Won't somebody think of the children?

My sister is having a party tonight, and she graciously acceded to my offer to bring a carrot cake – so off to the supermarket I went, to get the ingredients. I went to a very large supermarket with an excellent selection of many, many food products of one sort or another – whole side of one long aisle with bulk candy and nuts, for instance.

I started in the produce department – it being right by the entrance and all – looking for carrots. Okay, there are the “baby” carrots, in one- and two-pound bags; there are some larger chunks, maybe two or three inches, but still cleaned and sliced; there are shredded carrots, “regular” and “organic.”

Where are the freaking carrots carrots? They don’t sell bags of unscraped, untrimmed carrots any more. I was forced to buy shredded carrots (my frugal soul squealing an anguished “NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo”), and head off to find the nuts-for-baking, which I never found, but that’s another story.

I have two questions, which I will number for clarity, though they don’t constitute a list per se:

Question 1: What will the kids use for snowmen noses? Or will Mom and Dad buy a Sno-Man Facial Features Kit (complete with bubble pipe and three kinds of buttons) at Spoiled Yuppie Monsters We Are?

Question 2: How will kids perform the science experiment of cutting off the top of an intact carrot and rooting it in water, to see how the foliage comes out of the top?

Effin’ progress.

I love carrot cake.

When I was a kid, a neighbor offered me a slice and I ran from the room. I remember thinking, “Yuck - cooked carrots in cake and cheese on top.”

I suggest saying, “cake” instead of “carrot cake with cream cheese icing” just in case some of the kiddies might be like me.

It’s a shame that your local grocery no longer sells regular carrots. I’ll take a look the next time I’m in the Kroeger produce department to see if my local chain is part of this “convenience” trend in veggies. The worse I’ve noticed is the overly expensive grated cheese.

Not a need for this in Florida.

All of the grocers where I shop (mainly Publix, but also Winn Dixie and (rarely) Food Lion) carry full blown carrots. I usually buy 5 lb bags for my horses.

Huh. We still have carrot carrots, organic and conventional, along with carrots with greens, baby carrots, sliced carrots, carrot sticks and shredded carrots.

I never knew you could root a carrot, though. We always did that with pineapples and/or avocado seeds.

I hope baby carrots aren’t taking over–those things are nasty! My bunnies refuse to eat them. They’re very smart, for rabbits.

I haven’t had any trouble finding whole carrots, but the kind of stores I shop at have carrots with the tops still on. I can buy two-pound or five-pound bags of just regular carrots, or baby carrots. I’ve never seen shredded carrots, but I’m probably not looking in the right place. I don’t like buying pre-shredded anything, because it’s fresher if you shred it yourself.

I hope you’re making enough carrot cake for everyone! I’ll be home this afternoon if you want to bring me a nice big chunk of cake. :stuck_out_tongue:

Costco. The best deal on vegetables ever.

I still see bags of the large, untrimmed carrots near the spuds, turnips and parsnips. Also, I believe that many places that sell organic produce will have the large, untrimmed carrots. Finally, in season one may always go to Farmer’s Markets.

As I read your OP, I am sitting at my desk, munching on my pre-sliced, ready-to-eat carrots. They’re so very convenient.

But, at my usual grocery store, I still have the choice of buying whole carrots with the little green tuft on top.

Now, at my former grocery store, the only option for carrots was the packaged, ready-to-eat store brand. They treated them with some sort of perfumey disinfectant that make them smell strange and made them slimey and after they were two or three days in the fridge, they tasted nasty. That’s one of the reasons they are my former grocery store.

And you thought you were being ironic!

:eek:

Le sigh.

Tully, yeah, I like the convenience of baby carrots – I’ve got a bag in the fridge right now – I was just astonished that they didn’t have any whole carrots at that particular store.

OtakuLoki – I did look over by the other root veggies – none there, either.

Rats.

Our Giant has the regular old carrots above eye level, but the organics right smack dab in front of you. I’m wise to them.

We can definitely buy whole carrots here. I went to the ‘upscale’ organic-friendly slightly-crunchy-granola grocery store on the way home last night, specifically for fruits and vegetables. They had a lovely array of whole carrots, but alas, I couldn’t buy any.

They were arranged in a beautiful fan formation, a luscious orange work of art, a spiraling display of beta carotene beauty. I dared not disturb it.

Our local grocery store likes to hide the regular carrots, but I can usually find them with some hunting around. The organic carrots and the baby carrots and the prepared vegetable trays are all attractively placed at eye-level, but the regular old bagged carrots are hidden with the celery in the Boring Vegetable Gulag over by the display of flavored sour cream dips.

I second the recommendation for Costco vegetables, by the way.

Maybe they’d just had a fantabulous sale on whole carrots and were plumb out?

Might be worth flagging down a produce clerk to ask. I know you looked all over and I believe you when you say there were none, but I find it remarkably hard to find that the store doesn’t stock them.