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I went to the grocery store today with the kid-unit. We just went in to get a few things and ended up spending THREE HOURS! And we didn't even go down every aisle. This is because the Safeway store closest to my house is having it's grand re-opening as a new "Safeway Lifestyle" concept store this weekend. They've been remodeling for the better part of 4 months at least, and holy cow, it's pretty amazing. It's like they took a Safeway and crossed it with Whole Foods, and stuck a piece of a Williams Sonoma in for good measure.
There's a cookware/chef's needs area. There's a new organic/natural food-and-misc. section that takes up about a third of the store. They've expanded the bakery and added a bunch of in-house baked artisan breads and specialty desserts. There's a Starbucks on one end and a Jamba Juice on the other. They have a nut bar that sells every sort of nut imaginable and even some seeds (I got a container of roasted shelled pumpkin seeds which I have a weakness for and usually only have at Halloween.) There's a buffet-style take-out dinner bar with Chinese on one side and traditional American items like ribs and green bean casserole on the other. A very nice salad and fruit bar, and a soup bar. And a freakin' sushi bar. Not just prepackaged-in-a-plastic-clamshell sushi, but make-it-fresh-right-there-in-front-of-you sushi. Complete with cute Japanese sushi chefs with anime hair. Their expanded cheese selection almost rivals The Cheese Importer's. They even had Morbier, and various sheep and goat cheeses I've never seen in a non-specialty grocer before. The meat department is selling locally raised organic meats. The seafood area had tons of exotic shellfish, and even a whole (small) shark on ice. Granted that was kind of creepy, but still!
Of course, since it was the grand opening they were handing out samples right and left, everything from New York strip steak to bread, cakes, nuts, organic blueberry-apple juice, coffee, yogurt, and organic strawberries dipped in a chocolate fountain. I've heard about those chocolate fountains but this is the first time I've seen one, it was tres cool. We asked and they said that one the size they were using takes 20 lbs of chocolate, and that so far they'd had to refill it 4 times so far. That's EIGHTY POUNDS OF CHOCOLATE in two days. Yikes! Somehow I suspect they're not using Valhrona. ;D All in all it was more like a trip to a foodie theme-park rather than a grocery run. I can tell I am going to have to NOT shop there too often or I'm going to blow the food budget.
In other news, I was Very Effective at work on Friday, solving a potential problem with a job-candidate visit despite the fact that the problem didn't come up until only 45 minutes before the end of the workday, and the fact that the Chair was home sick. I had to coordinate between the candidate, the Chair and our travel agent and try to make new travel arrangements that would get the guy here without getting him stuck in that winter storm that's supposed to clobber the Atantic coast this weekend, without spending a fortune. (one of the options would have cost us a quarter of our entire search budget! Ack!) And I did it. I need to remember this when I have one of my occasional bouts of Imposter Syndrome. :)
I've also written a little bit in the last few days. Not much so far, and it may well suck, but after a months-long drought it feels really good to finally write something. ANYTHING.
Also, ( how's this for irony? )
Oh, one last thing... I saw this on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lamardeuse's LJ and thought it bore linkage. I've read a few con reports of late that really made me cringe.
ETA I watched the Opening Ceremonies for the 2006 Olympic Games and... wow. Lamest. Opening. Ceremonies. Ever. Yikes. Lousy wanna-be-marching-band choreography? Plastic Cows on wheels? Roller disco? Skirt-mountain dioramas with trees and tiny skiiers? Luciano Pavarotti with dyed-black hair and painted-on black eyebrows? The only thing that was cool was the actual lighting of the torch. And the fact that the olympic rings look kinda like stargates. ;D
There's a cookware/chef's needs area. There's a new organic/natural food-and-misc. section that takes up about a third of the store. They've expanded the bakery and added a bunch of in-house baked artisan breads and specialty desserts. There's a Starbucks on one end and a Jamba Juice on the other. They have a nut bar that sells every sort of nut imaginable and even some seeds (I got a container of roasted shelled pumpkin seeds which I have a weakness for and usually only have at Halloween.) There's a buffet-style take-out dinner bar with Chinese on one side and traditional American items like ribs and green bean casserole on the other. A very nice salad and fruit bar, and a soup bar. And a freakin' sushi bar. Not just prepackaged-in-a-plastic-clamshell sushi, but make-it-fresh-right-there-in-front-of-you sushi. Complete with cute Japanese sushi chefs with anime hair. Their expanded cheese selection almost rivals The Cheese Importer's. They even had Morbier, and various sheep and goat cheeses I've never seen in a non-specialty grocer before. The meat department is selling locally raised organic meats. The seafood area had tons of exotic shellfish, and even a whole (small) shark on ice. Granted that was kind of creepy, but still!
Of course, since it was the grand opening they were handing out samples right and left, everything from New York strip steak to bread, cakes, nuts, organic blueberry-apple juice, coffee, yogurt, and organic strawberries dipped in a chocolate fountain. I've heard about those chocolate fountains but this is the first time I've seen one, it was tres cool. We asked and they said that one the size they were using takes 20 lbs of chocolate, and that so far they'd had to refill it 4 times so far. That's EIGHTY POUNDS OF CHOCOLATE in two days. Yikes! Somehow I suspect they're not using Valhrona. ;D All in all it was more like a trip to a foodie theme-park rather than a grocery run. I can tell I am going to have to NOT shop there too often or I'm going to blow the food budget.
In other news, I was Very Effective at work on Friday, solving a potential problem with a job-candidate visit despite the fact that the problem didn't come up until only 45 minutes before the end of the workday, and the fact that the Chair was home sick. I had to coordinate between the candidate, the Chair and our travel agent and try to make new travel arrangements that would get the guy here without getting him stuck in that winter storm that's supposed to clobber the Atantic coast this weekend, without spending a fortune. (one of the options would have cost us a quarter of our entire search budget! Ack!) And I did it. I need to remember this when I have one of my occasional bouts of Imposter Syndrome. :)
I've also written a little bit in the last few days. Not much so far, and it may well suck, but after a months-long drought it feels really good to finally write something. ANYTHING.
Also, ( how's this for irony? )
Oh, one last thing... I saw this on
lamardeuse's LJ and thought it bore linkage. I've read a few con reports of late that really made me cringe.ETA I watched the Opening Ceremonies for the 2006 Olympic Games and... wow. Lamest. Opening. Ceremonies. Ever. Yikes. Lousy wanna-be-marching-band choreography? Plastic Cows on wheels? Roller disco? Skirt-mountain dioramas with trees and tiny skiiers? Luciano Pavarotti with dyed-black hair and painted-on black eyebrows? The only thing that was cool was the actual lighting of the torch. And the fact that the olympic rings look kinda like stargates. ;D
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