(no subject)

[rivka]

We've been shopping at the same Superfresh supermarket for years (ever since we moved downtown) despite the fact that it has never, ever had adequate service. It's close. It's huge, with a good variety of fresh foods and a nice meat and fish section. They recently expanded and yuppified it, so that now you can buy products like duck bacon alongside the Oreos and 12-packs of toilet paper. So even though the cashiers were slow, inefficient, and sometimes rude, we kept shopping there. We'd go on Saturday or Sunday afternoon and do a massive shopping for the week, supplemented with occasional trips to the corner grocery store for milk and bread, or to Whole Foods for expensive treats.

Then, about a month ago, I went shopping by myself, late in the evening. And discovered that, as bad as the weekend afternoon cashiers were, they were in fact the creme de la creme of the Superfresh workforce. The cashier and the night manager combined to provide a checkout experience so awful, so over-the-top rude, that another customer felt compelled to follow me into the parking lot for a debriefing. I swore I'd never shop there again.

We've spent the last month making the dreary round of local supermarkets, trying to find someplace that we'd be willing to buy our weekly groceries. The Giant had good service and nice produce at good prices, but the store was small, dingy, and ridiculously lacking in things that we've come to consider staples. No turkey sausage. No whole wheat Goldfish crackers. Processed smoked cheese masquerading as Gouda, complete with a brown wax wrapper, that totally fooled us until we opened it at home and found it inedible. "The only pre-sliced cheeses they have are American, Swiss, and Provolone," Michael told me, "so we'll have to get our cheese sliced at the deli." And at the deli, our cheese choices were... American, Swiss, Provolone, and Cheddar. Worst of all, the store-brand organic frozen vegetables were appalling - dry, tasteless, woody peas, and strangely yellowish broccoli. Impossible.

We tried to find stores in wealthy neighborhoods, on the theory that rich people can afford to demand good quality and variety. So our next stop was the Shoppers Food Warehouse adjacent to Federal Hill, one of the yuppiest of Baltimore neighborhoods. I should've known that it wouldn't work out the moment I walked inside and saw the screaming yellow-and-black signage everywhere; upscale stores rarely have bright colors. And indeed, this one pretty much had nothing to recommend it. There was no fish counter - just some packaged stuff. No artisanal bread. A paltry cheese section. A poor variety of produce, with almost nothing organic. Terrible bread.

I was nearly in tears as we left, and suggested to Michael that we might need to swallow our pride and go back to the Superfresh. Having to negotiate new supermarkets every week was bad enough - not being able to find anything, week after week - without the added stress of struggling to find any food at all that I was willing to feed my family. "Let's try one more store," he said - the Safeway in the ultra-hot harborside neighborhood of Canton. Well... okay.

We went yesterday. I had a good feeling as soon as I caught sight of the tasteful, discreet dark green signage and the careful lighting - not because I care about what my supermarket looks like, as long as it's clean, but because their efforts to appeal to a high-end market probably meant that they had the foods we prefer. We hit the produce section first. The large central island displaying organic fruits and vegetables was promising. And then I came upon the "produce Rivka has barely even heard of" section. Yucca root. Cherimoyas. Two different kinds of cactus. And a few things that I can't even name, because they were so foreign to me. An excellent sign. I started to breathe easier.

The rest of the store confirmed my first impressions. The pre-sliced cheese section included our favorite sandwich cheeses, Havarti and smoked Gouda. The deli was large, well-stocked, and fast. The fish counter was gorgeous and varied, and they had a nice selection of meats. They had Alex's organic whole-wheat frozen waffles and our preferred brand of organic frozen vegetables. I was holding my breath by the time we got to the checkout counter, hoping that nothing would happen to spoil things... but the service was fine. Polite and reasonably quick.

Whew.

It's halfway across town,[1] and the prices are kind of high (although not Whole Foods high) - but it is so totally worth it, to not have to worry about food shopping anymore. It really really stressed me out to have week after week of bad grocery experiences! Thank God that's over.



[1] Address in Google Directions is not our real address.

Comments

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Boy do I second this course of action.