The crunchy taste of back home

A visit to the Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer’s Market in Kingston

By: Kristin Boyd
   I grew up on Good’s Bar-B-Q flavored potato chips, a kettle-cooked delight made in Adamstown, Pa. — 12.83 miles from my childhood home.
   I ate them as a bedtime snack and scooped them onto napkins at school functions. They were like part of the family on Christmas Day, always filling a crystal bowl on the appetizer table.
   When I moved to New Jersey in 2004 and ventured on my first supermarket-shopping trip, Good’s chips were at the top of the list, second only to toilet paper.
   But alas, there was no Good’s among the rows of tortilla chips and cheese curls in Aisle 13. Slung over my shopping cart in wrenching agony, I knew my great love and I would have to settle for a long-distance relationship.
   Fast forward two years, three months and seven days, and here I am at the Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer’s Market on Route 27 in Kingston with Stephanie DiFrischia, also a Pennsylvania transplant. She recommended I visit the market after reading my first newbie column, so I invited her to tag along.
   With just one foot inside the market, the scene swallows my attention. Chicken legs fresh out of the oven. Warm soft pretzels. Tangy pickles. Thin-sliced ham. Sausage links. Cubes of colby jack cheese. Peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses in the center.
   Ahh!
   I have to shake my head to slow down the sensory overload. I haven’t seen a spread this delicious since my days as an intern in Lancaster, Pa., where a visit to the downtown farmer’s market was a weekly ritual.
   Stephanie and I start our trip at a candy display and quickly learn we both have trouble eating milk chocolate bunnies, mostly because we don’t like biting off their little heads. "It’s hard because that’s the first to go — their ears and their heads," Stephanie says, visibly disturbed by the thought.
   I tell Stephanie, a veterinarian at Raritan Animal Hospital in Edison, that I’m hoping to track down a vendor selling chicken corn noodle soup, another one of my favorite Central Pennsylvania treats. I had no idea I was about to find something 100 times better.
   It couldn’t be, I think, catching a glance of a shiny white-and-brown bag tucked inside one of the market’s alcoves.
   I run to touch one of the bags, convinced I must be dreaming. I wasn’t. There they were: Good’s Bar-B-Q flavored chips.
   "Oh, my God. You have no idea. These are my favorite chips," I tell a startled Stephanie, who then smiles at my childlike excitement. "I eat them every time I go home. I’ve never seen them in New Jersey. I have to buy these."
   My rambling even convinces Stephanie, 28, to buy a bag of Good’s chips for her fiancée, whom she’ll marry at a Catholic church in Princeton in October. She also picks up a pack of those peanut butter cookies.
   "I say I buy them for him," she says, laughing, "but then I end up eating half of the stuff myself."
   We chat, careening through the market, tasting different samples. Stephanie tries spinach Florentine dip; I try a dollop of apple butter spread. But all I can think about is dumping a handful of Good’s Bar-B-Q flavored chips into my mouth.
   Anticipation mounts as Stephanie and I make another loop around the market, checking to make sure we’ve bought everything we need. I buy a chicken leg for lunch and pudding for dessert; Stephanie buys a dessert for herself, too.
   We agree to meet again for lunch, maybe at Panera Bread, before going our separate ways — she to her Honda, and me to my Saturn.
   I wait for her to pull off so I don’t look like a total dweeb tearing into my bag of Good’s. When she’s out of sight, I chomp down on a chip, close my eyes, tilt my head back and savor the moment.
   Pure satisfaction.
   "Oh, my God," I whisper before calling my mom and brother to share my good Good’s news. "I love these chips."
   On my way back to the office, it takes me three minutes to pull onto Route 27, where drivers waiting to make left turns have slowed lunchtime rush-hour traffic to a crawl.
   At least now, I think to myself, stomaching the treacherous New Jersey traffic won’t be so hard anymore — because the nearest bag of Good’s Bar-B-Q flavored potato chips is only five miles away.
Kristin Boyd is always looking for new topics of interest to Princeton-area newcomers. She can be reached by writing to [email protected].