Grocery Shopping

Hissss!

I hate Whole Foods.

I always have.

When that first store opened in Roosevelt several years ago I went a few times, trying to get the whole Whole thing. I never got it. Too many uppity white people from north of the ship canal, too crowded, too many proprietary organic environmentally friendly cleaning products, just too much self righteous bullshit. Just too much of everything except for things I actually need. Mark’s old cat Gatsby used to hiss when he got over-stimulated. I always hiss when I am in a Whole Foods.

Part of it is the people who work there. Don’t they have to go through some of weird-ass indoctrination training session and then get voted in to join “the team” or something creepy like that? Cult or not, in my experience the people who work at Whole Foods are just plain mean. I suppose if you spend all day answering questions like “Um, did that dead cow eat fresh organic clover or fresh organic maize before you humanely slaughtered him?” you would probably get rather snappish too, but I don’t ask stupid questions like that so I don’t know why they are so mean to me. “PLEASE TAKE THE CONTENTS OUT OF THE BASKET AND PLACE THE BASKET ON THE FLOOR SIR!” screams the tattooed pierced little punk over the store’s loud speaker system at me like he is on a SWAT team. Golly, at Metropolitan Market they ask me nicely to leave the basket on the rolly thing and then they gently and lovingly pick up my heirloom tomatoes one by one and compliment me on my choices.

Then there are things that you just cannot get at Whole Foods. Regular joe toothpaste, regular joe kitty litter, or any ingredients to cook Chinese food. When the store in Bellevue opened I actually drove all the way over there to see the store and to get some black Chinese vinegar. No black Chinese vinegar, but bottle after bottle of pre-made crap called things like Judy Goo’s Happy Snappy Fun Sun Dragon Sauce!

Never buy fish at Whole Foods. I think they have it flown in from the noted seaport of Austin. One time I was at the Whole Foods in South Lake Union and I decided to buy Chilean Sea Bass for dinner. Only when I got home did I realized that this specific fish has been sitting there since before Chilean Sea Bass got overfished and became endangered in the late 1990’s.

They do have wine at Whole Foods. In the summer they actually have a decent selection of rosé wine (much better than at Metropolitan Market in West Seattle, I might add), but it is very expensive and sits right next to these bottles of organic wine without sulfites. These sad organic / sulfite free wines are so desperate for flavor that they actually suck the life out of the rosés, leaving you with a lovely-colored but flavorless $19 bottle.

Then there is the whole issue with the evil Republican founder of Whole Foods. John Mackey recently wrote this little diatribe in the Wall Street Journal about the evils of socialized medicine, quoting Margaret Thatcher and wanking on and on about we all just need medical savings accounts and eating raw honey will make us healthier and reduce costs and how his Canadian employees only wish they had private health insurance. What an ass. I was fully aware of this the other day when I had to stop into Whole Foods to get dinner after going to the vet. Several pro-heath care protesters pounced on me as I tried to get into the store. “Do you know who evil the founder of Whole Foods is? Do you know he is against health care reform and quotes Margaret Thatcher?” I calmly explained, "Yes, I am aware of this and you need to know that I hate Whole Foods with a passion and that I would never actually shop here on purpose except that I had to go the vet and this is on my way home and traffic is really terrible. I hate this store and I normally give 90% of my income to Metropolitan Market now get the hell away from me or I will go in here and spend more money that I need to just to spite you!” That worked and they walked away looking very surprised.

Finally, and most importantly, there is the pancetta problem at Whole Foods. Pancetta, in case you are some kind of horrible Republican or Vegetarian or something, is Italian bacon. Well, kind of like bacon. It is pork belly that has been salt cured and spiced but not smoked. It is arguably the best food on earth… after crab dip, and truffles, and Serrano ham. And ahi. At Metropolitan Market they have two kinds of pancetta, two giant chunks of porky goodness just waiting for you to come in so they can slice it to order. If you need it chopped up into little chunks they will do that for you too, for free. Not at Whole Foods. No, there is no pancetta in the meat section. No pancetta is the crappy plastic covered lunch meat section. Only during my post vet / protestor ridden visit to Whole Foods last week did I discover they have pancetta in the cheese section….because that makes so much sense. No fresh mozzarella in the cheese section but they do have pancetta there. Sort of….

There is one nice pretty chunk of pancetta. I go up and asked the snappish clerk if I can get some pancetta. He asks me if bacon thickness is OK. I’m like…huh? He then explains in a very condescending way that they cannot slice pancetta in front of customers due to health department regulations... becasue it's raw.

Crickets……

I resisted the urge to yell at this lying fool knowing he has no health care and I may scare him to death.

I slowly and very calmly say that I would like to see this pre-sliced health scourge before I sign up for a specific number of pre-sliced slices. He leaves and then comes back in a few minutes with some actual round slices of pancetta that are the thickness of bacon and some other thinner ones. I get 6 of the thick ones. I wonder what he would have done if I asked for what I normally get, which is just a giant chunk. Guess we will never know about my chunk.

At this point I am hissing up a fit. I find some fresh mozzarella over in the meat section and head for the check-out. This ancient white woman dressed in some kind of hemp-based tablecloth wrap cuts in front of me. Slowly she places each of her organic items on the rolly thing. After the clerk rings everything up she asks if they have the new Oaxacan quinoa-kiwi energy bars. The clerk says he is not sure but there is a whole wall full of energy bars on the other side of the store. Ancient hemp woman just walks out of line, her turquoise jewelry clanking, and heads off to find her energy bars. Several minutes later she comes back, hands the clerk the one bar, and then takes out her check book. She then methodically fills out the check, slowly updating her check book register before handing the check over to the clerk.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I pay and head outside. The protestors do not realize that I am the one who already yelled at them. They approach. My eyes turn red, sparks fly from my hands, and I hiss again, louder. They scatter…like hemp dust in the wind.

I am never coming back here. Ever. God bless Metropolitan Market. Yes, there are problems there. The horrible mean cheese ‘mo, the lack of rose wine, the fact that I run into people from Starbucks there, but it’s my store and I love it. And their pancetta.