Who Cut the Cheese?

(picture from their website)

First, the Rant

We had the opportunity on Thursday to be in the Carmel area and to be more specific, visit the Whole Foods grocery store. Whole Foods is one of the stores with which I have a love/hate relationship. I am, admittedly, kind of creeped out by the whole hippie-vibe thing, the whole “I’m cool, you’re cool, dress however you want at work, if you find your dad’s tackle box open and you see something in there that’s shiny just stick it in your lip or ear or some other excruciatingly painful place” thing.  Under the whole hippie-vibe attitude, it’s team this, team that--no real boss names, just team leaders and assistant team leaders. There are no workers at Whole Foods, just “team members.”

Okay, I get it and I know that some of you are saying “Matt, you are kind of a non-conformist/activist yourself at fifty years of age with kind of long hair, goatee, flip-flops and seeking self-reliance on that little organic farm out there in your swamp.”  I agree. Heck, I came perilously close to getting a very masculine “MOM” tattooed on my arm while serving in the Marine Corps, “Ooh-Rah,” but I can’t stand the look of pain on my face, so I drew the tat on with a Bic and called it a day… that and MOM said I couldn’t get one.

But, here’s the rub for me--why does Whole Foods have to be so danged expensive? You know they’re paying these poor young “I’m just expressing myself,” Mohawk-wearing folks better than minimum wage, but not much. I did some checking and it looks like salaries range from around nine dollars an hour to twenty five dollars, with most falling in the lower ranges.

Someone’s getting rich and it’s not the environmentally-organic-friendly kids who work there. And I think that’s great that someone’s making money, I really, really do. I support capitalism. But it’s not the farmer making money in this grocery store gimmick, and it’s not the young people working there.

Whole Foods has packaged themselves as this earth-shoe-wearing-just-want-to-make-enough-to-get-by, but I’m-glad-to-do-it-cause-I-care-about-the-earth-and-the-people-that-live-in-it organization. To this I say, hogwash--not at the prices they charge. $4.99 a pound for hot peppers? I can’t get by charging a dollar a pound for my peppers. I should be able to get a dollar a pound or more for my peppers because I’m doing true organic growing which does cost more to produce, but I can’t take advantage of people for it, not like Whole Foods can. With real organic gardening you can’t spray for weeds and must spend hours hand pulling them, and you rack up a lot of loss to bugs and others pests and problems. It’s a lot of work. Organic gardening costs more, I get that, but it doesn't mean you can take advantage of people just because of the "organic" label.

Listen, it’s not sour grapes for me. I am a full-blooded-make-all-you-can-capitalist myself. I want to be rich, also. But I don’t want to take advantage of people to do it.

Make no mistake; the people behind Whole Foods are capitalists, too, just like me except I don’t soft-sell it. It’s the same reason I don’t care for Steven Segal action movies. I’m sure Mr. Segal is a wonderful fellow and as tough as a hogs nose, but come on--it questions my intelligence (or is that entalagance?). I have never gotten a gun to shoot 47 times with a 9 round clip. How do you get 47 shots with 9 bullets? And this is just a guess on my part, but if you fought six guys and they all had guns, wouldn’t one of them shoot you rather than go through all the physical activity of kung-fu fighting?

My point is it’s misleading! I hate that, and I don’t think real hippies like it any better than I do. If you’re an expensive organic chain store just say so. If you’re Wal-Mart with a twist, own it.

After having exercised my bottled- up rant by saying all this, I must also confess that I find a lot to love about Whole Foods. Their stores are bright and inviting. The product is stacked and displayed in a very inviting fashion. They have really cool stuff, stuff you can’t really get any place else. And I really dig the bulk bins of grains and cereals. I also like that they employ a lot of people and they pay a lot of taxes. Not that I like taxes, I hate taxes, but if you are going to attack corporate greed, you have to remember how much they contribute to the federal budget in taxes.

On To the Cheese

Now to get to my topic, Who Cut The Cheese. Sherry and I did. Sherry Darl’n and I found ourselves at the cheese counter of the Whole Foods in Carmel, Indiana. Man, what a great place for a foodie! Cheese, cheese and more cheese, and they will let you sample a lot of it. Sample we did, and we bought more than we could afford seeing as how my ship is evidently floundering at sea and hasn’t come in yet. We bought about five very small pieces of different exotic imported cheeses. This group included the following: Asiago Fresco Italian (11.99 a pound, we bought 3 bucks worth), Roth Kase Private Reserve Raw Milk Cheese (10.99 a pound, our cut about 4 bucks), Pecorino Toscano Fresco Sheep’s milk cheese (17.99 a pound, we snagged a chunk at $2.70), Ewephoria sheep’s milk cheese from Holland (17.99, our piece totalled $4.14), and Parrano Uniekaas Dutch Cheese (10.99 a pound, we bought about 4 dollars’ worth).

The next day, we had a little blind taste-test of our pressed and aged curds. We liked them all, loved a couple and wouldn’t you know our favorite was my all-time favorite cheese, the Parrano. Keep in mind this was a blind tasting. Sherry also voted it number one. Parrano has a very buttery, somewhat sharp taste. It dances on your tongue and makes your taste buds sing. If you ever stumble across it, give it a try.

Our second favorite was the Ewephoria. It was not as sharp as the Parrano, but it’s no wimp ether; nice and creamy.

The others were good too, but I don’t think I would buy them again, especially not at that price.

Well, I’m done rant’n and talk’n for now. President Obama, if you’re reading this blog, could I please get some bailout or stimulus money? I made a bad business decision and shopped at Whole Foods, and now I’m broke.  I ate all the cheese, too.

--Best regards, Matt