Saturday, May 10, 2008

Lost in a Supermarket

I usually spend my nights as a salesgirl at an art gallery in Hollywood - on Cahuenga Blvd... It's social - makes for great people watching - i get free drinks at the bar attached to the gallery...

But in between art shows, i revel in the mundane.

Last night was a Friday night... what did I do?

I walked down to the Ralph's at the corner of my block. It became my mission of the night - my little adventure - I was on the hunt and everyone and everything was in my crosshairs.

I spied:
  • couples looking for dinner ingredients
  • 20somethings procuring alcohol for the evening's delights
  • overpriced underwhelming looking produce
  • displays of food that just rang 'false' with me *
* The soup aisle has turned into something rather bizarre... I should have taken a picture to illustrate. The displays just make me want to walk on by and not even look at what they have. I don't know who the marketing kook was who came out with this new way of dispensing soup cans with pictures and huge labels on these large plastic display/dispensers.

I love going to markets - all types. One of the first things I like to visit in a foreign city is a market - any market: open air, super, small specialty, corner markets... anything.

It's my anthropology experiment - Since you are what you eat, I want to see who the local population is - what they eat, what they are being sold, what they are buying.

Ralph's depresses me.

Are they selling us food that we want, or do they sell their shelf space to vendors/companies who pay for the rent of the square footage on the shelves. The aisles are filled with processed foods full of ingredients we shouldn't be eating. Where's the honesty in that?

I only shop there for things I can't get at TJ's or the farmer's market. And my tab came to $31.99, for one bag worth of items that won't really feed me. They were ingredients for some recipes & some other misc. stuff.

I look forward to tomorrow's Hollywood Farmer's Market. That's where I'll be.

How many more weeks till boysenberry season?

1 comment:

-K- said...

1. Yes, TJ (Trader Joes) is where its at for food in LA.

2.) Pepe, the blind guitar player at the Hollywood Farmer's market is my favorite musician in LA.