the new Whole Foods

There's a shiny new Whole Foods at North Avenue and Kingsbury. Because the old Whole Foods had so many problems (limited selection, rats, etc.) I was looking forward to the new one opening. Now I've been there a few times, and I find the shopping experience to be exceedingly unpleasant. I'm sure this is the exact opposite of what the store's designers were going for. Why do I hate this shiny, enormous Whole Foods packed with an unprecedented selection of upscale groceries?

1) It has a huge bank of refrigerator cases. It is freezing cold if you are anywhere near them. Seriously, don't go in wearing a sundress unless you want to suffer.
2) It takes forever to get in the store. Naturally, there's no street parking, and the store is a fair walk from North Ave. There's a big, complicated parking garage with arrows pointing every which way, and the store has at least 5 entrances. Once you navigate the parking garage, you have to go down a long series of escalators, or wind through a labyrinth of seating area and down some stairs. There's an elevator, too. It reminds me of the big Harold Washington library downtown, which I never go to because it takes about twenty minutes to reach any books. You enter, go through a long hallway, go up an outer escalator, go through security, go up an inner escalator, etc.
3) It's crowded and poorly laid out. Rather than straight aisles running the length of the store, there are some short aisles and many islands that impede traffic. The entire south end of the store is about 8 different mini-restaurants, little islands surrounded by stools. When the store is crowded, which is always, you can barely work your way through this carnival. If the store was thinly populated, it might seem exciting and fun to explore the bath-salt island, the make-your-own-granola island, the gourmet olive island, etc. I might wander around, spending excessively. But when the store is crowded, it makes me want to flee. Besides, it's no fun to wander around because it's so freezing. Also, the "island of delights" layout makes it hard to find anything.
4) They discontinued the one staple that I loved: White Wave Extra Firm Tofu. This tofu is so firm that you can cook it without draining and pressing. It doesn't stick to my cast-iron skillet. I depended on it. Now, there's little besides Whole Foods brand tofu, which sucks. It sticks to my skillet every time.

As a customer who was eager to be pleased, I think they really missed the boat with this new store.

Cabbage and White Beans

Another favorite dish recently is a cabbage and white bean stew, along these lines. Often I leave out the potatoes and skip the stock--just using enough water to keep things moist. Once I added red beets and a fair amount of vinegar, for a borschlike soup. (Apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar, or balsamic vinegar are all good choices.)

I never realized how delicious cabbage is until recently. I can see why it's a staple of so many cuisines. It's especially good roughly chopped, tossed in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and roasted in a hot oven until tender and crispy around the edges.

Otsu: best soba noodle dish ever

In the past few months, I've been making this soba noodle dish often. It's possibly my favorite recipe from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Food. Fortunately the recipe is posted on Heidi's site for easy reference. I leave the olive oil out of the sauce and use more cucumber, but otherwise this recipe is perfect.

Annie Chun brand soba noodles are good. I had ordered six boxes from amazon, and was pleased with them. Having used them up, I now have some Roland brand soba noodles, which are thinner and don't seem to soak up the sauce as well. I've also gotten soba noodles from the big Korean grocery store at Belmont and Kimball. They are cheap there. I would go there more often but it's such an unpleasant walk. I hate walking under the freeway overpass through the pigeon shit, and Kimball is a depressing street.

The noodles from the Korean grocery are not as good as Annie Chun, and not pure buckwheat, unfortunately. I've yet to try pure buckwheat soba noodles--you can get them at Whole Foods--because they are at least twice as expensive as the wheat/buckwheat mixture.

Breakfast Cookies

It's been a while since I posted. I've had other preoccupations, and doing a nice post with a photo and well-considered text is a fair amount of work. But I would like a record of what I've been cooking and an online place to store recipes for future reference, so I'm going to lower my standards.

Even Healthier Breakfast Cookies
June 14, June 17, 2009

First I made a batch of Ellie Krieger's breakfast cookies, following her recipe fairly closely. I made a double recipe, used 2 c. all-purpose flour and 1/2 c. whole wheat flour instead of her mixture of whole-wheat pastry flour and all-purpose flour, used applesauce instead of carrot baby food, and added chocolate chips. They turned out great. Commenters on Krieger's recipe page fault the cookies for being too healthy tasting, but I disagree. In fact Mike, who has been on a big health kick lately, thought they were not light and healthy enough, so I tried making them healthier yet. The result was tasty but not especially cookielike. Probably Ellie Krieger has already pushed the envelope on how healthy you can make a cookie without changing its essential nature. Mine reminded me more of flat muffins, or extremely healthy scones. Still, they are big and yummy and a reasonable 227 calories each. I got only 13 cookies from this batch, but they were pretty big.


1 c. whole-wheat flour
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. bran flakes
1 t. baking soda
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ground nutmeg, or a few good grates of fresh nutmeg
2 T. canola oil
2 T. butter
3/4 c. loosely packed brown sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 c. applesauce
1/2 c. walnuts
1 c. Raisin Bran cereal
1/2 c. raisins
1 c. rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together flours, bran flakes, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Combine butter, oil and sugar and mix with electric mixer until sugars have dissolved and mixture is light in color. Add eggs, applesauce, and vanilla and beat an additional 30 seconds. Add flour mixture and beat an additional 30 seconds. Add oats, cereal, raisins, and walnuts and stir to combine. Dough will be slightly sticky and less cohesive than traditional cookie dough. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using about 4 tablespoons of batter, form a ball and place on cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining batter. Flatten cookies with a piece of waxed paper until about 1/4-inch thick. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until cookies are fragrant and golden brown on the bottom. Let cookies cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.