Pictured here: the giant garlic grown by Bill Mehwaldt in Nevada. He's been selecting for thirty years.
To answer the chickenhead anonymous commenter at Earthlink (usually I don't address people who are too cowardly to speak for themselves), who said:
"I don't get why you're calling Whole Foods 'thieves' (because of their tomato prices) on June 9 after you wrote that nice post on John Mackey's blog on the Whole Foods website on May 30? I don't work for them and don't even shop there often - I belong to a CSA - but this seems hypcritical to me. Were you just trying to promote your own site?"
It isn't hypocritical to praise the good and damn the bad. To have usurious prices on, in this case, heirloom tomatoes, which go for $2.00 a pound at our local farmers markets, is obscene.
Should I merely be a sycophant? I hope not.
While I do appreciate his response, which WAS thoughtful (and no doubt composed with a great deal of guidance from an equally thoughtful marketing department), it is not an indicator that everything is done with some kind of compassion and desire to help people. You are talking about a CEO of a multi-jillion dollar corporation.
I went to Whole Foods shortly after I commented on John Mackey's blog. I didn't do it to "check out the enemy," but I do find it disconcerting that EVERYONE calls it "Whole Paycheck," when I know that, here in Santa Cruz, some of our farmers markets take food stamps.
What was it like at Whole Foods (in Monterey)? I spent only $30, and part of that on medicine. My overall impression is that people are dazzled by all the choices—six artisanal bakeries with offerings up to your eyeballs!—but I don't need all the choices. My local natural foods stores (New Leaf Community Markets and Staff of Life) have ample variety in every regard, and what they don't have (a vast wine selection, e.g.), I can easily augment elsewhere. I wouldn't buy produce at Whole Foods, when it's so much cheaper at the farmers market, but if that's what people want to do, and are willing to do, and need to do, bully for them. For myself, I didn't have a single pang of envy or the feeling that I was missing something in never having been inside a Whole Foods, nor do I have any desire to return. I saw what all the fuss was about, and I don't need the fuss. Santa Cruz is covered.
Meanwhile, I'll tell it like it is: $6.00 a pound for heirloom tomatoes that are available from good farmers I know for $2.00 is just ridiculous. Absurd. This isn't rocket science.
There, are you happy, O Great Masked Commenter?
• • • • • • • • • • •
And on a happier note: I visited two farms while I was in Reno, and won $450 on the slot machine in a fifty-cent bet in the airport. I never play slots, and was just killing five minutes before our plane boarded. Whee!
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “As an essayist I don't believe in the fiction of an
anonymous observer. Rather than the sham of objectivity, I think you
should put you perspective up front. That's only fair to the reader.” — Ralph Wiley
Thanks for visiting.
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