Whole (lotta') Foods

Organic shopping just got a WHOLE lot easier for me! YAY! One of the downsides of living in the 'burbs is that there is generally less call for natural foods type markets, even in the nature-happy pacific northwest. Previuosly I would trek across the lake to Whole Foods in Seattle once or twice a month, willing to make the trek because of their excellent meat and produce. The store has great product, but people are always crawling on top of each other because the store is just too darn small.

Well, you shall hear no more complaints from me on that front, because Whole Foods just opened a store smack-dab in the heart of suburbia, and what a store it is!!! I was there opening night (getting ready for a road-trip or you couldn't have forced me there). I had to park at the mini-mall up the street because there was no parking left, but while in the store there was actually ROOM to push my cart around and look at the product.

This is probably because the store is about the size of a small country. I have never seen a grocery store this large, it's amazing. There is a whole AISLE of nothing but different types of MILK products. The deli section is probably as large as the whole Seattle store. It really is heaven! Tonight I picked up some Tandoori chicken, saffron rice and naan from the "salad bar" in the deli. (The chicken and naan were good, the rice had been sitting too long).

If they would consider Diet Coke a natural-food-store worhty product I'd never have to shop anywhere else. New Seasons Market in Portland really has the right idea there. They've got all the natural food you want, plus you can buy Diet Coke and just enough consumer-culture necessity that you really don't need to shop anywhere else.

For now I'll stick with my new store, though. It could easily take me a year just to discover everything the salad bar has to offer.