An instructive way of comparing supermarkets is to compare them to cars: especially around the Washington area, there are a variety of brand names, sizes and price points from which to choose.
For example, when I need the basics and nothing more, I go to the Soviet Safeway on 17th and Corcoran in Dupont Circle. The Soviet is like a late-model Honda Civic you keep around for small errands or to pass on for use as a teenager’s first car. It doesn’t have many features, occasionally has annoying quirks and doesn’t exactly drive like a dream, but it’s functional most of the time and a step up from your old scooter (the corner store).
The Whole Foods in Logan Circle is like a fully loaded top-of-the-line Volvo: safe, expensive and oriented to boring upper-middle class living. Many people would be more inclined to shop at Whole Foods more often if they were cheaper and they got over themselves and sold Coke and Pepsi products.
Trader Joe’s is the Volkswagen Jetta of the supermarket world. Youth-oriented, sporty, friendly and occasionally adventurous, it goes well with catchy indie tunes and spontaneous picnics.
The Wegmans in Sterling, Va. is way beyond the sedan class. It
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21Feb
The Supergiant Asian grocery stores of Rockville, sized to put a Superfresh to shame, are an absolute playground. But if you -
04Feb
Trying to get the bitter taste of our new McCarthy-esque political climate out of your head? If you don
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25Jan
On the east coast there is the joke, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change. In Baltimore, if you don’t like the neighborhood, go five blocks and it will change. And as with all good urban villages, each village has its distinctive restaurants. There is Greek-town with its Greek restaurants, Inner Harbor with its tourist meccas like the Cheesecake Factory, ESPN Zone, and the Hard Rock Caf
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03Jan
So, since everyone posting seems so gosh-darn set on writing about food in Baltimore, Little Rock, and Rockville* (to name just a random sampling of recent posts), I guess a post about a shopping trip to the suburbs isn’t so out of place.
As background: I recently tried to go shopping at the awesome Indian Spice and Gifts on Pollard Street (halfway between the GMU metro stop and Ballston on the Orange Line for fellow metro-ers) but it was sadly closed for renovation. So to soothe my ruffled foodie-soul I took a quick hop, skip, and jump over to the Giant there (I will admit that there was a brief perusal of the Arlington Main Library along the way**). Keep in mind that I ordinarily shop at my local ghetto rip-off Safeway in the city. It turns out that there is produce in the world! I grabbed a quick bag and then rushed home to impart the realization that there really are better grocery alternatives within (albeit far away) Metro access.
I planned the next weekend feverishly. We would go to Harris Teeter at Pentagon City and drop off a camera with a friend who had left it at our New Years Party. I like killing multiple avians with one basaltic nodule.
We broke out the granny cart and got ourselves there with no problem. The aisles were wonderfully large, the produce divine. We picked up 10 habaneros for the jerk chicken I made this evening (good ole Irma S. doesn’t shy away from the spice despite her Germanness) with no trouble. There were multiple brands of organic peanutbutter to choose from! All was bliss.
We headed out the door, full cart in tow. We negotiated the “no pedestrian zone” with aplomb. We snagged the elevator to the metro-level of the mall just as a stroller-wielding young mother came out. We drove through the mall with the granny-cart and garnered not a couple of perplexed gazes. We took another elevator to the farecard-reader level. Then we took a new (urine-scented) elevator to the tracks. Then we took it back up, and switched to the elevator on the correct side of the tracks.
Here’s where tactics come into the story. As those of you who Metro on a regular basis know, there are very few chances in DC to determine your own route. Either the train goes there or it doesn’t, and there’s usually only one line that will do so. However, from Pentagon City to Eastern Market you can either take the Yellow Line to L’Enfant and transfer to the Blue Line, or just ride the Blue straight. The drawback to the former is obviously the transfer, but the latter is six stops longer. It’s generally much faster to take the transfer. So we did, cart in tow.
It turns out that to transfer at L’Enfant being good metro-citizens and not taking the cart on the escaltors takes not one, not two, but three elevators. This is not even mentioning the narrow hard-to-manuver paths which those wheel-challenged are channeled through. So we gave up two-thirds of the way through and attempted to drag the cart on the final escaltor. Bad move. But that’s another story, and happily no one is permanently injured.
Final thoughts: It was sobering to experience in any small way what transfering in Metro is like when you’re mobility challenged.
Grocery stores really are bigger in the ‘burbs.
Granny carts suck.
*Yes, I meant to use the serial comma there. Also known as the Oxford Comma (primarily in the UK, for obvious reasons) it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Actually either way is fine in my book, but for heaven’s sake be consistent!
**As a DC resident you are entitled to library cards not only in the DC system, but also in Fairfax, Montgomery County, and Arlington. As a US citizen you are entitled to a card at the Library of Congress. -
14Dec
Every store has its discounters. Estee Lauder has the Roanoke Warehouse where respectable matriarchs scrabble in huge metal bins for last years lipsticks. Saks Fifth Avenue has the Woodbury Commons outlet hidden in a small New York City suburb. Filenes has Filenes - 13Dec
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12Dec
Recently, I wrote an ode to Breger cookies on this blog. I am now proud (and just a little smug) to report a berger sighting in Roanoke, Va, over 5 hours from the Berger Source, Baltimore. The Berger sighting was in a little specialty store miles from the West Virginia border called Tinnell’s Finer Foods. When the storeowner was asked to explain the Berger presence, he said he has a relative in Baltimore who introduced him to the cookie, and he has been importing them ever since! -
02Dec
I don’t know how I cooked before I got my first mortar and pestle set. I mean, really cooked. Crushed freshly-toasted sesame seeds to make a stir-fry, or ground mustard, cardamom, and black pepper for another attempted Indian curry, or pulverized cilantro for salsa. When you crush ingredients this way, their oils are released and combined to a degree that can’t be accomplished using a food processor–not exactly. Home-ground spices are fresher and, not surprisingly, often more potent than their store-bought, pre-ground counterparts. I’d go so far as to say the act of crushing and grinding the food components has a kind of soothing, therapeutic effect.
While wooden and metal sets are available, my preference is for the marble ones, due to their durability and resistance to odors and stains. You can choose from among a variety of sizes and materials at Sur le Table and Williams-Sonoma, and if you feel like sparring with other bargain hunters, you might luck out in the cutthroat treasure hunt that is the T.J. Maxx housewares section (I recently scored a decent 5″ set there for $7.99).
