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So about this store

There are only two grocery stores in town, one on the north side with a gas station and a very nice pick up lane with a conveyor belt so you don't have to wheel your own stuff out to your car. The other is on the south side of town, a fine side, but the strip-mall parking lot sometimes looks abandoned, and occasionally in the spring, there have been reports of overzealous men exposing themselves to shoppers. I frequent the store to the north.

It has very helpful employees and nicely stocked shelves, but I have a problem with some of the stuff they stock up on. I turn my nose up at most manufactured cookies (Oreos being an exception). The precooked slop at the deli is some of the most unappetizing "food" I've ever had to wheel my cart past. And I think everything in the bakery all taste the same--it all taste like white bread but in different forms. White bread donuts. White bread bagels. White bread wheat bread.

My main complaint: this store is slow to keep up with trends. The deli now sells brie, but they have no idea what I'm saying when I ask for mascarpone. At the fish counter, they hand out free recipes to push the special, which is nice, but one of the recipes calls for prosciutto. Without sounding like a grocery hag, I let the fish guy know that the store doesn't sell proscuitto. Huh? Oh never, mind.

Try looking for an interesting kind of cheese that I need to create a masterpiece from one of my 100 hardbound cookbooks (100 plus, really). I don't believe that everyone in this county thinks that Velveeta is the best topper for filet mignon with a wine reduction. I thought everyone knew that Velveeta is nothing more than government cheese with a different package.

Side note: I know all about government cheese, and government rice and government milk. My father's carpenter's union handed all of those supplies out to its members, which seemed ironic to me when I was a kid. If this union is so helpful, making sure everyone is paid a livable wage, and has insurance and a pension, and provides safe working conditions, then why do they give their members food meant for the needy? And what needy people went without so that union workers could eat cheese you could mold like Playdough?

Anyway, last night I discovered not only blue cheese at the deli counter, but Maytag blue cheese. And stilton, And prosciutto. And argula in produce.

I am now one appeased food snob. Now, if I can just get rid of all that Velveeta.

Comments

Anonymous said…
yes, it is true... our dear little store is finally catching up with the times. however, let me warn you to steer clear of all things fresh mozarella.

I have tried, on four separate occassions to purchase said delectable from the store, only to find it rancid when I got it home. Guess I will just have to find a way to import it myself...
12:14 PM
Scout said…
Oh, I've seen those. Sometimes they're OK, and sometimes that actually have visible mold.
1:07 PM
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