Get it Fresh: Intelligentsia Zirikana @ Whole Foods
Feb 10, 2010 coffee, groceries
Delivered Monday to Whole Foods Brentwood was a Direct Trade Intelligentsia coffee, the Zirikana, Rwanda: Bufcafe, that was roasted 2010.02.04.
Here’s what Intelligentsia has to say about the coffee..
Extremely fruit-forward and sincere. Peach nectar precedes a honeyed mouthfeel and an extended flavor of grape, lime and nectarine. A finish of cacao and walnut frame the experience.
Get it while it’s fresh…and sorry I didn’t mention it sooner.
Note: Because coffee is so much better fresh, I welcome any coffee roaster or merchant of specialty coffee in St. Louis, that has dated roasted products, to email me when you have a freshly roasted coffee. I will post it for people to snatch up at its best.
Tags: coffee, intelligentsia coffee, Rwanda, Whole Foods
Kaldi’s Coffee Series @ Whole Foods
Jan 12, 2009 St. Louis, coffee, farming, groceries, missouri, sustainable agriculture
What’s that? You love coffee but you wish you knew more about it? Well then you’re in luck because the Galleria Whole Foods will be hosting a three part class with Kaldi’s Coffee starting later this month.
Held one Saturday a month from January to March, the classes will be led by Kaldi’s roaster and coffee buyer, Tyler Zimmer, and head barista trainer Mike Marquard. Together they will cover what it takes to get coffee from the farm and into your cup (January 24), how to brew the best possible cup at home (February 28), and espresso (March 21). Marquard will, no doubt, be leading the espresso class as he came in 21st (out of 50) in last years United States Barista Championship in Minneapolis. This makes him one of the more qualified locals to talk to you about quality espresso (and the reason I signed up). With class size limited, and registrants basically getting a 50% discount in the form of a free bag of coffee, sign up soon if you’re interested!
You can register online at wholefoodsmarket.com and, full details (and a bonus) can be found after the jump.
Tags: barista, coffee, espresso, Kaldi's Coffee, Whole Foods
Truly Happy Meat
Dec 30, 2008 cooking, farming, groceries, sustainable agriculture
I’m only singling her out because she made a post about something I’d been meaning to comment on previously but, in the forum thread “Food Related Goals for 2009“, Merridith wrote:
…I want to restrict my meat eating, as best I can, to sustainably produced, naturally raised, animals. First choice will be to buy direct from the farmer, if I need it fast, I will buy it from the organic grocery.
The idea of this is absolutely great, but the reality is that even meat at an organic grocer isn’t really all that happy because terms like organic, free range, and pastured have all been picked up by agribusiness and distorted wildly. You can have “organic” pork that was confined just as you can have “pastured” beef that is really just pumped full of corn. And that’s not to say I don’t occasionally buy meat in a store like Whole Foods,
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: American Grass Fed Beef, Local Harvest, Riverfront Times, sappington farmers market, Whole Foods, Winslow's Home
Event: Organic Gardening Club
Dec 28, 2008 MO, farming, slow food, sustainable agriculture
In the past I’ve put off home-gardening because I’d hoped to move soon and didn’t want the mess in my backyard. But, with the economy what it is, I’m not going anywhere soon. So perhaps you, like I, plan to make gardening a part of your new year. And if you’re really like me, you’re better at killing things then growing them so the inaugural meeting of the Missouri Organic Association’s Organic Garden Club might just be for you.
The cost is $5 and the event will be held Thursday, January 8 at the Town & Country location of Whole Foods from 6:30-8:00 PM. Friend of Slow Food St. Louis Molly Rockamann of EarthDance Farms will be there to speak and answer questions as well as show EarthDance’s short-film, Connoisseur of Fine Foods, about Mueller Organic Farms in Ferguson, MO. You can catch a teaser of the film on YouTube.
Further details and registration information can be found online at WholeFoodsMarket.com.
Tags: EarthDance Farms, Ferguson, Molly Rockamann, organic garden, slow food, Whole Foods
Some
Jul 25, 2008 St. Louis, Television, missouri
I’m assuming three women* run the blog Blogging Top Chef, and they’ve got some posts about the Top Chef tour that rolled into Whole Foods the other day. If that’s the kind of thing you’re interested in, you can read about it.
* I’m assuming it’s three women because their profile lists three people: Chef Biatch, Chef Back Burner and Sous Chef Humor. Plus they have the following About Me on their profile: In our kitchen breasts, buns, and brains aren’t just ingredients! So stop staring at our boobs and go read the blog.
Tags: Top Chef, Whole Foods
Buy Your Oats While You Can
Apr 2, 2008 St. Louis, groceries, missouri
Well the final day is near and today Wild Oats began clearing the store out at 35% off. Things are flying off the shelves fast and I don’t think they’ll make it more than a couple days with much remaining. There’s still quite a bit of good stuff though if you move quick.
Hits would include lots of chocolate, cheese, yogurts, and Raincoast Crisps (which are like the heroin of crackers). The bulk food section still has a ton of stuff as well, and there are also big pieces of deli meat and blocks of deli cheese for those of you looking to throw a big bash, or maybe industry people needing to make tea sandwiches for a party or something.
All of the workers I spoke to planned to go and train at Whole Foods Brentwood for the next two months before moving out to the new store at the corner of Clayton and Woods Mill. Several told me they literally lived within walking distance of the current store so I can only imagine how annoying that will become for them as they trek to the new store.
If there was ever a group of people who could take it in stride though, it’s the Wild Oats employees. Stand them next to the Whole Foods employees and I’d pick them every time because they were easily the kindest grocery store in the area, and I hope their vibe remains intact in West County.
Tags: Raincoast Crisps, Whole Foods, wild oats
Dear Whole Foods
Apr 1, 2008 general food, groceries
Dear Whole Foods,
Although you are practically the symbol of Big Organic, at the end of the day, as much as I don’t want to, I like your stores and the conveniences they provide me.
You see, I like chicken, and while I can appreciate that a chicken has wings, and thighs, and legs, it’s their supple breasts that I desire most in my midweek meals, and as that’s not a cut that’s easy to get from my local farmers without breaking the chickens down myself, I often pick up a breast or two on my visits to your store.
I mention it because while I can appreciate the devotion your meat department shows to their gloves as the workers discard them so sparingly, when they handle the raw meats I will purchasing with their plastic covered hands, type the code into the scales with those same hands, and then proceed to wrap my purchase in butchers paper without having ever removed them, what I get in my palm as we finalize our transaction is a neatly wrapped, meat-juice slathered, package.
It’s not cool, so stop that would you?
Tags: gloves, meat department, Whole Foods
King Corn @ The History Museum
Feb 27, 2008 events
| If you missed your shot to see King Corn last year, fret not, the St. Louis History Museum will be showing it March 13.
You can read the full event details on the history museum’s meetup.com page, but here’s the abbridged version: |
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| What: | Showing of the Documentary King Corn followed by a “panel discussion with the Kelly Twins, Trailnet, Whole Foods & MO Rural”
Prior to showing the film there will also be “information tables and tasting,” but of what I do not know. Commodity corn maybe? [Edit: See the comments...Companion will be there with food.] |
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| When: | Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 7:00 PM | |
| Where: | St. Louis History Museum in Forest Park | |
Tags: kelly twins, king corn, Whole Foods
Wild Oats Closing Date Set
Feb 24, 2008 groceries
Gail Appleson has the scoop over on the STLtoday Business Ticker blog.
The Wild Oats store at 8823 Ladue Road is closing April 13 and the approximate 75 employees have been offered jobs either at the Whole Foods store 1601 S. Brentwood Boulevard or the Town and Country store under construction.
Does anyone know what’s happening to the Wild Oats employees in the interim between Wild Oats closing and the new Whole Foods opening?
I drove by it the other day, and it didn’t look particularly close to being done.
Tags: Whole Foods, wild oats
More on Whole Foods Plastic Bags
Jan 23, 2008 groceries
Returning to the news Whole Foods has earmarked a date for the phasing out of plastic bags: Earth Day 2008.
From tea to ant traps my father is a life-long supplier to the grocery industry and he wonders if I “…think they are eliminating plastic bags to save money…or to save the world?”
Personally I think they are eliminating them because John MacKey is no idealistic hippie. He knows that by eliminating plastic bags it further enhances the public image of Whole Foods in a way that furthers their customers attachment to the store while at the same time reducing overhead.
Certainly I have no hard data, but I would suspect a large number of Whole Foods regulars are so because of the image the store represents rather than just the quality of the products lying within.
To put it another way, Whole Foods is the Apple of the grocery industry doing as much (or more) to push their image as they do to sell a quality product.
And yes, I do shop there. Go buy some awesome reusable bags why don’t you.
Tags: plastic-bags, Whole Foods
From the mountains of Panama and Ethiopia, to the urban-jungles of Portland and Chicago, journalist Michaele Weissman takes us behind the scenes for a look at the world of third-wave specialty coffee. How did we get to Starbucks, and where we go from here?