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Whole Foods Holiday Meals

Discussion in 'Non-Vegas Chat' started by lotso-bear, Nov 11, 2014.

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  1. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Anyone order a holiday meal from Whole Foods? I have last minute guests from China who are visiting a few days before T-Day and want to experience the food we eat on T-Day. I think this is the best option since I'd rather not get a caterer to prepare a meal for four people...
     
  2. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    Seems like a great plan. But I live in the hinterlands now and haven't shopped at Whole Foods in ages, so not sure what to tell you. We had takeaway stuff at various times in the past, so what you're left with is me then surmising way after the fact that this is a good plan. lol Then again, it is LVA and one visit to a steakery here counts as the Gospel of the Best Steak. lol

    Your gut instinct should be telling you something. Trust it.
     
  3. Joe

    Joe VIP Whale

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    We don't have any WF around here but I was reading an article and they said the nickname for Whole Foods is Whole Paycheck. Are they that overpriced compared to a Von's or Alberson's? Or here in WI, a Pic n Save or Piggly Wiggly?
     
  4. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    You pay for quality. (OK, sometimes you pay for BS, too.)

    That's why M-B is taking it a bit on the chin in the automotive press -- and deservedly from my driving experience -- when it decided to sell a car at the "magical" $30,000 mark.

    Anyway, around here, Albertson's would be closer to Whole Food than Pic-N-Save. But WF is spendy. More organics. More farm-to-fork. Higher grades of stuff. Custom counters -- butcher, charcuterie, floral, etc. Designer labels, for sure. Lotsa specialty items. And there's a vig for their locations, often, too.
     
  5. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Unfortunately, the food at WF is pricey than most neighborhood grocery stores. However, they're one of the only grocery stores (along with my local QFC) that I trust when it comes to quality. They have an awesome take-out area which I recommend if you're by one. I remember reading that A&P has higher prices than WF in the NY area.

    I think I will give their holiday meals a shot and see how it's like. Worst case scenario, I can just take them to a steakhouse... :licklips:
     
  6. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    There's a specialty grocer not far from here, in Santa Ynez (well, Solvang, actually). that just tags all those bases. You can kill an hour in that joint easy just nosing around, and it ain't all that big. Makes us feel all big city (even if the town is still small) when we go there. Thankfully, we had a specialty grocer/deli/meat market open up here earlier this year. (Heritage pork, real poultry, awesome cow, fun dry goods, charcuterie, cheese.) You can kinda cobble together a pretty damn impressive lineup of stuff even here in Tinyville what with the wine ghetto and wine country, all the ag in/around town, the baker in the ghetto, the new specialty/meat place. Just wish we had a good fishmonger. Oh, and the proposed brew pub submitted plans to the city!!!

    You know what, I'm kinda proud of our little burg. Screw Santa Barbara!!
     
  7. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    It's always nice to have a specialty meat market, especially when you want to order a special cut.

    But... Santa Barbara has some interesting eye candy :thumbsup:
     
  8. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    We North Countians have a love/hate relationship with Santa Barbara. We love Santa Barbara. We hate the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. The verdict is still out on Santa Barbarans, except for one honorable long-ago VMB member who hailed from Southern California's most livable city.
     
  9. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Why is that?
     
  10. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    Long story short -- SB is very wannabe LA -- with a far far far better environment -- even as they laugh at LA. Why not? It's the best of both worlds.

    Once you get through the tunnel, we're a conservative ag county, particularly the farther west and north you go. SB, Montecito, Goleta, are very nimby and no growth -- rich, we-got-ours nimby/no growth -- and they want to apply that up here. We're also the ones with the oil, save what they are sucking out of the channel. (The just-defeated anti-fracking proposition emanated from south county, was financed from south county and only was supported in south county.) And around here immediately we are very military, given VAFB next door. Add in that the BoS districts are jiggered to favor the less-populated-but-populaton-concentrated south. Most of the population up here resides in municipalities, but the urban-rural interface isn't that distinct, and the county calls the shots in the latter.

    Now of course none of this is monolithic. As you go from the west/north county truck crop economy through the wineries and in to the horse ranch country of Santa Ynez and Olivos, the politics and demographic change; a lot of LA out that way, too, and there's at least a cultural sense that SB just over the mountains and not the farmers down the rivers are a closer "fit," even as they bristle at some of the county regs.

    P.S. If this statement of facts -- akin to saying Texas falls right, California falls left -- is somehow deemed political and thereby taboo, someone please let me know and I'll delete it myself and send this info to l-b in a PM.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2014
  11. chef

    chef Resident Buffetologist

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    ken,
    It never fails to impress me - your way with words.
     
  12. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Hahah no kidding. I read this after using Excel for a few hours and all I said was "wow". Ken, no wonder you're a writer. :)
     
  13. dankyone

    dankyone VIP Whale

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    Yup, Santa Ynez is farm country, but somehow they know how to charge LA prices for their wine :)
     
  14. dankyone

    dankyone VIP Whale

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    And BTW Ken have you been to Evans Ranch yet? Not cheap but very fairly priced for what they pour.
     
  15. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    Hey guys. :nworthy: Thank you so much.


    That's cause it ex-pat or second-manse or third-home Angelenos coming over and laying out their big horse spreads. Obviously you know the area, and how when you drive
    Alamo Pintado or Roblar or Ballard, you're reminded of the old quip about how to turn a large fortune into a small fortune.

    We have, ummm, let's just say too many wine memberships up this way, and while there is some Cult-ism building up across the AVAs, it's still not even a barely visible shadow of the angstitude that overtook Napa long ago and then regrettably Sonoma and much of Mendocino. I mean, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn might essentially re-label ampelos wines and jack the price (shhhh, that's heresy, I'm told), but you also can run in to Russell at lunch even over here in Humbleton and shake his hand and have a chat.

    Anyway, I digress. (Me? Get out.) Price, as in all things, is relative, and even the cult stuff around here is priced about at what a Screaming Eagle would charge you to lick off the floor after an over-topped tamp down. lol
     
  16. Hobofrank

    Hobofrank Prime Minister of Idiocracy

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    you ever been to Olsen's in Solvang?
     
  17. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    We've popped in once or twice. It's easy, there's a brew pub a few doors down! lol

    Do you know about Ingeborg's Chocolates? That is a Solvang must.

    http://ingeborgs.com
     
  18. Hobofrank

    Hobofrank Prime Minister of Idiocracy

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    Dude I'm Danish, have I heard of them?, LOL
    my wife puts a hit contract out on me if I don't procure one of their $30 nougat logs every quarter
     
  19. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    And I knew that because "frank67" just screams Copenhagen!!! lol Solvang is one of those things, particular as locals, that we take in very small doses, and we roll through town a lot more than we stop. I think it's that way for anyone who lives near a "don't miss" tourist spot. Hell, we've not even stopped for split pea and we're in Buellton more often. Then again, with Industrial Eats in town ...

    No. My bad. Next time we're in Los Olivos. I love that part of Santa Rosa Road where ER gets its grapes.

    Most of our memberships are in the Sta Rita Hills AVA, so we are Pinot, Chardonnay and Syrah heavy. But for at least some sense of balance we have Ballard Canyon and Happy Canyon stuff, too, and the non-designate canyons outside Los Al, which gives us more Rhones, Sangio and Nebb, then some Bordeaux varietals. There's also some folks growing and sourcing from just beyond SRH and even SYV -- Jalama, Solomon Hills, Hibbits Ranch (I think mostly going to Sea Grape) -- that we get. We need a Zin house. Thinking Ridge.
     
  20. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Had the meal a few days ago and it was meh. Buying everything from one place was nice but I'm not sure if I would do it again. Brought them to a steakhouse the following night and they enjoyed their bone-in NY strips.
     
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