You would think that living in the Breadbasket of America, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, would entitle you to an unbelievable bounty of goodness. That putting up with all the dirt, dust storms and aerial toxins would be a small price to pay for access to a magical cornucopia of the best the land has to offer.
You'd be wrong.
We were pleasantly surprised to discover a couple of the largest and nicest supermarkets just minutes from our new home. It's kind of a big deal when your boyfriend is a gourmet chef. But it ends up they're Potemkin markets - there's no there there.
Produce? Sure, they've got your basics - potatoes, onions, apples and oranges. Anything much beyond that and you're pretty much shit out of luck, unless you can find it in the frozen section. Lest you think I'm being elitist and bitching about not being able to find Peruvian blood oranges or something exotic, I'm talking about Brussels sprouts.
Cheese? Take your pick - American or Swiss. And of course, the synthetically created, unrefrigerated, Frankenstein of cheese... Velveeta. Most stores carry Velveeta, but the respectable ones have the good sense to stock it discreetly, tucked away on a bottom shelf. Not here. Here, they build giant brick pyramids of it, blocking the aisles. They must go through pallets of it a week.
And where once we had the luxury of aisles of Hispanic or Asian foods, Middle Eastern or Indian or even Kosher, here you get a six foot length of shelving labeled "ETHNIC" which consists of little more than refried beans and Chung King Chow Mein. The entire world condensed down to a section a quarter of the size of the one devoted to all the various "Helpers", hamburger and tuna.
And the saddest part of it all is it isn't the store's fault. We discovered that when we went on what seemed like an innocent enough search... for basil.
Basil!
Couldn't find it anywhere. Asked a couple of clerks and was met with completely blank stares. Never heard of the stuff. Finally found a manager who explained that they used to carry Basil. But no one ever bought it and it ended up going bad, so they just discontinued it.
How long does a dried spice have to sit on a shelf before it goes bad? Years?
So they only stock what they can sell, and what they can sell is basically only things that can be mixed with Cream of Mushroom soup.
I'll have to check and see if it's possible to schedule emergency food drops from Whole Foods.
