BiteClub Restaurants Dining and Food

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert in a glass.

Santa Rosa school uses farming as part of the curriculum

For years, those three little words neatly summarized my feelings about Whole Foods, and made for a Flintstones-sized bone of contention between me and every food-snob I came across; where my friends and family chomped at the bit to feel good about parting with their paychecks, I saw only a business model predicated on sloughing-off expensive products of inconsistent quality, remarkably mediocre prepared foods, and egregiously priced dry goods encased in very clever branding.

The Costco Report: Episodic observations on where to port safely, and what to avoid like a pestilence, when navigating an ocean of consumer non-durables under a sheet metal sky… In today’s edition, a pretty good deal on organic chicken, and a nice way to use your seasonal garden while you cook it. If you insist [...]

About a month ago, I bitched about out-of-season avocados, specifically the dark green monuments of Giza on display at my local Safeway, on sale at a seemingly unbeatable price of a buck per. For whatever reason – I, of course, speculate in that earlier post, but can’t say definitively – they were appalling: Watery, mealy, flavorless, an ultimately disgusting pale green mush and affront to guacamole everywhere. Well, today (in point of historical fact, two nights ago) I got to eat my words: Said avocados are now $1.25, but – and this is the important thing – they actually taste pretty damn good.

I could wax excitable and eloquent for pages upon pages about the virtues of the California Hass avocado (and yes, it is “Hass”, not “Haas”, named for Rudolph Hass, the postman who, in the 1920s, planted the one and only Mother Tree of virtually every avocado you’ve ever eaten), but I cannot stomach the poor excuse on offer at my local Safeway.

The Costco Report: Episodic observations on where to port safely, and what to avoid like a pestilence, when navigating the oceans of consumer non-durables down in The Belly of The Beast… I sometimes (often, in fact) feel the need to justify shopping at Costco. I’m not sure why, exactly, but one could speculate:

Jacobsen Orchards in Yountville grow produce, snails for Yountville’s esteemed French Laundry