Wandering aimlessly through Whole Foods

Image by Dine.TO via Flickr

It's a pleasure to shop at Whole Foods Market in Paramus on Sundays. Parking spaces are easy to come by and you can wander through the store at your own pace. There are even a few free samples available -- bread, cheese and the like.

I drove the short distance from my home in Hackensack today for the second week in a row, and spent under $10, looking for sale items and ingredients for dinner tonight and tomorrow. Earlier, my wife drove to Englewood, where we once lived, and visited ShopRite and H Mart.

I love the fish department at Whole Foods, which pledges that all of its farmed seafood is drug-, hormone- and preservative-free. Last week, I bought two pounds of mussels, but forgot they were in the fridge, and they spoiled (I was in court all week). Today, I saw beautiful, whole whiting for $4.99 a pound; a shame, because my wife already bought whiting for a Jamaican fish tea at the Korean market.

In produce, I picked up organic red Swiss chard for $1.79 (about nine-tenths of a pound) that I will stir-fry tomorrow with West Soy seasoned wheat protein strips ($3.39 for 8 ounces) I picked up at Whole Foods last week. This pre-cooked vegan item is often referred to as "the meat of the wheat," the package says.

For tonight's dinner of farmed U-15 Black Tiger shrimp (Costco), giant rigatoni with pesto and salad, I bought a wide, ciabatta-like bread for $2.49 called sperlonga. (Photo: Black Tiger shrimp.)

I spoke to three other shoppers while I was at Whole Foods. All were pleasant, and two wished me "a beautiful day." Contrast that with the grimly determined shoppers at Fairway Market, a few miles away in Paramus, who turn up their noses at you and would just as soon run you down with their carts as speak with you.