Half-hearted Whole Food

My sister: slicing the pizza

 I have a love/hate relationship with Whole Foods. It’s overpriced and pretentious, but gosh darn it if they don’t have the prettiest food. Time was short when preparing for my grandmother’s birthday. So my and sister and I headed to Whole Foods (3 short blocks from Grandma’s house!) and had some fun.

I first put in our pizza order because they use a real food fired oven, so it takes a while to make it fresh. I got their whole wheat dough pizza topped with mozzarella, lemon, garlic, and artichokes. It was FANTASTIC.

Their desserts are hit and miss. The cakes are surprisingly cheap and beautiful, but one little measly macaroon is $2.00. I ended up getting a tiramisu cake and declined their offer to write “Happy Birthday” on it since there was already a design on it. This was also a big hit at the birthday dinner. My grandmother kept saying “Now, this- This is something special!”

I got a side of lemon garlic cooked broccoli rabe, but it left much to be desired. So we used some mustard greens I picked up to make a spicy salad.

Tiramisu (NC honey in the background)

LOVE

These are the things I think are worth the splurge at Whole Foods: making fresh almond or peanut butter with that nut butter pooping machine; any of their produce; a couple of individual bottles of local beer; their pizza (sorry, New Haven); the hot bar for a healthy, yummy lunch; Brown Cow cream top yogurt (just trust me.)

Folks waiting for meat

HATE

Things I avoid at Whole Foods (and you should, too): Seafood (I’ve always been disappointed); anything from the middle aisles unless it’s for a gift and it’s too late to shop on Amazon; deli and cheese (there are great local places that I’d rather support for the same products); handmade soaps (these are displayed everywhere, but are so overpriced. Buy them at your local farmer’s market.)