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I was feeling somewhat blue yesterday so hub decided to show me a pleasant evening. I came home to wonderful stuffed poblano peppers- roasted, filled with corn and Spanish rice, and covered with cheese. Then for dessert we decided to check out the new Whole Foods flagship store downtown and see what all the fuss is about.
We headed down around 8 and found decent parking. The parking lot had lots of cars, but more people were leaving than coming in, and the store itself was not very crowded. We gawked at the produce which lead to the wine section. The wine guy pushed samples on us, and talked us into getting a port-like Greek wine. They can't sell port because it tends to have a high alcohol content, which is strange because HEB sells port- though granted, it's the $4 stuff. The wine at WF seemed to mostly be in the $10-15 range, though they certainly had nicer stuff as well. I was impressed with the wine chilling service, which is basically a bath of constantly circulating cold water; supposedly it can chill a bottle from room temp to almost freezing in 7 minutes. We amused ourselves by discussing the physics of how it works.
Hub was amazed at the sausage variety. I'm not a big sausage freak myself but I gawked at the bakery and candy section. I grabbed some chocolate orange cookies to eat with the dreamsicle ice cream and we each snagged a slice of cake- he got carrot cake, and I was delighted to find black forest cake. Then gawking at cheeses ensued, followed by gawking at teas. Hub grabbed an ounce of a delicious-smelling blend that I call camp-fire tea; it's smoked over a pine fire. Then on to gawk at spices. Hub grabbed a vanilla bean from one of the bulk jars. They were labeled in a rather silly way- the price was listed by the pound. The whole jar didn't even have a pound. But in case you're curious vanilla beans cost about $590 per pound, which worked out to $5.90 for one bean. The per-pound price showed when it was rung up though, which alarmed the check-out guy.
I grabbed some sun screen that was recommended to me as good in water and not funky-smelling. It was expensive and came in small tubes, and since I sometimes swim in the altogether I use a lot, so I got two. If it works and doesn't smell awful it will be worth it.
Finally we stumbled upon the nut section. In addition to your standard selection of roasted nuts of various types there were also at least a couple of dozen kinds of nuts coated with various things. We tried a honey espresso cinnamon cashew, and it was okay. But the cinnamon sugar macadamia- pure heaven. We got a little paper cone of those to share.
We checked out and sped home to eat our cake, making cracks about sausages and nuts like 5 year olds. It was a lot of fun. And the cake was really good. They must have used some kind of liqueur in the mix. Damn. It's a good thing that place is downtown and expensive; I would be so tempted to eat out of there all the time. The prepared foods they had looked great too- they had a dozen kinds of soup alone.
We headed down around 8 and found decent parking. The parking lot had lots of cars, but more people were leaving than coming in, and the store itself was not very crowded. We gawked at the produce which lead to the wine section. The wine guy pushed samples on us, and talked us into getting a port-like Greek wine. They can't sell port because it tends to have a high alcohol content, which is strange because HEB sells port- though granted, it's the $4 stuff. The wine at WF seemed to mostly be in the $10-15 range, though they certainly had nicer stuff as well. I was impressed with the wine chilling service, which is basically a bath of constantly circulating cold water; supposedly it can chill a bottle from room temp to almost freezing in 7 minutes. We amused ourselves by discussing the physics of how it works.
Hub was amazed at the sausage variety. I'm not a big sausage freak myself but I gawked at the bakery and candy section. I grabbed some chocolate orange cookies to eat with the dreamsicle ice cream and we each snagged a slice of cake- he got carrot cake, and I was delighted to find black forest cake. Then gawking at cheeses ensued, followed by gawking at teas. Hub grabbed an ounce of a delicious-smelling blend that I call camp-fire tea; it's smoked over a pine fire. Then on to gawk at spices. Hub grabbed a vanilla bean from one of the bulk jars. They were labeled in a rather silly way- the price was listed by the pound. The whole jar didn't even have a pound. But in case you're curious vanilla beans cost about $590 per pound, which worked out to $5.90 for one bean. The per-pound price showed when it was rung up though, which alarmed the check-out guy.
I grabbed some sun screen that was recommended to me as good in water and not funky-smelling. It was expensive and came in small tubes, and since I sometimes swim in the altogether I use a lot, so I got two. If it works and doesn't smell awful it will be worth it.
Finally we stumbled upon the nut section. In addition to your standard selection of roasted nuts of various types there were also at least a couple of dozen kinds of nuts coated with various things. We tried a honey espresso cinnamon cashew, and it was okay. But the cinnamon sugar macadamia- pure heaven. We got a little paper cone of those to share.
We checked out and sped home to eat our cake, making cracks about sausages and nuts like 5 year olds. It was a lot of fun. And the cake was really good. They must have used some kind of liqueur in the mix. Damn. It's a good thing that place is downtown and expensive; I would be so tempted to eat out of there all the time. The prepared foods they had looked great too- they had a dozen kinds of soup alone.
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Date: Jun. 24th, 2005 05:08 pm (UTC)From:I have missed seeing you. Would you and Eric be available for dinner Tuesday with either just me or me and a guest?
If not, I guess I will see you at work on Wednesday though I will be in training all day.
I hope you have a better day. *hugs*
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Date: Jun. 24th, 2005 05:22 pm (UTC)From:That wasn't me- I don't think we'd ever talked about it in person, though I've read many glowing reports and have been looking for an excuse to check it out for myself.
Would you and Eric be available for dinner Tuesday with either just me or me and a guest?
He has Go club on Tuesdays- but if I can steal some money from him (end of the month state worker blues!) I can probably go. I'd like to see the vacation slide show!