My Dilemma With Whole Foods

My dilemma with Whole Foods? They're just weird. Like they've got stuff I really like to buy, but the shopping experience is just so confusing. Like sometimes the meat you get at the counter is really fresh and sometimes it's really not fresh. Like I'm at the produce section and they've got all this stuff with scanner codes but no prices. So finally, I ask a staff guy what's with the veggies with no prices? I'm assuming since they have scanner codes, there must be a scanner somewhere? Like where is it? So the guy says, "Well what do you need the price of?" And I'm like, no—week after week this happens—where's the scanner? Do you guys even have one? So the guy finally gets it and says, "Yeah. I'll show you." And then he take me to the tiniest computer behind some mushrooms and I say, "Uh—don't you think you guys should have a big sign so we can find this scanner?" And he looks at me like, "Why?" Shopping rage. I'm getting a headache just retelling this story.

Coming next, my dilemma with Trader Joe's.

Iced Peach Tea

 (These are peach blossoms.)

While shopping at Whole Foods, I was caught by that wonderful floral smell of ripening peaches and ended up buying three.  I'm always wary of buying peaches at supermarkets as they never ripen, or if they do, they just become mealy and tasteless.  (Avocados too.)  And sure enough, while these peaches continued to produce an amazing amount of fragrance, they never properly ripened, wizening and drying out instead of softening.  I tried tasting one, but the tannins nearly bit all my taste buds out.  So what to do?  I couldn't throw them out.  In desperation, I peeled and cut them up and threw them in a pot with water and tons of sugar.  The stewed peaches were OK, but the resulting sugar syrup was phenomenal.  I knew instantly what to do with the syrup — make iced tea!  Using my favorite jasmine green tea, of course.  If life gives you hard peaches, make iced tea! :)

BTW, I'm really not liking how these large fruit producers are now breeding fruit just for smell.  A pretty nasty way of tricking us shoppers.  Why I'm buying most of my fruit at farmer's markets.  Although, I have to say, I've been very impressed by the fruit that's on sale at Trader Joe's.  Their small watermelons have been real winners, nice and sweet with good texture, and I was very happy with the avocados that were on sale in May.

Too Scared To Shop

I had these two experiences shopping in the last month:

1. At Bristol Farms in South Pasadena, one of the employees climbs on top of the cheese display so she can rearrange the shelf above. Her dirty shoes were gripping the rim of the display.

2. At Whole Foods on Arroyo, an employee picks up some red kale that had fallen on the floor and puts it back in the produce display. This was kale that had been kicked around and run over by a shopping cart.

This is why I'm too scared to shop and too scared to eat.

California Que BBQ Sauce

I was in Whole Foods recently and there was this really friendly gentleman offering samples of his BBQ sauce. I always like to taste samples but I almost never buy anything. Not this time. The BBQ sauce was from The California Que and I've never tasted anything like it. Usually, you can summarize BBQ sauces with "sour", "sweet", "vinegary", "inedible". But not this one. There was such a rich, fruity taste to it, you could just eat it as a dip. But it does make a fantastic BBQ sauce, as I found out when I marinated some chicken legs.

California Que is pure sauce — no additives at all. You have to love the simple ingredients list: ketchup, brown sugar, mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, pepper sauce, honey, molasses, herbs and spices. The gentleman said it took him years to refine the recipe, and you can taste it. He offers three degrees of hotness — I found the medium plenty hot.