Professor Willard Spiegelman — who will delight readers of the “print product” with a missive in December — is having trouble with his bananas. Jump to find out what he’s discovered at the Whole Foods on Lomo Alto.
Has anyone ever proposed doing a story, an expose, actually, about the hideousness of Whole Foods? I have returned produce to the store on Lomo Alto, near the sacred Highland Park ZIP code, more times than I would like to recall. For years. I have never complained to Albertson’s, or Tom Thumb or Safeway. (I have never had cause to do so.) But this place, which charges high prices and also prides itself on its wholeness, organicity and freshness, is just absurd. I have been told that the one on Forest Lane is much better, but I’m not about to double my carbon footprint and drive there for bananas.
Today’s episode: I said nicely to the young lady at Customer Service that two weeks ago I bought some organic bananas, which remain green in my kitchen. Several years ago, in a similar moment, the produce man at Whole Foods told me, sub rosa, that organic bananas are terrible because unlike normal ones they seldom ripen off the tree. The ones in my kitchen are still as hard as a rock. The girl was very nice, as was the girl last week, when I complained about rotten strawberries, and this time she gave me a $25 gift certificate, which I then used to purchase new groceries. The nice manager also spoke to me and said they were having trouble with their vendors, and “of course, we are so grateful to you because we want our customers to be happy,” yackety-yak, und so weiter.
I brought home my new groceries, which this time included three (non)organic bananas, which have already begun to rot in my kitchen, AND two peaches, which were rotten when I opened them. I shall return tomorrow to demand my $4 back.
Do I have better things to do with my time? You bet. But I feel like Upton Sinclair, exposing the jungle of bad meat in Chicago, a hundred years ago.
Please advise.
