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It gets a bad rap.

35 Comments

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I was born in New Jersey. And while we moved to Maine when I was 15, there’s still a part of me that identifies as a Jersey Girl. I say dawg and cawfee, love a good bagel, speak rapidly and have big hair.

What can I say?

Some things stick like glue…

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My hometown?

Thinks it’s New York.

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Ugh.

Say what you want about NJ, they know real Italian food.

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Isn’t that what it means?

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Definitely.

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In our case it was a baboon. An ostrich chased our station wagon as well…pecking at the windows the whole time.

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😊

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35 thoughts on “It gets a bad rap.”

  1. I know so little about New Jersey. I just mapped it to see just how it fit, puzzle-like, with the other states. Makes me wonder if a similar map of New York State might list people in NYC as “Thinks they are New Jerseyers.” Haha. Probably not. (New Jerseyers? New Jerseyites?)

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  2. I just remember leaving Delaware and pulling into a rest stop in New Jersey. The bathroom was a horror story that even Clive Barker couldn’t write…

    And, ever subsequent stop in New Jersey’s turnpike was just as horrific.

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  3. I’m from New York City – and making fun of New Jersey, (as well as any part of NY State that wasn’t NYC) was bred in our bones. Sorry but Joisey didn’t get no respect from us NYers.

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  4. I’ve a friend from Jersey who goes nuts over certain “pies” – a version of pizza that’s far superior. She brings them back after visits. I’ve yet to try one of her pies. Is that your thing, too?

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  6. Most of what I saw of New Jersey was the Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway, until one of my siblings went to Drew University. Very pretty. Also, one of my dad’s wives was from New Jersey (which is why we spent so much time on the Turnpike, LOL. She was also the nicest. Still is.

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  7. The closest thing to New Jersey I’ve ever come is the Entenmanns pastries, yes I grew up with these. Because even though I grew up in a very Mexican American household and Mexican sweet bread was a staple, my paternal grandfather who spent time in Alaska on a crab boat (I was amazed to find this out) was introduced to Entenmanns by someone on the crew and that was the beginning of having those in our house. Even though at the time Safeway was the only place he could find them, he still made my dad drive half way across the city to the closest Safeway just to buy the crumb coffee cake he loved so much. So people in NJ just take a stop sign as a suggestion? Oh cool, they are just like people in New Mexico, LMAO.

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  8. My dad was born and raised in New Jersey. A couple of years ago, we had planned a trip so he could show us his hometown and the places he grew up, but it never happened. I still hope to make that trip someday.

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  9. I am from New Yawk and we have some of the same identifiers including pronunciation of coffee, fondness for bagels, Entenmann’s, and a think crust on my pizza. I always associate NY with blue and white cups from convenience stores that signaled ‘You are in the city.”

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      1. I now make Keto bagels with mozzarella cheese but will break diet for real bagels from NY. I lived for a time in the Deep South-Alabama- and remember wonderful food served at a fisherman’s church on the water. We brought the recipe for ice tea with us from Alabama.

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  10. My oldest kid lives in Montclair in a lovely old house you’d have to pay a million dollars to buy in California. (They paid a lot less. And Stephen Colbert lives just a few blocks from them.) I’ve visited New Jersey a dozen times now and really like it, at least the parts I’ve spent time at. “The Sopranos” made it look like an industrial wasteland smashed against a soulless suburbia, but in truth parts of the state are very rural with pretty little farms that remind me of illustrations from a children’s book—not like the big corporate farms you see in California. I’ve also seen the pine woods and waded around on the Jersey shore, and got yelled at by a lifeguard for venturing too far out into the riptides. And yeah, the Italian food is to die for: the pizza there has ruined pizza for me in the chain restaurant boonies where I live. So when people here knock “Joisey” and make snide comments about bridge and tunnel folks, I bristle. If things go south on the Left Coast, I’ll be happy to move to New Jersey. Even with the high taxes and construction season all spring-summer-fall. 😛

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  13. Hearing Pop is so weird to me. You mean, your dad?

    My Mom was born and raised in NJ, and I don’t remember the few trips there as a kid. I went with Coach about eight summers ago while he was traveling with his softball team. I couldn’t have been more surprised by the beauty of the area we were in; it was delightfully gorgeous. Sadly, I didn’t see any big haired ladies.

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