I don’t buy stuff at Whole Foods because I can get organic mushrooms, or free-range cucumbers, or pork chops that were told every day, “What a pretty hog!”, or any other frou-frou reason. I buy fruits, vegetables, and meat at Whole Foods because they are high-quality and are stocked with care.
Look, if I want to buy tomatoes that are bruised, battered, sliced, and have holes poked in them, or if I want to buy apples that look like there was a guy on the end of the truck hitting each one with a ball-peen hammer is it came by, I can just go to Dierberg’s or Schnuck’s and I won’t pay $4.00 a pound for them.
I have to watch my money these days, just like almost everyone else. I am willing to pay a premium for quality. I’m not willing to pay a premium for the name of “Whole Foods”, and if they are going to start selling the same beat-up crap fruits and vegetables that the regular grocery stores do, well . . . Whole Foods is fucked.
You mean you don’t shop at Whole Foods for the atmosphere? To people watch? Around here, Whole Foods is where you can park your primer grey '64 Dodge Polara next to a Lotus or Ferrari, where you can be dazzled by the glittering of jewels on other women as they try to figure out what those funny vegetables were that Cook served at last week’s bridge night candlelight supper (was it…iceberg lettuce? How plebeian!), and the pipe-smoking men with their mustachios and tweed jackets trying to figure out what this funny foreign thing called “bratwurst” is. Once someone asked if I was the shopping cart valet; I took her $20 and left her cart in the arboretum next to the salles des bains. Fun, fun, silly-willy.
[sub]Seriously, I do like Whole Foods, but there is definitely a different crowd than at “Skeeter’s Deli and Bait.”[/sub]
There are still “real” co-ops, just like there are real bike shops that don’t make their living selling bike wheels made from exotic alloys to the clueless and overprivileged. Just got to find one. Ask your local hippy.
I park my primer gray 69 Torino next to my Ferrari every day. Whats the problem? I just wish my wife would wash the chicken shit off the eggs before putting them in the fridge next to the caviar.
I grew the scabbiest looking strawberries this year. Unlike the heart shaped perfect looking supermarket variety, mine were red all the way to the middle and had a full flavour that shouted STRAWBERRY!
But yeah, I love Whole Foods for the experience, and I’m not being sarcastic. At least to my ignorant self they always have a lot of interesting foods, the samples are delicious, and the cheese/beer section rocks. The high prices make it a silly place to shop at all the time, but every now and again it’s great fun.
One time, I had to* ask one of the clerks who was stocking apples, “Do you have any apples that weren’t juggled by clumsy monkeys?” He just looked at me like a cow looking at a new gate.
I noticed the same thing Tuesday (coincidentally at likely the same location - Galleria?) and chalked it up to Thanksgiving rush madness. For me it was the green beans, they were brownish and scraggly looking. Produce is the only thing I go in there for, because it’s usually worth the extra money, but I was pretty disappointed this week.
So now I wonder if it is that store not giving a crap or just the chain in general.