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BREAD....you have it right. Years ago while looking for "our place" we toured most of the South...coastal NC and many other places. Never did we find a decent loaf of bread...even in their "finest" of Italian eateries.....
And, therefore, we never lived or moved there. That is like the harbinger of whether a culture is advanced or not.
We currently have too many houses....but in W. Mass. we have at least 6 bakeries within 10 minutes that have the real thing...I mean REAL thing. In addition, we have vast numbers of good restaurants of every type. Of course, it's a "liberal" area, but we do have the Yiddish Book Museum so there is that!
We also spend time in RI - which is....Italian! Lots of bakeries and good bread and Neapolitan pizza....and everything else good. Just returned home right now from some fine dining in a place where they speak Italian.
You can't have it all.....but I'll take good food over gun toting neighbors, given the choice. The food is eaten many times a day...the guns sit in a safe or a drawer or wherever and are almost never used.
The Gulf Coast (Sarasota) where we winter has a lot of it all. Plenty of guns, conservatives. christians..and even jews. Not too many orthodox tho. But we have some good food now.....there is an amazing bagel place and great farmers markets with every sort of healthy food. Lots of specific foreign foods because Germans, etc. relocate there. We have German Bakeries, Russian Delis, Hungarian pastries, Wisconsin cheese shops and the old favorites of Whole Foods and Trader Joes for some staples. We have Amish markets (big Amish community).
It might be a place the OP would consider- there probably is a conservative Jewish house of worship just that I haven't looked.
I still haven't found any good Italian bread here so when I go home to Philly, I always stuff a loaf inside my suitcase. The aroma when you open the bag.....ahhhhh.....that's the thing that's missing from the Italian bread here. That, and taste.
i really really really hope the original poster (and you too ysr) will post back with their verdict.
My thoughts which I have shared previously is that something's got to give and I suspect the food one is the hardest to satisfy with all others.
I eagerly await hearing the resolution.
i really really really hope the original poster (and you too ysr) will post back with their verdict.
My thoughts which I have shared previously is that something's got to give and I suspect the food one is the hardest to satisfy with all others.
I eagerly await hearing the resolution.
If OP would give up the small-town requirement, I'll bet he could find everything else he wants.
Jews in Florida don't hunt (as a rule - like 99% rule). If they have a gun it's for personal protection and they may really need it (cars were hijacked on 95 at one time!)......
Seriously, do some online research into Surfside, Florida. Our family lived nearby and I walked around there often. Conservative Jews by the 100's or 1000's....all ages.
"Miami, FL - Surfside is Miami’s most Jewish neighborhood — it’s home to less than 6,000 people, and at least 2,500 of them are Orthodox Jews. As explained in an article on Vice’s Munchies vertical, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement fueled a Jewish renaissance in the area, which used to harbor anti-Semitic sentiment, in the 1980s."
In the Miami area you could eat at a different deli every day and never repeat. If you are a foodie you will be in Paradise. We regularly went to a local Israeli (food) eatery.....there are a dozen of them within 10 minutes of there!
Oh - the "small town" feel is there, but there is no such thing as a true small town that would satisfy the OP desires...that is a small town surrounded by countryside, etc.
You must not have step foot in Surfside in decades. It is no longer a small town in any sense of the word. I know; my condo is within walking distance and I drive through Surfside several times a week. Surfside's city boundaries may be small (only 8 blocks north to south, and about the same east to west), but it is sandwiched between Miami Beach to the south and Bal Harbour, Sunny Isles Beach, and more to the north. Most of the low and mid-rise buildings along the coast have been bulldozed to be replaced by hotels and massive condominiums. And speaking of driving, its two main roads consist of A1A northbound and southbound and they are both pretty much bumper-to-bumper at any time of the day.
And as for the delis, they're pretty much all gone. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of decent delis in the entire South Florida area, much less just within 10 minutes of Surfside. And to get back to the traffic issue, it can take more than 10 minutes just to drive the 8 blocks through Surfside, especially from Dec. - March during the winter snowbird season.
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