. We discussed politics, the history of the gold-mining town, his parents, and so many old stories he shared with us that morning. Food is more than survival. With it we make friends, court lovers, and count our blessings.
