Shopping

One of the reasons I crawl up the walls here in socal is that food shopping is a nightmare. The overwhelming majority of the farmers’ markets are substandard and the supermarkets don’t carry things that are **BASIC** compared to other parts of the country (like, I dunno, central california).

Yesterday, however, I had a really pleasant shopping experience at Gelson’s. They’re a little pricey, but they stock a lot of things that I actually want, unlike ralph’s, von’s, albertson’s, etc. I found the store to be sort of in between a nice Von’s and a whole foods, with prices to match the description. Some good finds include oldschool Stretch Island Fruit Leather (five bucks a box – not bad) and reasonable prices on a number of fair trade teas. There was a real availability of sustainable choices, which is sort of necessary for me to even go into a store except under duress, unlike some stores where they carry Horizon Organic (which is totally fucking evil, btw) and think they’re doing you a favor.

To be honest, I walked right past the produce and meat aisles, because I always do in supermarkets, but I might actually bother to sniff around the veg on my next trip.

I don’t know what their corporate ethos is like. Their website is predictably opaque, which is reaosnable for a retail food company. The people working there were really informed and seemed genuinely happy to be there, two things we can’t say for Whole Problem. Maybe the CEO eats babies for breakfast, I don’t know yet, but at the very least it’s an alternative to the price-fixing, union-busting, product-stealing, organic-demeaning, unsustainable WalMart of health food, Trader Fucking Joe’s.

Listening: NPR National. Public. Radio.