The Phenomenon That Is Wegmans

While living in Boise we developed a food shopping protocol with which we grew very comfortable. We'd buy fruits, veggies, and other basics at Winco; meats and some gluten-free items at Fred Meyer; meats, specialty (or convenience) items and wine at the Co-op. In the warm months a slice of each weekend was dedicated to riding a loop between these stores our cruiser bikes, filling the saddlebags along the way.

No stores are very close to our rental house here in Pennsyl-tucky so a quick run down to the corner market is out of the question. We hoped to find a one-stop shop that could fill the large shoes noted above and satisfy our rather discerning (aka, picky) palates in the process, but were unimpressed by Giant and Acme. Personally, I can't help thinking about the old Looney Tunes cartoons in which the Road Runner faces off with Wile E. Coyote whenever I see the word "acme", which invariably manufactured the seemingly endless supply of devices with which the self-proclaimed Super-Genius detonated himself.

Wegman's, however, is in an entirely different category and merits some discussion. Kenn had heard the name mentioned a couple of times during conversations with locals leading up to his relocation. As luck would have it a large Wegman's store was close-by the corporate housing in which we lived during October.

In a nutshell, Wegman's is a combination grocery store, cafeteria, and food bar, with a beer store thrown in for good measure. The supermarket side of the store would remind Boiseans of Fred Meyer in its breadth and depth. The produce section is good and their gluten-free section is the best of any store in the area to our knowledge.

What distinguishes Wegman's, though, is the cafeteria and food bar. One can get an enormous range of cuisine including Asian, Indian, soups, pizza, deli sandwiches, kosher foods, fish, on and on. The Wegman's near Kenn's office is mobbed at lunchtime with workers from the area's office parks, and the Taters admit to grabbing Asian food to-go on nights when cooking dinner didn't seem in the cards.

Wegman's is also one of the few grocery stores (maybe the only - we haven't visited them all!) with a license to sell beer. And, they sell beer by the single or six-pack as well as case, whereas the state-run stores sell only by the case. We'll write another post on Pennsylvania's labyrinthine liquor laws but suffice it to say that this fact is a major draw for those of us who like to grab a six-pack to go with our pizza (or whatever.)  The selection from the Northeast and elsewhere around the US and world is good; the fact the Wegman's sells beer this way has allowed Kenn to try a number of the micro-brews from Pennsylvania (the subject of another upcoming post) and for Tina to keep a stock of hard cider on hand. For those who can't handle the suspense, our favorites are from Victory Brewing and Strongbow respectively.

By our reckoning, though, Wegman's has been a little too successful at their effort to become a community center (or leech for your hard-earned cash, depending on your perspective). The stores are often so crowded that one literally cannot navigate the aisles while pushing a cart; we've found it far less frustrating to carry a basket or simply load up one's arms rather than playing bumper carts with dozens of others vying for milk or chicken breasts or veggies or whatever.

The parking lots are a similarly stress-filled environment, with vacant spaces  difficult to come by (particularly at the absurdly busy Downingtown store) and ones near the store entrance the site of numerous skirmishes. The parking lot anxiety can spill out in unfortunate ways: During the holiday season it was pointedly recommended that Tina "go back home to Idaho" by a Mercedes-driving fellow patron who was incensed that Tina, whose car still proudly sports Idaho license plates, had somehow offended her. (Tina's response won't be printed here as this is a "family-oriented" blog.)

So, friends, keep us in your thoughts as you navigate the aisles at Albertson's, Fred Meyer's, Winco, Kroger, the Boise Co-op, or wherever else you find yourself grazing for items to stock your larder. We'll surely be doing the reverse as we jockey for a parking space or sheepishly fill to-go containers of orange chicken...

UPDATE: Saturday 21 Jan 2012
Around noon today we discovered the secret to a half-full Wegman's parking lot: Three inches of snow. Seriously.

This Little Tater Goes to Market...

We regularly enjoyed the Capital City Public Market while we lived in Boise. We spent many Saturday mornings browsing for veggies and the occasional steak; Tina even sold hanging flower baskets several years ago.  It's an event that transforms the downtown streets with which we're so familiar into a park of sorts, where we always ran into friends.

Given that CCPM was a touchstone for us, we looked forward to our visit yesterday to Philadelphia's rough equivalent, the Reading Terminal Market.

We knew about the most obvious differences before we arrived: Reading Terminal Market is open daily and is permanently housed indoors in a space that consumes a full city block. It's home to about 80 merchants that sell everything from flowers, fruits and veggies to seafood, meats and spices. And it's old: The RTM will celebrate its 115th anniversary next February.  Generations of Philadelphians have visited the Market to browse or to buy their daily groceries; a couple of the original vendors remain.

The thing that stood out as the most salient takeaway was the large number of purveyors of prepared foods. Like Boise's CCPM there are a number of vendors selling baked goods, a creperie and a "booth" representing a local winery. In addition to these, though, there are food-court sized sellers including Thai, sushi, cajun, a ton of delis and of course cheesesteak sandwiches (editors note: in Philadelphia these sandwiches are simply called "steaks"; to refer to them otherwise, especially as a "Philly cheesesteak", is to mark oneself as an ignorant outsider, akin to someone visiting Boise referring to the city as "Boy-zee" and assuming the city is simply a cluster of buildings among the potato fields.) Restaurants make up the largest category of vendor type on the RTM's website by a large margin.

The fact that the RTM vendors are housed in a permanent structure makes the proliferation of food vendors possible, of course. And while we each had an excellent breakfast prepared by a market vendor - Tina a ham and cheese omelette served by a deli (of sorts) run by an Amish family, while Kenn inhaled a breakfast po-boy sandwich of fried eggs, cheese and andouille sausage offered by the Cajun restaurant - we came away with the impression that Reading Terminal Market is as much a food court as a farmers' market. A really cool and interesting food court, but a food court nonetheless.

A couple of interesting anecdotes that added color to our experience (if you'll pardon the awkward expression): Noticing a vendor called "The Shoe Doctor" on the RTM website, Kenn dropped off several pairs of shoes to be shined while he and Tina shopped and explored. He returned at the end of their visit and asked to have the pair he was wearing shined, interrupting a vigorous and animated conversation among the two African-American men working at the stand and their two compatriots. They quickly wove him into their discussion about the topic du jour (one of the men was having trouble with his landlord) and praised his choice in shoes ("nice, for a white guy" one of the men said with a huge smile and laugh). Four pairs professionally shined for $15; Kenn gave him a $20 and plans to return after the rest of his clothing is released from the movers' storage on Nov. 1.

Tina was pleasantly surprised at the availability of organic and gluten-free foods available at the RTM. And she confessed, while savoring her omelette, to harboring a belief that the Amish vendors she saw at the market were actors wearing plain clothing and head coverings. We'll find out today, when we visit Lancaster PA, epicenter of the Pennsylvania Dutch culture.