Half-Assed Shopping at Whole Foods

Since I now have several devoted Blog readers out there, I'll have to start writing longer, more substantial posts.  So here goes...

This morning I ventured out of the Franke apartment into the pre-dawn light of 10:45 a.m.  I was headed northeast to the gourmand's mecca, Whole Foods (a.k.a. "Whole Paycheck," a term coined by a co-worker of mine).  En route (see?  I'm practicing my French), I stumbled across the live filming of some... thing (movie? TV show? commercial?).  Of course, the intersection was totally blocked off by teenage guys wearing security tee-shirts and trying to look tough, but you could get still get a good look-see at what was going on.  I couldn't get close enough to see any famous people (ooo!  celebs!) but I did see a lot of extras standing around in disco-era bellbottoms and fringed vests.  Evidently, an empty lot had been morphed into a used car dealership circa 1974.  I even got to hear someone yell, "Action!"

I didn't stay long though.  I'm not one of those people who gawks and stares in situations like that, at least not unselfconsciously.  Besides, I had money to throw away.

So I spent about a half hour roaming the aisles at Whole Foods, sampling black bean dip and "good for you" chocolate gooey things.  I bought fennel (my new favorite root vegetable), olives, and apricots for a tart I'm going to make.  I also filled a plastic container with yummy nibbles from the salad bar: cilantro and lemon tofu, chunks of roasted sweet potatoes, and those little crunchy sesame nugget things you get in bar snack mixes sometimes, among other things. 

But here's where the half-assedness comes in.  I just couldn't bring myself to buy the rest of the stuff on my list at Whole Paycheck.  For goodness sakes, I'm not even getting a paycheck right now, and the one I will be getting come September will hardly support a Whole Foods habit.  So I moseyed on down State St. to the Jewel-Osco and picked up my milk, coffee, soda, and toilet paper at the regularly overpriced city supermarket.

I was quite a sight, schlepping back home with a 12-pack of two-ply "bath tissue" dangling from one fist and a few 10-lb. bags loaded down with heavy liquid products (see above) in the other.  But I made it back alive and now this weekend's houseguests won't have to go outside and gather handfuls of leaves to take with them into the bathroom.  And later on, as I dined on my purchases, I enjoyed every last penny's worth of tofu and sesame nuggets.